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.
Voice Ads - And Not What You Are Hoping For
Google Tests Waters of Voice Ads on Speaker
An unprompted promotion highlights balancing act the tech giant faces between monetizing new search formats and usersĆ¢ā¬ā¢ ad tolerance
I love that expression ' user's ad tolerance ' ... do they not read the news? We have already that we have zero tolerance - hence the rise of ad blockers.
File under another reason not to buy Amazon and Google tech ... and stick with Apple ... a company that makes its money from what it makes - not the people that use what it makes.
Oh - and that caption? Jeez - Alexa might be able to recognize word patterns - but it doesnt understand anybody!
John Philpin - The Other One
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Listen - I’m Going To Tell You A Story
It was a few years ago now, you can tell, because I had to get up from my chair, walk to the kitchen and pick up the phone.
Hello .. John Philpin
.. and those were the last words that seemed to make sense in this particular conversation. The following is paraphrased, my memory is not that good.
Oh hello, we are calling to see if you have any commentary on the recent developments in Gainesville.
Sorry, could you repeat that?
Oh yes, we are following up on some recent developments around the murders in Gainesville, and calling to ask if you might add any perspective.
Iām sorry .. what kind of perspective?
Well given your involvement at the time, we were thinking ..
Sorry. What involvement?
Is that John Philpin?
It is.
P H I L P I N ? (Spelling it out).
Yes.
Well given your connection to ..
Iām sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else.
But you are John Philpin ..
Yes. Tell you what if you give me your number, I will look into who it might be and get them to call back.
.. number exchanged and I sat down.
In 2024 if you Google āJohn Philpinā, you will indeed find that there are two of us, but back then, there wasnāt a Google ā¦ I know kids .. hard to believe. There was something called āAlta Vistaā and Yahoo - but nascent at best.
In all honesty, I canāt recall exactly how I went about the next step. We had Compuserve - and of course at Oracle I had access to the ‘real’ ‘internet’ - but - there still has to be something at the other end to be found for a āsearchā to work ā¦ so this was going to be tough.
But ā¦ BUT - you may not know this, but āPhilpinā is a pretty uncommon name. Uncommon like there may be 5 to 6 hundred of us - tops - around the world today. I can also tell you that 75% of them live in Pembrokeshire, Wales, or at least in South Wales.
Ok - I jest - but it is not so far off.
Donald Philpin - a cousin of my dadās - did some research back in the 60s and 70s and unpacked a family tree of sorts essentially connecting us all back to a āWalter Philpinā of Tenby, Pembrokeshire in the 1600s. (When I say - research - this was no internet search (see earlier google comment), this was serious - visiting parish churches, pouring through registers of birth, deaths and marriage and painstakingly putting it all together, by talking to family members. (Now THAT was commitment.)
Anyway, long story short (letās assume I used Compuserve) and tried to find this other Philpin. I failed. Kind of. I found an author called John Philpin - who was probably the writer this journalist thought I was. But - no way of connecting - no phone - certainly no email - even for the publisher - just an address in NYC, which IMHO seemed too hard. (Clearly I was no ‘Donald’.)
I also found a musician by name of šµFive Philpin and there seemed to be a connection to a John Philpin - and I am a music nerd anyway - so what the hell - I reached out to him through email that seemed to be associated with his music.
And nothing ā¦ for a few weeks and I then got an email from Five.
We exchanged emails - and I bought every CD he had ever released - ( I like to support āsmallerā musicians and hell - with the same last name as mine - of course I was.)
Asked him about John - and turns out John is his father - at the time Five was in LA / Seattle - and dad was over In New England. Anyway could Five connect me?
Five - āLeave it with me.ā
ā¦ delivering a result a week or so later, hereās Dadās phone number - give him a call.
I did.
