I sell my soul - but at the highest rates.
🔗📼 Harlan Ellison 18 years ago #PayTheWriter
Had cause to post this today - again - on a LinkedIN feed.
My friend (and co founder of the original Just Good Music blog) John Parker sent me an email …
I have found that the number of people that really listen to music is vanishingly small, and I KNOW that you are one of the ones that does, hence my email. Every once in a while I need to reach out and touch base just to know that I’m not insane, it’s the rest of the world that is lost.
And
So you motor along and see cool music videos. and you say"yeah!" and “cool!”. And everyonce in a while, you see one that makes you close your computer just go take a walk. Like… goddamn. This is a goddamn video …
This is that video - and DAMN - he’s right.
And if you like this - here is Ren’s YouTube channel .. so you can fill your boots.
🔗 Ren on Wikipedia tells a story for sure.
As to John’s throwaway line;
“the number of people that really listen to music is vanishingly small”
Needless to say - I wholeheartedly agree which is why I take solace in podcasts like The Rockenteurs, YouTube channels like Rick Beato and Newsletters like Ted Gioia.
If you are reading this post on my site, the inline video gives an error. Click on the link above. The 'error' is only because the creator wants you to got to YouTube to watch it.
Looks like someone’s lost the plot …
🔗 Russian oil has flowed into New Zealand despite sanctions
Then again imagine the price at the pump reduced profits of the gas companies if that hadn’t happened.
Yup - 🔗 The Gaping Void Post
🔗 Job for 2027: Senior Director of Million-Dollar Regexes – O’Reilly
From $15,000/day to $0.96/day - I do think we’re about to see a lot of companies realize that a thinking model connected to an MCP server is way more expensive than just paying someone to write a bash script. Starting now, you’ll be able to make a career out of un-LLM-ifying applications.
And so we go round?
The freezing over of hell.
Last week I am listening to MTG and wondering why I am agreeing with her - and then this week Musk releases a new feature that seems pretty much ‘like - yeah - right on’.
Techdirt reports “ 🔗 Why Trust & Safety Work Was Never About The ‘Censorship Industrial Complex’
Or is it?
My ten cents so you don’t have to wade through the whole thing.
The report sketches a workplace where confidence has thinned, power has tilted back to employers, and employees are left carrying the weight. Trust in leadership keeps sliding as people call out misalignment, muddled communication, and a shift from occasional layoffs to something closer to a permanent drizzle. Remote and hybrid staff have stalled on career progression, which explains the quiet drift back to offices. AI anxiety is loud enough, but the actual impact on job satisfaction is tiny. Job seekers are taking whatever lands in front of them in a flat hiring market, though early-career workers are finally seeing real wage growth again, particularly in the up-and-coming second-tier cities.
So - same old same? B(S)AU.
Takeaways
- Trust in leadership keeps dropping as workers feel disconnected, insecure, and overlooked amid constant micro-layoffs.
- Remote workers might love the flexibility, but the career ceiling is showing, which will keep nudging people back into the office.
- AI disruption is mostly a storyline for now; the data shows only a faint effect on sentiment.
… no shit Dick Tracy.
And the big reveal?
- The real trust gap isn’t RTO or AI, it’s that workers no longer believe leadership acts in their interest.
- Newsflash, they never did.
- Cities like Provo and Boise are beating the big tech hubs on early-career wage growth.
- Well yes, after what those hubs were paying, reality was always going to bite.
Then again, it’s Glassdoor. What exactly was I expecting?
You know how they keep leaving New Zealand off world maps? Now we are disappearing from global surveys❗️Were NZ to be included in this survey, I believe they would surely be top right oo this graphic.
🔗 Ranked: Which Country Consumes the Most Coffee?
(No - not absolute - it is ‘per capita’)