🖋️ 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.
Jeff Beck (1 of 3)
I wish I had been there ..... but thankfully my friend Bill was - who had a friend Keith who took the pictures. In case you are wondering ... Row 7, Masonic Hall, San Francisco.
Cards Against Humanity - Wins Both Ways
Click through if you want to extend your Cards Against Humanity set ... this is why you should ...
Today, we're letting America choose between two new expansion packs about either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.
... so far so good.
At the end of this promotion, Cards Against Humanity will tally up the sales of both packs, and depending on which pack gets more support ....
.. yes
we will donate all the money in support of Hillary Clinton's campaign.
#BRILLIANT
People Make Mistakes
This makes for a fascinating listen .... Malcolm Gladwell in his Revisionist History Podcast talking about the 'sudden acceleration' problems that Toyota faced in 2009. His conclusion - operator error.
Seriously - and you have to listen to the podcast to get it - after all - you wouldn't expect me to summarize the closing arguments of Perry Mason in a couple of paragraphs - would you ?
Beyond this though, it made me stop and think about driverless cars.
As they get involved n collisions, people - despite any and all evidence to the contrary - will assume that there has been some kind of machine error that caused the accident, before they think it could be a person's fault.
That is the essence of the Gladwell argument. It will happen.
Another Reason I Am Happy To Be a MacOS User
The home and personal editions are clearly being primed to become advertising platforms. Ad blockers will not help because it will be OS itself serving ads, not the browser you chose (or the one MS chose for for you, see above on defaults).
And it's not just the home editions. I ran the SpyBot Anti-Beacon on a Windows 10 Enterprise build, and was shocked to see about 80% of the Telemetry* settings still sending data back to the mother-ship.
In case you are wondering - click through for the detail - but bottom line ... if this pans out - then Microsoft is in the process of launching the mother of all trackers - embedded in their OS.
Dear Prezi - Flash Is Dead
We live in 2016. Jobs declared Flash dead a little over 6 years ago. Google plans to start blocking Flash in Chrome this year. So why in the name of satan does Prezi - the hipsters answer to presentations - tell me that I need it to run their app.
My First Seven Jobs
#FirstSevenJobs ... it's a meme and made me think about mine ...
- Baby Sitter
- Newspaper Delivery
- Building Site Laborer
- Bin Man - or 'Garbage collector' as we know them in the US.
- House Cleaner (not what you think - this was working for an English Council - spending days in a single flat attempting to get it to a level that your usual house cleaner would even consider. You just do not want to know what we had to deal with.
- Chocolate Factory - Packing the candies and cleaning the machines .... by hand !
- Meat Factory Labour - including making Black Pudding - again - using my own hands.
Observations
My early jobs were
- very manual in nature
- involved minimal customer interaction (no waiting on tables, serving in stores etc)
Would You Pay For News
Well ... would you?
The click through is an interesting article from Fred Wilson who did a 'deep survey' with his own kids. It's a good read.
Me - I think pure news is never again going to be paid for. Think about it - it is a commodity.
BUT ... in RED NEON CAPS - 72 PT - BUT .... the analysis, opinion and insights around it - definitely. And that is why esteemed organs like the FT, Guardian, NYT, Post et al - will survive in some form - provided they work out their new business models. (Let's face it - the old ones aren't working).
UPDATE:
This is a really good read from Josh Guttman who writes that 'we all pay for news in one way or the other' (true) and then goes onto highlight some companies that are starting to help us - the reader - to get out news - without being saddled with the costly trackers that advertisers fell they need to embed in their posts. ...
What's new-er is a general distaste for any form of advertising on the page, as evidenced by the rise in usage of ad blockers. In the US, 15-20% of users block ads and in EU, it's approaching 50%. A new category of companies have appeared to tackle this issue from either the publisher or reader perspectives.
August 17, 2016 at 10:41:09 AM PDT by jgphilpin
Power For The Few ....
