šļø 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.
Good Grief
sometimes - you just have to wonder ….
Hundreds of top-secret and highly classified cabinet documents have been obtained by the ABC following an extraordinary breach of national security.
Click through if you want to see the story of how this came to be.
Consolation prize
I guess we should be happy that government ineptitude is not limited to the USA and the UK!
Last Nightās Supermoon Eclipse.
Well … I got up. I looked. I watched. I waited.
Pretty amazing … although you wouldnāt think so based on the photos!
Micro Blog Safely Delivering A Post To Wordpress
This is a specific post - with a specific reason.
The specifics relate to using this plug in on one of my wordpress blogs - thankyou for the link @manton
The idea is that this post gets fed through to And Another Thing. When it arrives it will be classed as āPendingā - so as not to inundate the readers at And Another Thing.
I will then visit the site later today and publish the post and .. if it works, the plug in will add in a footer to this post .. and it will appear there.
If it does - I will come back here and add the link to the experiment.
Fingers crossed!
Later
It worked - and now have a nice workflow that starts with Mars Edit from [@danielpunkass](https://micro.blog/danielpunkass) and the team at **Red Sweater**, that allows me to publish to Micro.Blog (of course from [@manton](https://micro.blog/manton)) and through the power of a Wordpress plugin developed and offered by [@michal](https://micro.blog/michal) that post is routed to [And Another Thing](http://www.andanotherthing.co) where it is held in Pending mode.I can then periodically check and delete the irrelvant posts (all irreverent posts will be allowed) and tweak with some tagging and other tuning for that site before it gets published.
The plugin allows me to append the message with a standard footer, so a reader can also register for the occasional newsletter and/or click on a link to see other posts that arrived on the site in this way.
Next - clean up the Newsletter flow and then add this functionality into my other blogs. (Don’t ask).
Shop Class as Soulcraft
I captured the following information on this š somewhere ( maybe even here ). I havenāt read it - but it is on my list. I like the look of it. It seems to have a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance feel to it and right in line with the work I am doing here. Has anyone read it? Recommend it?
A book that I loved reading that provides insights here is āShop Class as Soulcraft.ā Itās an inquiry into the nature and depth of cognition and levels of expertise and experience at play in work that society under values (for example, motorcycle mechanic).
Steven Wilson
File Under : šµ
Over the past ten days I have dropped a daily entry of an image, with a comment into the music feed. This is the eleventh in the series of ten (doffing cap to Spike Milligan) that provides some context - and links back - to those entries. Suffice to say - I class Steven Wilson as one of the most prolific musicians and sound engineers that we have ever seen. It isnāt just the quantity - surely bands like The Dead and Phish can beat him on that count ā¦ but more the quantity with the both quality and variety of what he produces.
It was late 2002 when a good friend put me onto a new album that had just been released - heās one of those guys that when he says listen to this ā¦ you listen. The Album was In Abstentia that came from a band that I had never heard of ā¦. Porcupine Tree. The bandās creative force was a guy called Steven Wilson. Turned out that this was Porcupine Treeās seventh album (depending on how you count them - and how you think of the Tree) ā¦. but that was a lot of music to have passed me by - particularly since I loved it. Needless to say - I went into the back catalogue and discovered two albums that I liked even more ā¦ Signify and Lightbulb Sun. File under Progressive Rock / Psychedelic Rock / Alt Rock / Post-Progressive / Metal
But there was more, before - and during āThe Porcupine Tree Yearsā - Wilson had another band No-Man with Tim Bowness. To be clear, I am not a massive fan of No-Man ā¦ just amazed that in parallel with launching a solo project (Porcupine Tree - because that is how he started), he had the time and desire to create a second totally different sound, band and direction. File under Ambient / Art Rock / Dream Pop
But thereās even more, two years after I was introduced to In Abstentia - out comes Wilson with another project ā¦. Blackfield - this was (is?) a collaboration with Israeli rock star Aviv Geffen ā¦ 5 albums to date - love everyone one of them. File under Art Rock / Power Pop / Alt Rock
It took until 2012 for another collaboration to be formalized. For many years Wilson and Mikael Ć kerfeldt - who is essentially Opethās Wilson - had been friends, worked together and appeared on each others albums. 2012 saw the release of their first - and to date only - formal collaboration - Storm Corrosion. File under Metal / Progressive Rock
I doubt we will get a second - but you never know - because Wilson just keeps going ā¦
Consider IEM - another of his projects in the late 90s - this time with ā¦ well himself ā¦ file these albums under Krautrock / Pysychedelic
Or Bass Communion -file under Ambient / Drone / Electronic
To my mind, it is his solo career that has really opened him out. He released his 5th, 6th or 7th (again - it is is how you count) solo album last year - and is now on tour with it. But his full creative genius absolutely shines with the one ābeforeā that ā¦ Hand.Cannot.Erase. - that wasnāt just an album, it was a book, an experience a tangible engagement was created to engage the listener.
