🚧 WIP on John PHI⑊PIN

And why not. Another One.

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:40:20 +1200

🚧 Please - just ignore me - you know what this is …

test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test.

💬 the dude

yet another test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test .. just give me a little more echo.

💬 not the dude

test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test.

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:15:49 +1200

🚧 Please - just ignore me - you know what this is …

test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test.

💬 the dude

yet another test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test .. just give me a little more echo.

💬 not the dude

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:59:15 +1200

📸 🚧 I know this thing is on - but is it working …

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 14:39:45 +1200

👁️🚧 Experiment.

👁️🏢 🔗 MALUS - Clean Room as a Service | Liberation from Open Source Attribution

A parody I believe - but just like with satire - I have this nervous feeling that parody might not be able to keep up with reality.

💬 John Philpin https://john.philpin.com/2026/04/23/malus-clean-room-as-a.html

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 07:34:45 +1200

Once more everybody is jumping up and down over ads. Once more to remind that ads do make (a few aspects of) the world go round.

But

If I am paying you to use your product … I do not want you to put ads in that product.

The ad isn’t the real problem .. it’s the tracking. My ‘ad blocker’ doesn’t block ads .. it blocks the ability for the advertiser to track me. Why do we still not understand this?

If I want you to provide your service without tracking and/or ads … then you should … of course … recognising that to do that costs money … so I would expect to pay a fee for that. But nobody really offers that.

—-

🚧 I might comeback to this in the future.

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 13:43:38 +1200

Today’s Surprise From History - 🖇️ Biggest surprise here is that it is still marked 🚧 - so I guess I need to finish it off!

🖇️🔎 Other Surprises

Wed, 21 May 2025 21:33:02 +1200

From an article by Noah Smith that I need to come back to and write more. I find those three groupings quite fascinating.

Added Later … sorry not helpful - right?

🔗 Is the U.S. in a ‘high-level equilibrium trap’? | Noah Smith

🚧 Still more to come.

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 08:51:26 +1200

🎵 🖇️ Blog Challenge - Music Edition - thank you for the inspiration @Annie

🚧 Links To Posts by Others

@Annie - Annie’s Post

@kaa

@hutaffe

@endonend - Jason’s Post

@gregmoore - Greg’s Post

@mb - Michael’s Post

@robb

🚧 Prisons and Bitcoin

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 11:18:34 +1200

I am unsure if they are connected - so parking this here while we think.

There is also something going on with the Argentinian playbook - which I am planning to publish in a newsletter.

I am no expert - but my spidey senses are up … Bitcoin, Argentina, El Salvador .. OR, it’s all summarized thus ….

Bitcoin

El Salvador introduced bitcoin as legal tender in 2021 and then - as now - one Tim Draper has oft’ spoken breathlessly of how cool it is that a sovereign nation has adopted it.

Tim Draper Expects Bitcoin to Transform El Salvador Into One of the Richest Countries in the World.

The flag waving by Tim has never stopped.

That Said

El Salvador’s experiment with Bitcoin as legal tender since 2021 has had mixed results.
Only 8.1% of the population have used Bitcoin for payments by 2024.
Seperately, the initiative faced criticism for its volatility, lack of transparency, and limited impact on remittances, which make up a significant part of the economy.
Even so, El Salvador’s Bitcoin investments turned profitable by late 2024 - BUT the government has not recouped the costs of promoting the cryptocurrency.
So, in December 2024, El Salvador agreed to scale back Bitcoin policies to secure a $1.4 billion IMF loan (Dollars speak) which included making Bitcoin acceptance voluntary and reducing public sector involvement in Bitcoin-related activities.
Despite all of this by the end of 2024, its holdings surpassed 6,000 BTC which seems to have grown to 6,055 BTC as of February 1, 202. Value? Over $612 million.

Perspective

In a recent Bloomberg interview, Michael Saylor, executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy, revealed that beyond his company’s holdings, he personally owns at least 17,732 Bitcoin, currently valued at approximately $1 billion.

Yup - Saylor personally owns 150% more Bitcoin than The country of El Salvador - and let’s not forget that his company MicroStrategy owns another 471,107 bitcoins.

Question

Why do we still trumpet the El Salvador story?

