🔗 WWW
There are a lot of links out to different parts of the web on this site. I try to mark them all so they get listed here.
Friend 1: Do not watch ‘🔗 🎬 Leave The World Behind’.
Friend 2 : I’ll watch it - I like to make my own mind up, not just listen to what others think.
Me : Cool - have you seen Barbie?
Friend 2 : Oh no. I don’t like the messaging behind that one.
Me : Messaging? What about making ….. oh never mind.
🎈004/366 | 🏢 Demonstrating The Pace Layer
Over the break, I had the fortune (not committing to whether that’s good or bad, since that is a whole different story) to visit Martinborough in the Wairarapa - one of New Zealand’s wine regions. It’s a cute little town that includes a single ‘supermarket’.
On one visit I noticed two photographs on the wall - the building from the early part of the last century, photographed in 1906 ….
… and a second of a different building (same site) in 1949.
As I took the photographs of the photographs, I commented to a couple passing by and watching me that it was a shame that a beautiful building such as the original was replaced by the ‘flat pack’.
I assumed that some bright spark had decided to pull the old one down in favor of the ‘modern, sleek lined building’.
Never assume.
Yes the old one was pulled down - but after a major earthquake rendered part of it flat and part of it unsafe - and I get why you would want to modernize and I know why the designs changed - but that’s not what this is about.
What it’s about is that the photographs and conversation reminded me of a 🔗 recent post from Stowe Boyd that referenced Stewart Brand’s book 🔗 How Buildings Learn which in turn built on the ideas of British architect Frank Duffy.
Buildings aren’t made out of glass, concrete and stone: they’re made out of time, layers of time.
💬 Frank Duffy
Brand’s model is clear;
… and the two images reveal it in action. No images from the inside of the store - though for the Kiwi’s amongst you, I can say that the Martinborough FourSquare is the nicest (and largest) FourSquare I have ever visited. (For Brits, think of a FourSquare as something like one of those Tesco or Safeways Mini-marts we find in ever increasing numbers around the British Isles. Think of the Martinborough Foursquare as more akin to a mid sized Waitrose. For American readers … Wholefoods? High end Safeways?
All that said - look at Brand’s model carefully and consider buildings you know and how they relate.
🎈003/366 | 💬 A New Purpose
Interesting to read 🔗 this from Om. I definitely did not feel that all of last year, but definitely in the past couple of months, something in me has been coming together. It’s as if bits of Lego have been suddenly snapping together, around writing, my work programmes and the connected thinking.
It’s not just the new year. There’s a fundamental shift I am feeling.
The question is whether it is an aberration, or something that will translate to something that will stay for part of the journey.
I think it’s the latter.
LATER
Funny .. as I published this post, someone sent me this;
Every time I read 🔗 A Camera Not An Engine by Venkatesh Rao I found myself highlighting more and more - so that it was very nearly all highlight! So - I cut some back and have published to my Readwise.
Next job if I get round to it .. annotations.
🎈002/366 | ♟️ Is There Planning In Strategy❓
In one of my work programmes there is an ongoing debate around planning and strategy .. one of the team going as far as to suggest that ‘strategic planning’ is an oxymoron (my words). This seems to nicely channel an aspect of that thinking.
This particular quote
is taken from 🔗 this article, which in turn arrived with me from discussions over at the UNdaunted. You’ll be hearing more about them over the next year.)
I think it also plays into the old adage (I paraphrase) ..
“All plans are a waste … but planning is essential.”
For me. I think there is truth in this line of thought.
What do you think?
🎈001/366 | 📸 This Is What I Know
There’s a 🔗 Stonehenge in New Zealand.
Spent a lovely afternoon there today.
If you have interest its 🔗 three words are ‘enable.improves.preperations’.
.. and so a new year begins and the Daily Stoic … as a publishing event … ends.
