💬 Quotes
Crucial Track 🎵 May 15, 2026
"I Write the Songs" by Barry Manilow
Never a fan of Barry. Too saccharine, too schmaltzy. Not my style - but there is always an exception to the rule (still looking for Rush’s exception - but that remains another story.)
When I first heard this in 1976 - my instant reaction - was - ‘TYPICAL - BLOODY BARRY. ’I’ write the songs … seriously? The arrogance.
But it hooked me. Totally - and still to this day remains on my Apple Playlist called Just Good Songs.
Of course he didn’t write the song, something I learned a little later - and so my dichotomy was resolved. Of course it was a great song - it was written by a ‘Beach Boy’ - and the claim ‘I write the songs …’ as certainly more defensible. Even more so when I realised that;
The ‘I’ in the song is God, and that songs come from the spirit of creativity in everyone.
💬 Bruce Johnston
(Why not share Bruce's version? In my mind - just not as good - so sticking with the version that hooked me.)
This reminds me of my own setup at home. An OpenClaw instance running on one machine, network-attached storage, a few other boxes humming away. Work-related computing running over a residential connection. I suspect that within a few years, this will be commonplace.
💬 Om
Not so long ago we had ‘family computers’ - I have friends who still use a shared computer.
The edge of two personal computers is moving to the norm.
The new edge is having a network of computers. (I’m looking at you @amerpie )
I hear the Mac Mini is selling well these days.
They shoot horses don’t they? I wonder if they shot typesetters?
🔗 Twilight of the Velocipede: Typesetting Races before the Age of Linotype
Kid” DeJarnatt, “Bangs” Levy, and “Young Jack” Fasey — they carved out reputations in what soon became a national touring circuit. A few became minor celebrities, like the Tribune’s star compositor, Thomas Rooker, who took to wearing diamond studs on his shirts.4 One particularly gifted compositor, William C. Barnes, stunned onlookers by setting type blindfolded, with his type cases reversed.
💬 The Public Domain Review
This time last week (checks calendar), actually yesterday, ‘Collective Wisdom’ said that ‘Consulting is Dead’.
But life moves fast. Today is a new day.
OOHH OOHH - I know let’s set up a consulting division.
No - let’s partner with a consulting company.
No - even better - let’s acquire a consulting company.
💬 Anthropic and OpenAI
🔗 OpenAI launches OpenAI Deployment Company, acquires Tomoro
Tom Siebel’s playbook from the 90s is alive and well - so much for ‘Collective Wisdom’ - which also has the habit of crowing about how everything is new - the old world no longer applies.
Right then.
The thing about 90% of TDMs [Technical Decision Makers] is that they’re motivated primarily by NOT GETTING FIRED. These aren’t people who browser Lobsters or push to GH on the weekend. These are people that work 9 to 5, get paid, go home, and NEVER THINK ABOUT WORK AGAIN. So to achieve all that, they follow secular trends supported by analysts and broad public sentiment. Oh, Gartner said that “AI strategy” is most important? McKinsey said “context” needs to be managed? Well, “Context Engine for AI Apps” is going to be defensible. Buy it.
💬 Mitchell Hashimoto
Nathan makes an important point. 🔗 Why this is not a newsletter.
Commentators with a large and loyal audience quit their jobs at a newsroom—which hires support staff, investigative reporters, and others who have no such followings—and bring a decent chunk of their economic value with them. The newsletter service and payment platforms get a cut. Money moves from institutional support to influencer economies. The commentators get some newfound freedom. But if we don’t have robust journalistic institutions doing news-gathering work, what is there to comment on?
💬 Nathan Schneider
🔗 Apple is missing the thing that once made it great.
Apple devices also often used to come in real colors. Sure, every now and again Apple will allow a blue or a red or an orange to land on an iPhone as if by clerical mistake.
💬 The Macalope
🏢 Interesting to read this today, because I have been writing similar things myself - albeit from a different angle. The words will be published soon and I will return and link later.
Your website is no longer just a destination. It’s a source. It’s the canonical, structured, well-maintained origin point from which your message gets picked up, interpreted, summarized, and carried elsewhere. The better that source material is, the better it travels.
Think of it this way: Your website used to be the store. Now, it’s also the warehouse. And the warehouse needs to be organized well enough that anyone (human or machine) can find what they need, understand what it means, and carry it somewhere else without losing the plot.
💬 Tim Chambers
🔗 Websites As Canonical Sources, Not Just Destinations.
The problem of course is that to be both a warehouse and a store is a very tall order - not impossible, but certainly not easy - because you need clarity on what you’re doing and why.
The website exposes whether you have it - and if you don’t - I’ll bet a pound to a penny that your web site designer/developer won’t.
That’s why we start at the opposite end - where websites are outcomes of clear thought, strategy and data architecture.
this takes a turn at the end.
💬 Mitch Wagner
Certainly does - because it fits so nicely into the emerging narrative about ‘craft’ and ‘artisans’ - and of course the Japanese would be where it would all start.
🔗 Truth, Consequences, Climate, and Demand
the only thing history loves more than a surprise party is irony.
💬 Mitch Wagner - I think.
The source was 🔗 here
🔗 Hey you, start communicating!
OK! Definitely taking on board Kev’s closing instruction …
So yeah, start communicating! 🙃
💬 Kev Quirk
And of course - because ‘everything is a remix’ - Kev’s post 🔗 was inspired by this one.
Meanwhile, also this morning 🔗 swissmiss shared this short poem.
point out the good
when you see it.in life,
in others,
in yourself.because the world
needs to remember
what kindness and
love look like.
💬 Topher Kearby
Which all goes to explain why random people out there are on the internet are going to start receiving email from me. The first one is going out in a minute. It won’t be daily. There will be a reason.
🔗 Features via Mission Alignment
When you use Micro.blog, you should never have to opt in or pay extra for something that is a core part of our mission.
💬 Manton Reece
Thank you @manton - very nice.
We do need a refresh, and I’ve been working with our friends at WordPress on that. The main constraint is that we need to base the site on a WordPress theme of some kind. I invite suggestions.
💬 Doc Searls
Do we though? Or are we attempting to ‘keep things simple’?
The stuff that @dave has been highlighting in his threads points to ideas that can still live in Wordpress. Personally I liked the design that 🔗 Devon came up with - why not go with that?
🔗 Routing around the algorithms
And what’s funny about that is that they assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. But my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.
💬 AOC
The protocols belong to no one. They can’t be acquired. They can’t be taken public.
💬 Terry Godier
Reminds me of an old adage of mine - that these days sits in my 🖇️ Johnsim Library.
😂 McSweeney’s doesn’t always do it - but …
ANSWER: C. There were no thank-yous, and your child had an explosive tantrum because her Labubu was orchid pink, not pastel pink.
💬 Sara White and Lindsey Smith
That’s just one - I think you’ll find the whole piece resonates.
Reminding us all that even real writers. Prolific writers. Writers that write for a living - constantly question themselves.
We are now at the stage where it is not an issue of whether I can write, but whether what I’m writing about is worth reading.
…
I say this to you as someone who has been a full-time freelance writer since the 1990s, someone who tends to write and have published around two thirds of a million words per year.
💬 William Gallagher
🔗 Notes on the xAI/Anthropic data center deal
I get that Anthropic are severely compute-constrained, but in a world where the very existence of “AI data centers” is a red-hot political issue (see recent news out of Utah for a fresh example), signing up with this particular data center is a really bad look
💬 Simon Willison