Prisons

El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) is the largest prison in Latin America, with a capacity to hold 40,000 inmates. The facility spans 410 acres of land, with the prison complex itself covering 57 acres (approximately the size of seven football stadiums). It features eight cell blocks and extensive security measures, including electrified fences, reinforced walls, and 19 guard tower. It was built in late 2022 during a large-scale gang crackdown and officially opened in January 2023. Population of El Salvador - 6.5 million The USA has a total prison capacity across federal, state, and local facilities that can house 1.9 million people in federal prisons, correctional facilities, state prisons, local jails, and other detention centers.

Today’s News

# Could US criminals be sent to El Salvador’s mega-jail?

President Nayib Bukele confirmed that he had offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system". Putting aside the legal questions of exporting US citizens to another country’s prison system - I am wondering what’s going on.

Back Of The Napkin - Capacity

El Salvador : 6,500,000/40,000=162.5 - in just a single prison
USA : 350,000,000/1,900,000=184.2 - total capacity

Back Of The Napkin - Prisoner Count

🔗 Source

El Salvador : 1,086 prisoners per 100,000 people in the population
USA : 531 prisoners per 100,000 people in the population

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 10:51:52 +1200

🚧 💬 Quotes. I collect them, so maybe a ‘collection’ application?

This is going to be a living , breathing kinda post.

And like all living, breathing things … it might die.

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 19:38:21 +1200

I need to understand what this means. It’s from an essay that I tried to read, which lead me to the conclusion that I am definitely not the target reader, which might explain why this seems to be the absolute opposite of my understanding of even ‘why’ an ecosystem.

I will try to 🚧 revisit.

Sun, 26 May 2024 08:57:19 +1200

The ‘Tiny Pod’ 🚧

is indeed a thing to 🔗 behold - for those of you that have a watch but don’t want to wear it on your wrist?

🎈146/366 Today Is My Anniversary 🚧

Sat, 25 May 2024 11:48:05 +1200

It’s 🔗 Towel Day ( thank you @odd ) - but today also happens to be my 25th Anniversary

Yup - 25 years. Truth be told it had been going on a lot longer - but it was 25 years ago that we actually tied the knot .. and I have had my ‘personal space’ on the internet ever since May 25th, 1999 (Creation Date: 1999-05-25T20:14:36Z).

Now of course, we had known each other a lot longer than that - long before the web in fact, but you know when you first connect you don’t really note the dates do you? It’s like a permanent honeymoon. Hours merge into days into weeks into months … who really knows when ‘it’ really all started?

I can tell you that I first got ‘involved’ with the internet in 1985. I mean it wasn’t what we know today. My own internet experience in those days was email around our international offices .. but it was the internet (ok, ok - intranet - there’s a word you don’t hear much these days.)

Although Google Trends suggests I am wrong …

.. again!

Anyway, I do remember being annoyed that my messages wouldn’t go out to the people I wanted to talk to - you know customers, partners, vendors - all the people a business should be talking to. .. we could only talk amongst ourselves. I mean the Cerne account team could connect to their customer .. why did I have to use Compusurf (sic)? … but that’s a different story.

( .. and no I didn’t do AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve .. they were never for me - maybe even back then I had the innate desire to avoid being locked into a silo.)

Anyway, that’s it … 25 Years with my 🔗 own domain ✅

Onwards.

How will I celebrate? Why - taking my towel down to the beach of course.

🚧 Shame

Fri, 10 May 2024 23:33:28 +1200

I have deleted what should have been this post since it wasn’t doing what it should. No time to debug now .. will come back and flag when I have fixed or got a workaround.

🚧 Setting The Record Straight

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 13:46:46 +1200

It has been brought to my attention that assumptions have been made - and - call me a stickler - that pisses me off.

Some level setting

My mum was born just outside of Manchester.
My mum’s parents were Mancunians.
My dad was brought up in Rochdale.
My dad’s parents were .. well, that is a long story.

I was brought up in York (not born - but then I wasn’t born in the UK - so there’s that).

Suffice to say that I would never have been able to play for Yorkshire - even if was good enough (I wasn’t even close … I got to play for my ‘house’ once because only 11 of us turned up) .. and by the way - despite what it sounds like my ‘house’ wasn’t part of a ‘public’ school.

(Oh - and in England - public schools are actually private - I know - it’s all fucked up}

Still, I am Yorkshire enough to know that this was a rule (until all the other clubs started bringing on international players and - well - ‘knocking them for six’.)