We talked for a couple of hours ā¦ mainly around who both us ‘John Philpins’ came to be us ‘John Philpins’ .. and given the tightness of our Family tree, we tracked back to our mutual roots ā¦ in .. Pembrokeshire and and and ā¦
.. and finally I got round to telling him about the call from the news paper asking for a comment .. and there was a silence, and then .. (again ..paraphrasing)
I have no interest in talking to these people whose only job seems to be title tattle, so I wouldnāt bother getting back to them ā¦ but should they call again, I would answer their questions. They are looking to speak to John Philpin and gather āquotesā .. give them. Donāt let knowing nothing about the cases they call about get in the way .. make it up .. it would stand more chance of being right than some of what they write. Might be fun?
We chatted a little longer - said our good byes and moved on with our lives.
I never heard anything more from the journalist - or any other for that matter, so I never got to try out Johnās idea. I sporadically kept in touch with Five - had one more email exchange with John - but basically all our lives just continued, with this one tiny dent of connection.
What It Means To Be American
... it certainly explains why I am not Republican.
A couple of choice extracts:
Nearly six in 10 Republicans (57 percent) think that Ć¢ā¬Åa culture grounded in Christian religious beliefsĆ¢ā¬Ā is important to our American identity.
and
Forty-six percent of Republicans say that Ć¢ā¬Åa culture established by the countryĆ¢ā¬ā¢s early European immigrantsĆ¢ā¬Ā is an important part of what makes us Americans.
America Continues To Lead ...
... that's sarcasm folks ....
I have to say it took Battersea many many false starts before it got to here, but - it did get there. So maybe Philadelphia could adopt some of the ideas.
Oh that's right - America leads the world in thinking - and doesn't need to look outside of its borders for ideas.
That's how they always win the 'world' series and put themselves up on the pedestal of the global powerhouse.
What am I talking about? This.
Meanwhile - on a related topic - check out what you can do with an old cement factory.
Does The End Of The London Taxi Portend The End Of Everything?
First they licensed Uber, and I did not speak out - Because I was working.
Then the Trade Unionists and Taxi orgs called a mass demo, and I did not go -Because it was busy and I had to work.
Then, after realising our largest org was doing nothing, two drivers stood up shouting and rebellious...but they were expelled - I did and said nothing, just carried on working.
Then they asked for members to go to a branch meeting to vote against Judas and his WAGs - but I didn't go as I was working
When they finally took my Badge and Bill and handed it to an Uber driver - there was no one left to fight for me.
I just hope the apathy is not an indication of the broader topics of what is going on politically across the world. Whatever your political belief system ... the world gets the leadership it deserves. Just look at America. Trump won. Sure. Hilary lost. Sure. Hilary ran a bad campaign. Let's go with it. Trump stole the election. Whatever.
Here is what happened.
The voting population of America did not turn out in sufficient numbers to state clearly what they wanted.
As my twitter bio reads:
Power for the few will be assumed through the inaction of the many.
Uber [ No Longer ] Alles
To lose 1 senior VP in a week is never good. To lose two is very careless.
Add to the growing woes captured on this thread just this week.
But there's more ... check out this:
How Uber Used Secret Greyball Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide
Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive the authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was being resisted by law enforcement or, in some instances, had been outright banned.
The list of all the other crap - JUST - from this week can be found here.
Is Uber Trying To Get More Crazy and Confused Than The Trump Administration?
Interesting to see that when I wrote ...
as I tried to summarise everything that is going on at Uber that is wrong ... someone else had the same idea.
A great summary - though not a fan of the color scheme!
Uber - Liars or Just A U-Turn?
Remember when Uber said ... not us ...
As Gruber writes:
The message to other women at Uber is clear: stay silent or we will come after you.
The Truth About Uber Continues To Surface ...
I wrote and published this post about the trials and tribulations (ok - not trials - YET) of Uber yesterday. It was a rapid summary of the fronts that they are fighting that came through my feeds just last week.
(It is worth a click through just to get a quick summary of the breadth of problems hitting the company.)
These posts came out yesterday - Monday 27th February.
Seriously? We are meant to believe that. Oh, that’s right - they demonstrate over and over again that they do not believe in background checks. (And anyway it was known who he was BTW - this is a very small valley).
And, in light of that, this becomes even more believable.
Another Tale of Rampant Sexual Harassment at Uber - Medium, another ex-staffer writing about the toxic Uber culture. This quote stood out to me from one manager to a subordinate, a woman and the writer of the article.