"Power for the few will be assumed through the inaction of the many. "
Apparently these regulations are too onerous for the multi-billion corporation that we know as Uber to operate in London.
Uber is challenging four of the new rules;
- requiring written English tests for drivers,
- having to locate its customer service call centre in London,
- requiring insurance that covers drivers when they are not working
- having to alert TfL of changes to its business model or app.
I do hope @SadiqKhan is listening .... part of his electoral platform was to push back on the company. Until someone does - they will continue to ride rough-shod over everybody and everything in its wake - and then someday in the future we will look back and ask - how did that happen?
Let me tell you the answer now : By Not Paying Attention!
Kite Flying Can Be Harmful To Your Health
Have you ever read the book 'The Kite Runner' ? If not you should.
If so, you can imagine why that particular wonderful piece of literature popped into my head on reading this news ...
2 Children, 1 Man Die After Kite String Slits Their Throats in India
... in case anyone ever thought that Kite Flying was a sedentary sport!
A Little History Of My Maui Music
I was in Maui on the Southside nearly ten years ago watching a subset of the Molinas family entertaining the 'grocks'. Out of the blue this young kid emerged and delivered a Ukulele solo like I had never heard.
I didn't know they were the Molinas family at the time, and so had no idea who Andrew was. BUT.
But, I wanted to find out. For some reason I didn't enquire on the day who these guys were, so it was later when I started to just ask around.
I described him to people and the general consensus was 'oh - you must have seen Vince Esquire'.
Which is how I got into Vince Esquire and his band, and also how I came to meet Shawn Michael - now back in LA - but definitely the best bass guitarist that you have never heard of.
Anyway, you can read all about Andrew and his family the other side of this link. and so glad to see another great Maui musician emerging.
Why Apple Sits Apart
Engineers left in a vacuum might say "well, that's maybe not so important; we can get a better signal by doing it the other way so let's do it that way." So, left to their own devices, that would be the way the product would end up. So you have to have a really strong voice supporting the user. I think the idea of focusing on that is uniquely Apple. In an optimistic sense you have to say that still exists at Apple. It does.
- Attention to detail.
- Customer first.
- Because 'it's harder' isn't an excuse.
Great Read :
What I Learned Working With Jony Ive's Team On The Apple Watch
It's All About The Headline ....
Opening copy reads :
One of Apple's largest component suppliers, Samsung Electronics ...
... not could have (should have ?)
One of Apple's largest competitors, Samsung Electronics
... because the article is ALL about safety in Samsung's semi con factories and clearly reads ...
That year, and every year since, tech media outlets have regularly suggested that there was no real difference between Apple's iPhone and the manufacturing of much lower margin Android products, which cut corners and take expedient shortcuts to deliver cheap products.
🔗 Read All About It At Apple Insider - who should not be using such stupid click bait headlines and opening copy in their articles.
#ShameOnThem
Jobs Coming BACK To The USA
Heh - GREAT News - Adidas is bringing jobs back to America. See - it can be done.
'Caveat Emptor' ... 160 jobs actually - and unclear what those jobs will be - because the manufacturing is being done by robots.
I keep telling you .... those jobs are not coming back.
It's All About .... Timing
It’s that time of year I guess. Another birthday. The Newton launched 23 years ago - two years after the World Wide Web.
One an unprecedented success that nobody saw coming ... the other demonstrating exactly the same thing - but with lousy timing.
Saying It Like It Is
“Really,” Steve said, and waited.
“ ‘Does she want a job at Apple?’ ” I said, quoting his e-mail.
“A joke,” Steve said.
“I know.”
“Like this meeting,” he said.
.. it’s a great read. And that last line in the quote above - like a rapier!
Spot On
#VRM #PeoplePower
Maybe the best thing to do is to start unilaterally giving the users more power over their own online presence. Stop trying to own everything. Because there's no way to win that game. Even if you win you lose.