Suffice to say, I am without a doubt of Northern Stock .. and proud of it.

If You Are Keeping Track

It has been a while, but people that ‘fancy themselves with accents’ still pick up my Yorkshire twang.

My People First thinking probably emerges from my early (I wasn’t even a teen) introduction to ‘cooperatives’, that you may know got their start in Rochdale (guess who I learned that from).

He also told me all about Gracie Fields .. arguably one of the most famous Rochdale alumni (despite living out her final years in Capri) .. I sometimes wonder if this very early introduction to a singer from a previous generation sort of shaped some of my takes on music?

Despite never having lived in Lancashire, if there is one football team I could be described as supporting .. it would be ManU … because my Dad and Grandad were both supporters, ie long before it was fashionable to love them.

I am old enough to remember Cyril Smith .. and even though in those days I was not particularly politically aware, he made sense to me .. maybe that Rochdale fairness and equality shining through.

So What?

All this to say that when (and it is when - not if) I make a joke about ‘the north’, such as there should be customs at Watford Gap or the M25 is the inspiration behind the movie ‘Truman’, flat caps, ay up, whippets … whatever the hell it is … I am having fun - and dear ‘Upset Notherner’ - I would strongly suggest you get over yourself.

I would further argue that customs at Watford Gap would be highly beneficial to The North, because customs work both ways.

Facts

.. just a few - I could go on.

Flat Caps

Flat caps are dress accessories that fall between casual and formal. Back in the 19th century, a flat cap was a sign of working class men but has now evolved to being a piece of headgear popular among elites. Men who wear a flat cap these days are trendsetters and well-dressed men in Hollywood.

💬 W and H

🔗 Source

AyUp

… ‘appen, ee bah gum - its all dialect people .. and if someone from Yorkshire is going to accuse me of cultural appropriation OR cultural sterotyping - well - I say Fuck You.

Whippets

Have you been to a party recently? Read the internet? Whippets might not be what you think I mean. But let’s say I am talking about the dog .. they have been a recognized bread in Kennel Clubs around the world for nearly 1 1/2 centuries. Moreover, it was a Whippet that won the Frisbee Dog World Championship three years in a during the seventies. They are great dogs and why is it bad to be associated with Whippets?

The Myth Is Busted .. years ago.

Bottom line, this fits in the Politically Correct space that is absorbing this world in a very bad way. No - you cannot tell me how I want to say things or reference them - particualrly if they are MY HERITAGE.

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 08:58:27 +1200

🖇️ About This Blogroll Thing

I updated the base to include @ameripie and @jedda specifically.

While I was there - I found some peeps in my Feedbin that I had - but weren’t in the right folder - so fixed that and now the list is a bit longer. Discovering some additional anomalies;

@manton - Is there a way to make that list alphabetical ?

@simonwoods I have you - and I also have ‘TIL’ - but there are two different feeds?

@odd - I pulled what seems to be your feed - but these are your replies(?), whilst your real feed is here - raising in case you didn’t know.

Just to make it easier to check - this is a screen capture of the blogs in the system as of the weekend of 20/21 April. Proving it in alphabetical order. LMK if want to be added - or indeed taken off … all good.

🚧 Logged Blogs

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 06:42:20 +1200

🎈095/366 🚧

At the beginning of the year I had grand plans for this series. A daily long-form post about something that was rattling my brain that day. And then life. For a while, I was even just dropping markers - to revisit. I came to realise that part of the problem was the complexity of the structure for each post - so that went away. Simplicity really is rather nice. As I write on 240413, I am now going back and filling in the gaps. PLUS - unless something strikes me immediately, I will not classify until the end of the day and go back to move one of the posts of the day into the 366. Also - if you are wondering how I have update the words at the bottom of over 100 posts at a stroke, well - THANK YOU Andy Sylvester and his Glossary plugin.