My music collection tells me that I have over 50 of his recordings across all of these projects - and that doesnāt include the 5.1 surround sound mixes he has been doing since 2009 for classic Progressive bands including Yes, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Caravan, ELP, Marillion, Rush, Roxy Music, ā¦ oh and Hawkwind, XTC, Gentle Giant, and Tears For Fears. (BTW - he hasnāt won yet - but has been nominated 4 times for Best Surround Sound Album in the Grammies)
All in all - safe to say - when it comes to music - there isnāt much he doesnāt do
Note : the classification / genres that I have used above come from Wikipedia with odd personal extensions
Finally, Wilson is on record (if you will pardon the pun) that as a kid he listened a lot to Dark Side Of The Moon - because of his dad and Donna Summer - because of his mum … certainly explains a lot of the crossover you see in his music … but it doesn’t explain this … which has nothig to do with him - but somehow seems related!
Informed Consent
A question raised recently, that ‘everyone’ should be able to answer …
How do you make a judgement about what is safe to do online?
Good question. But I specifically put ‘everyone’ in quote marks because I worry about ‘everyone’. I worry that given that people generally do nothing to protect their passwords … think yellow stickies on monitors, using thr same password across all services, sharing your password(s) with friends … however you look at it - whatever you do …. if that is hard to understand - we have an uphill battle with āInformed Consentā
Discovery
Discover Suggestion for @macgenie …. how about an index somewhere (another icon?) of all blogs that have achieved Micro Monday Status … they will be blogs that someone in the community at some point thought worthy of promotion and therefore contain good things that others might enjoy ā¦ and will always be discoverable - long after they have passed through the recommended stream of Micro Monday - and so possibly lost?
The Homepod
Apple Homepod Review By An Audio Engineer
##The Songs He Used
- āHotel Californiaā by The Eagles.
- āWay Down We Goā by Kaleo.
- āLie To Meā by Depeche Mode.
- āFitzpleasureā by Alt-J
- āBlack Mamboā by Glass Animals
- āDelilahā by Florence and the Machine
- āHallelujahā by Jeff Buckley
šµ
Artists Start To Get Paid A Bit More
āA federal copyright board has raised the music streaming royalties for songwriters and music publishers by more than 40% to narrow the financial divide separating them from recording labels.
Up to this point, music streaming platforms like Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music Unlimited, Pandora, and others, have had to pay out 10.5 percent of their revenue to music publishers and songwriters. Now, though, after the court ruling, those platforms will need to fork over 15.1 percent of their revenue.
It is still amazing to me how little artists get paid for streaming. While this is a step forward ā¦ it is a long way form being fair. Afterall, people complain about the ļ£æTax on the app store at 30% - and yet a tax of 90% being reduced to 85% percent for music makes the news and is seen as acceptable.
What am I missing?
šµ
It's People That Make A Company.
Got to tell you … @Manton at š Micro Blog rocks.
For a variety of reasons I have posted trouble tickets to 4 different companies today (Is it me? Really? Say It Ain’t So!)
Pretty sure that Manton is the smallest of the four operations … but that didnāt stop him from being not just the first to respond, but the only one thus far that has even offered me a solution to fix the problems described. (Manton actually fixed it.) In fact two of them have yet to respond.