There is no place for ethics in this business sweetheart. We are not a charity.
Uber dismissed warnings about its illegal self-driving test for months, emails showĀ - The Verge. (I wrote at the time, there was more to this and I still don’t understand why they weren’t prosecuted at the time. But I guess that is a different story.)
Oh … and the so often repeated story of how some Uber drivers are either totally ignorant of where places are, definitely lacking in ‘smarts’ and possibly just corrupt.
I Spy With My Little Eye - Something Beginning with 'T'
According to her attack-dog attorney, Charles Harder, the MailĆ¢ā¬ā¢s allegations harmed her Ć¢ā¬Åonce-in-a-lifetime opportunityĆ¢ā¬Ā to cash in on the Trump presidency by selling Melania-branded Ć¢ā¬Åapparel, accessories, shoes, jewellery, cosmetics, hair care, skin care, and fragranceĆ¢ā¬Ā.
As they Eye says ....
No need for the Mail to trash her reputation: her lawyer seems quite capable of doing it all by himself.
[For my American readers - for Private Eye - think 'Spy Magazine' - except edgier, unafraid, wittier and first published in 1961 - a full 27 years before Spy Magazine got going and hasn't stopped since - which Spy did in 1998.]
Let The Punishment Fit The Crime
Virginia man gets 11 years in prison for trying to join Islamic State
... not actually joining, and had he joined, not actually done anything ...
Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000, signaling the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s.
Meanwhile - a quick Google search reveals that 11 years is what you get for
- A hit and run driver killing a little girl
- A meth dealer in Eugene
- Fraud
- Pimping
- Drug Trafficking
#JustSayin
Time Moves Faster When You Are Older
As we move steadily into 2017, I know that I am not the first to recognize that we are now 50 years away for the 1967 Summer of Love. Talk to a teen/twenty something ( donĆ¢ā¬ā¢t you just hate those ‘ennial tags?) … and I wonder if they would / could even comprehend what was going on back then.
Sure they listen to the music form that era … but to have a real understanding of Vietnam, The Kennedy and MLK assassinations, Civil Rights Movements et al … might be stretching it.
Why? Well, let’s put it into context.
Back in 1967, the equivalent would be to have that teen/twenty something understand everything that was going on in and around the FIRST WORLD WAR - much less the SECOND WORLD WAR.
In fact - when you think about it, the SECOND World War ended just twenty two years before the Summer of Love.
Twenty Two Years Ago the President of The USA was Bill Clinton and The Prime Minister of England was John Major.
People of my age can remember it all ‘like yesterday’. But for the newly emerging generations that are beginning to shape the future of this world - it all was a very very long time ago.
Which is all good - but let us not forget how we got here. The wars and the sacrifices made by millions. The shared experiences that shaped us.
He isn’t a teen/twenty something, so he should know better (but he doesn’t), but the current president of The USA is rattling his saber at pretty much everyone.
Hopefully, it will continue to just rattle because he won’t be able to work out how to take it out of its scabbard. But if he does ….
Slick By Name ... Slick By Nature
Absolutely brilliant. Back in England - in the middle ages - people would occasionally get ‘hoist by their own petard’ …. I believe Chick-Fil-A have just experienced that delight.
Yes, she is aware that Chick-Fil-A is a famously conservative, Christian-run company that has advocated against same-sex marriage and donated to anti-LGBTQ-rights causes through their charitable wing, The WinShape Foundation. Slick revealed that she explicitly decided to accept the company's offer to use the song so she could donate the proceeds to a charity that works against Chick-Fil-A's convictions: Lambda Legal, a non-profit legal organization working on behalf of LGBTQ community and HIV patients.
The Precursor To The Fall
Oh c'mon!
And for heavens sake grow up.
Conway says she gets 'different set of questions' on TV
Oh and honey, when you say ...
"It's a 'build you up to tear you down' kind of town."
Nobody - repeat NOBODY - 'built you up' - you did that all by your little old self.
And ...
"I'm focused on why we're here."
Can you tell us. Please. WHY are you here? Because I certainly don't see any added value.