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Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:19:24 +1200

🎈089/366 🚧

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Fri, 22 Mar 2024 07:18:30 +1200

🎈081/366 🚧

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Sun, 10 Mar 2024 22:05:44 +1200

🎈069/366 🚧

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Sat, 09 Mar 2024 06:18:35 +1200

🎈068/366 🚧

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Fri, 08 Mar 2024 06:04:07 +1200

🎈067/366 🚧

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Fri, 08 Mar 2024 06:03:43 +1200

🎈066/366 🚧

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Mon, 04 Mar 2024 05:55:27 +1200

🎈064/366 🚧

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Sat, 02 Mar 2024 17:55:30 +1200

🎈062/366 🚧

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Thu, 29 Feb 2024 14:06:10 +1200

🎈060/366 🚧

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Tue, 27 Feb 2024 16:40:39 +1200

🎈058/366 🚧

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Mon, 26 Feb 2024 05:57:42 +1200

🎈057/366 🚧

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Sun, 25 Feb 2024 08:04:24 +1200

🎈056/366 🚧

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🎈055/366 | 🤦‍♂️ Gah and Double Gah.

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 21:25:09 +1200

« n-1/366 | n+1/366 »

🚧

’Prompt' By 'Leonardo'

Gah!

That moment you realize that you should have paid more attention to that message about your phone account needing ‘topping up’.

The exact moment?

When your Internet service breaks.

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Fri, 23 Feb 2024 10:51:43 +1200

🎈054/366 🚧

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Thu, 22 Feb 2024 13:04:56 +1200

🎈053/366 🚧

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Mon, 19 Feb 2024 07:08:49 +1200

🎈050/366 🚧

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🎈049/366 | ⚽️ Football

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 09:37:19 +1200

Caveat ‘Navigation is 🚧’

« 048/366 | 050/366 »

’Football’ By 'Me'

I don’t know which I am more amazed by.

That I was half way up a hill looking down on this beach over the weekend and mesmerized by these 4 guys kicking a ball between themselves for close to a couple of hours in pretty intense sun. It was truly amazing - just gentle self control of moving a ball between them - you gotta know that i am no football fan - but they had me.

That being half way up that hill my 5 year old iPhone recorded a video of them - which I then cropped to focus just on the game and it’s ‘just there’.

Who needs a new iPhone? Really.

Click on the green arrow to watch the video.

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Wed, 14 Feb 2024 06:07:44 +1200

🎈045/366 🚧

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Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:00:09 +1200

🎈044/366 🚧

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Mon, 12 Feb 2024 06:27:24 +1200

🎈043/366 🚧

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🎈037/366 | 🔁 Serendipity

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:41:12 +1200

’Serendipity’ By 'Leonardo'

Is it catching❓Or is it just plain old serendipity❓

It was January 1st when I had the idea for the 366 series. It wasn’t fully formed, but I had to start. And, as the posts started to happen over the next few days, there were different ideas and formats running around in my head and being tried out. With the layouts, every time I locked down on a new one - I went back to the older 366 posts and adjusted. (Not the post itself - the layout.) I have never been diagnosed with OCD, but I have my suspicions.

It has now all settled down, a flow has been building, so much so that I have topics in my head that are maybe a week out.

The trouble is that some of the topics are big, and I know I don’t have time on that day and some get really big so have to flag with 🚧 - my signal that I will be coming back.

🖇️ Like this one for example, which I flagged with the emoji - but I know there is so much more to say that I even added words for more context.

Let Me Explain

I happen to share 366 posts into specific, yet different communities to solicit feedback. 🖇️ This one for example, has spawned comments applying the thinking to a game, which then moved on to applying that game to corporate workshops. Which is just brilliant really. No idea if any of that will take off - we will have to see .. I just like the idea that

a post on LinkedIN by someone I do not know resulted in
a comment from someone I do know that caused me to
write a post about how that triggered a connection to something that I bang on and on about which meant I had to
find that original post so I could share that, so it made sense
which then made the 2nd person in the chain seek to clarify the idea I was spouting
which I confirmed that it was indeed
so he then took that and suggested that a game could be developed around the process, to which I said
or maybe turn it into a framework for Corporate Workshops and ….

… and that’s where we have got to so far. In amongst all of that I have some actions I need to do to close some loops - but it’s all because of the serendipity of the different people coming together in this chain of thinking. #Awesome

But - and here’s the weird part … this wasn’t the serendipitous event that I was referencing when I first ideated the theme of this post. Not at all.

The thread started as a simple idea that as I came up with this project - so too did Om, who I follow and read anyway - but within his ‘river’, he has a sub-theme called 🔗 Project 36

I don’t really follow his photos (though they are really rather good), and I became aware of it because of 🔗this post on his blog, which ends with these words …

They really resonated with me. ()Om often does) and on the 3rd🖇️ January I linked to his New Years message because those words there in my mind right at that point because just three days in I was already feeling the enormity of what I had challenged myself to deliver, daily.