A variation on a theme will be forthcoming .. inspired by this thought from a Daily Stoic entry on 🖇️ December 22nd
Meanwhile …
Happy New Year
Dems and Repubs have a lot more in common than we might think.
In US politics … the two prime parties are symbolized by a 🔗 Donkey and Elephant.
The curious thing is that 🔗 Thomas Nast created both the original satirical cartoons.
- Same guy.
- Drew cartoons that dinged both parties.
- Both parties adopted their own cartoon …
These days they’d sue him!
Fuck TikTok.
Fuck Russell Brand.
🔗 TikTok users including Russell Brand given special status, messages show.
Just in case you get too happy absorbing 🔗 Reasons To Be Cheerful, now you can 🔗 Cry Once a Week.
It’s all about balance.
I have saved 🔗 Layers of Time: Pace Layers of Work by Stowe Boyd to read properly later - but it triggered some other works I have been absorbing recently how the our digital worlds have been shaping our physical world for decades - and it is only accelerating.
Careful What It Says In The Small Print
I was meant to be picking up a car from 🔗 Europcar this afternoon - for a one month reservation.
I just tried to change that reservation and pick it up early tomorrow.
Lady on the call center said no problem - and was about to hit the confirmation button … but as she was talking I hear that the new price was DOUBLE the old price.
DOUBLE!!!
When I booked car, the agent said that there would be no problem and no charge to change the booking if I need to.
I relayed this to this booking agent.
Absolutely she said, it would normally cost you 6 dollars to change the booking - and we are waiving that fee … but the contract also says that if the cost of the rental changes, we have to reflect that change in the new contract.
New job this afternoon … go down to Auckland Airport and pick up the car rental.
🔗 Minister pulls brakes on cycling and walking initiatives.
Seriously? It costs THAT much?
Meanwhile ‘my man Dana’ has been banging on about the US propensity for cars of the large and heavy variety forever … not to mention the battery decisions being made - necessary apparently - because of the weight and size factor of these vehicles.
This just today for example.
While the Internet and iPhone came on faster, these were internal revolutions. They didn’t change the world around us. Mass EV adoption will.
🔗 🎵 Car Drivers Torment a City with Celine Dion Songs
Protest songs are everywhere - except on TV or radio.
More proof .. if proof were needed .. that I live under a rock … fascinating .
JESSICA CHASTAIN: But then I looked at the test, and I thought, OK, it doesn’t seem too unreasonable. And then I looked at my films, and I realized not one of my films has passed that test.
Talking of LinkedIN - 🔗 take a look at this which I just dropped onto LinkedIN. It’s my position on the Callaghan debacle that New Zealand’s ‘Office of the Auditor General’ has just weighed in on.
TL;DR - Callaghan are guilty.
To quote;
Callaghan Innovation did not …
… a whole tonne of stuff. The piece is called - Accountability Has No Meaning in New Zealand - because really unless something now happens. It doesn’t.
Those who live in Aotearoa should find it particularly interesting. Even if you haven’t been tracking the past few years of the story.
I think I just broke 🔗 LinkedIN
There’s a LOT of stuff going on in New Zealand at the moment as the new Govt takes control and is starting to / trying to (not sure which) roll back everything the previous Govt was doing. C’est la vie.
In parralel, the topic of efficiency seems to be on everyone’s lips - different learned people in different positions essentially reporting ‘findings’ .. new budgets in cities … and the eternal question of whether we are getting what we pay for.
Just one small example from Wayne Brown in Auckland … a speed bump in a road to slow traffic down costs multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ll let that sink in.
I am far from qualified to comment much on this (other than that seems a lot to me), but Bernard Hickey definitely is - and if you want to read his excellent Substack around not just speed bumps - but all things political and fiscal in this fine country - look no further than 🔗 here.
Meanwhile - Aotearoa - don’t feel so bad - this 🔗 🎙️ podcast from Freakonomics relects on the US construction industry. Turns out it is the only industry that has not become more efficient over the past seventy years - because that is how it is designed!