If you are reading this … and wondering what the hell Micro.Blog is … well ping me and let me know. I have some spare invite codes that will get you in. You won’t regret it.
Sunlit - Straight Out Of The Box Observations And Comments
I am running the beta of Sunlit (thankyou @manton).
I have done two posts so far ā¦.
… Which is pretty simple really - adding a picture, dropping in some text - it’s like a post - which I can already do in the core app.
BUT
I think what Sunlit is really about is ‘telling visual storiesā - in fact in the interface, it actually uses that term, so I took three pictures out of my library and wrote a story ā¦ (don’t worry - I am not expecting an award!)
So far so good - but here are the issues
- That layout doesn’t naturally come out of Sunlit - I had to come back to my post once published and edit to get the order of the photos organized - and then move my text around to relate the text to the story.
- This might be āoperator errorā … So just recording this thought for now.
- Also - on the single post - I have a big picture, but with multiple pictures, the app forces the images to something smaller - and in fact - notice how the portrait is smaller than the two landscapes ā¦
This is what I Think Sunlit should be able to as an MVP for visual story telling ā¦
- Load multiple pictures
- Reorder the pictures that make sense for my story
- Let me control how big those pictures are
- Let me inject copy throughout the pictures
To be clear … Sunlit is a beta app - so I am sure that this is all taken on board … certainly will continue to use it - high hopes - might even get me to think about posts using images more than I do.
Just for kicks (that aren’t always on route 66) two screen captures of what the posts look like after I di the editing in the micro.blog - āvisualā view and ātextā view
Kicks
Riding The Road. Living The Dream.
No … that isnāt me - Iām the dude on the other side of the camera!
Get Your Fix On Route 66
Just passing through Oatman on Route 66
… and found a gunfight in process.
It was unclear if the burro was relaxing or part of the performance
… that said I was assured that no animals were hurt in the making of this particular epic.
Editorial and IAWriter
So playing around with both Editorial and IA Writer - both have their ābenniesā and I can see a role for both in my world as a staging post for thoughts before they end up here.
That means I would mainly be using them on phone / pad - since on the Mac I have Mars Edit. IAWriter has a Mac Client - which I like - so I can do some ātuningā before publishing. Iām kinda old school like that. On Editorial - not possible, other than using a text editor … which is ok but not exactly a markdown expert. So I thought … maybe I could use either to write on the phone and then use IAWriter to edit on the Mac … BUT …
IAWriter ONLY uses iCloud to synch and Editorial ONLY Dropbox … apparently recent changes in Drobbox caused IAWriter to drop Dropbox - so to speak.
Wondering how Editorial makes Dropbox work if IAWriter canāt …. anyone know?
More importantly - any ideas how I could make this setup work?
Is That How You Do It?
…. because, when you put it like that, it seems so easy … How to Write a Blog Post
I particularly liked the idea of ābumpingā
Wait for time to pass and see if the bumping sound returns.
The Homepod
šµ Whatās in YOUR HomePod makes for a quick interesting summary of some of the tech that makes it what it is. Seemed right to share it here after yesterdayās to and fro, back and forth, this and that, well … you get the point.
An Experiment
This is a bit of an experiment. I am writing using Editorial
#Inspiration
Thanks to @frankm who was considering drafts to publish to micro.blog
#Idea
Use editorial … since I donāt use drafts and see what happens.
#Delivered
Well …. letās see
… because this is really just an experiment
A Mathematicianās Lament
A friend of mine sent me this, written by Paul Lockhart. I donāt have time to read it in its entirety at the moment - but I have read sufficient of it to know that I do want to read it.
Posting here and a couple of other places to keep it top of mind.
The first thing to understand is that mathematics is an art. The difference between math and the other arts, such as music and painting, is that our culture does not recognize it as such.
Part of the problem is that nobody has the faintest idea what it is that mathematicians do.
... Paul Lockhart
I will come back to it at some point.
Journalism and Platforms
Itās time for journalism to build its own platforms
I think we can all agree on that one … I know @Dave in particular has been saying that for a while.
Hereās the thing … if āwe allā can see the benefits of āroll your ownā why canāt the media ..
Thatās rhetorical.