I also have a couple of posts in the 366 series that are very short - to maintain the flow - but they don’t take much time. Like🖇️ this one from the 28th January - it’s a quick photo!

But there’s more. fellow MicroBlogger 🔗 TeeJay seems to have also latched on to the one a day post. In his case - every single day he is putting a lovely image that he takes on that day.

Turns out - for him it is not a new idea. 🔗As his new year post points out. and now his daily photo comes into my RSS feed each and every day - reminding me to stay the course.

And to tie it all back. This whole post was one of those quick throwaways. I had the idea for a ‘serendipity’ post when I had seen Om and Teejay - it was up my sleeve to write it when I was short of time. Like today.

Short of time? What the hell happened?

The observant amongst you will have spotted that an ‘eye candy’ image accompanies every post. In this case, I wrote my two lines and hopped over to Leonardo to generate my image.

This was the first image to come out …

Seriously? Cubes? After just writing a a long post that featured a cube. Is Leonardo watching me? Of course I had to connect those dots and unpack that serendipity.

And with that … done. Time to post. A quick check reveals the word count to be roughly 100 times my original target. I know I am hitting the send button with the post not fully proofed, which is why 🚧 is at the top.

I will come back later to make whatever inevitable fixes I will need to do. For now though … I feel I have rambled to the end of this garden path and I can sense it has come around full circle back to where it all started.

If you are still with me. Thankyou for seeing it through.

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🎈035/366 | 🧊 TL;DR | VL;MR

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 10:17:53 +1200

« 034/366 | 036/366 »

’Cube’ By 'Leonardo'

This is published - but let me emphasize, most definitely a WIP. Hoping to get feedback from a few select people, not to say that I too am noodling more. I will return.

🚧

Out in the wild - and really - these days what else would you call ‘LinkedIN’, I 🔗 read a post by 🔗 Tim Parsons that had garnered a few comments. It was touching on a pet peeve of mine, despite TL;DR being a technique I use from time to time.

This was the essence;

Sometimes it just can’t be any shorter and still be useful. Some lynchpin bit of data or context would have to be sacrificed, a risk go unnamed, a requirement remain unidentified.
Sometimes information exchange has to include all the information AND the meta data it needs to build a bridge from you to me.
Sometimes “Too Long; Didn’t Read” is a terrible risk/reward proposition, and you have to go all the way to “Very Long; Must Read.”
When everything extra has been distilled out, but there’s still a lot there, that’s a sign of something complex enough to be fascinating, or at least full of critical, decision-influencing intel.

He ended his post with a reference back to the source.

I remember 🔗 Marjorie Anderson activating that thought in my head weeks ago, and now it won’t leave.

This resonated ….

Sometimes TL;DR simply must yield to VL;MR

Which got me to thinking.

You know how I am with that word … ‘content’.

To remind from one of many posts on the topic - just on this blog ….

As long as ‘we the creators’ keep using low cost, homogenous, non-descript words like ‘content’ to describe our work, our soul, our passion, our beliefs then our work will continue to be viewed as ‘free - to - cheap - to - low - cost’, ‘homogenized, non differentiated, interchangeable fodder’ (which coincidentally is what silos have always been used for), then, we only have ourselves to blame as the resultant payment for our art, our thinking and our ideas, will continue to race to the bottom.

And whilst on the topic of silos ….

You should never … ever … trust a Silo. It’s theirs. The stuff you put there is theirs. Even our' handle is actually ‘theirs’.

All this and more can be found in an earlier post here : 🖇️ Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Content

And it is not just me …

Just today

and last year .. Dana Carvey and Will Arnett brought it up (listen it’s a one minute snipped) on the Smartless podcast.

Anyway, with that all said … ‘set up’ done … ✅

So What?

It struck me that ‘TL;DR | VL;MR’ is the second axis I have been looking for in my one man war on ‘content’. So I drew the picture.

‘content | material ' on the x axis and ‘TL;DR | VL;MR’ on the y axis - and I was left with ‘Yeah .. so what?

The ‘so what’ was because I realized that it was missing the third axis …‘Entertainment | Understanding’

The fact is that so much that is running around the ‘interwebs’ is ‘Entertainment’. Nothing wrong with that, but VL;MR is really about Understanding.

Moreover, the front facing 4 quadrants are all about ‘Entertainment | Understanding’ and TL;DR | VL;MR - not ‘Content | Material’

So I drew it again.

The coloration isn’t quite right for all occasions, but in this particular context

on the entertainment side - it doesn’t really matter which end of the TL;DR | VL;MR spectrum you are - a 240 character tweet can be as entertaining as a 3 hour movie or a 1,000 page book, BUT on the understanding side .. sure sometimes a pithy one liner can shed light on an issue that a three volume encyclopedia will never do. It’s also true that a very short mathematical equation is very powerful when it comes to ‘explaining’ - IF you understand the language of math(s) (I like to accommodate both sides of the Atlantic if I can), which most people do not.

But generally that is not the case, because what triggered me is that context and history and space and time and .. is needed to really bottom out ‘Understanding’

So far so good?

I added the third dimension.

And we are there … nearly.

The dimensions are right - but the colors remain at odds with my thinking. I have the image in my head plus the colors need to be fading from one color to the next - depending on the context. I am not a graphic artist … and I could draw what I am thinking … eventually … and maybe I will return to complete / correct this.

But before I do that. Make sense? See where I am coming from?

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Sun, 28 Jan 2024 08:48:14 +1200

🖇️ 🚧 🔍 Posts I Need To Revisit

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 18:25:10 +1200

🚧

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

More about People First
Other People First Posts
(not just from the ‘other domain’ … all of them.)

Sat, 13 May 2023 05:58:21 +1200

🚧 Toying with the idea of a new post category on the site - ‘Living Pages’.

Then scrapping the ‘real’ pages altogether.

In this way, I can keep the pages updated in Drafts and use the excellent plugin from @donnydavis to manage …

Any thoughts as to what might go wrong?

(Just a test … please ignore.)

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 17:10:46 +1200

🚧 🔗 Streams of Consciousness · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer via ‘Om’.

More on this, in the comments, soon, like I often do.

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 12:32:05 +1200

🚧 Not sure what the plan is … or even if there is a plan … but I would vote from some more thought into how pages work on Micro Blog. Everything works just fine for a handful, but I am now over 20 and counting. It is starting to get hard to keep track of them with just a list;

which pages belong together❓
nested in the menu❓
is it showing on the menu or not❓

My kluge is to use emojis

… but emojis in the page title do not consistently show up on the site. See this compared to this for example - and yes - not yet fully consistent with

my page URL naming convention
pages that seek to help in some category promotion

🚧 New Zealand | The JigSaw

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 12:10:50 +1200

I popped in a couple of posts recently that are part of what I am naming the ‘New Zealand Jigsaw’. This post is one of my ‘living posts’ that will serve as the gateway to the full set, once they are all published - and assuming that I can publish faster than I can think of more topics.

Introduction

A MicroBlog Storm

Ardern Resigns - Hashtag

After Ardern - Bernard Hickey

Colbert Monologue

Compared To Iceland

Compared To The United States of America

Compared To The United Kingdom

Conversations

with Anna
with Mitchell

Crossing The Chasm

Investing

NZTE

Unrecognized Leadership

Thankyou Jacinda

Other parts of the New Zealand ‘MicroBlog Storm’

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 15:35:20 +1200

🪦 I Died Today.

… not me - someone else.

P O W E R F U L

I will come back to this at some point because I want to say something - but not right now. 🚧

🚧 Coordination Costs

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 14:07:39 +1200

The Stripe co-founders were candid about their failure to predict where the economy was heading. They also said they overspent on things like “coordination costs.” That’s not a term I’ve heard before, but I suspect it is a reflection of getting too big and too inefficient.

💬 Jessica Lessin

It's a new term to me aswell - BUT recently on LinkedIN there was a meme running around - which used this graphic.

It's pretty self explanatory. The formula is that for every person you add to an organisation, the number of potential conversations increases - a lot. If 'n' is the number of people in an organisation, the number of potential conversations is n-1 + n-2 + n-3 .... in other words ...

3 people ... 2 + 1 = 3 4 people ... 3+2+1 = 6 5 people ... 4+3+2+1 = 10 6 people ... 5+4+3+2+1 = 15

And adding 1 person to a 10,000 person organisation adds 10,000 possible new lines of communication.

🚧 The Coup We Are Not Talking About

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 17:31:59 +1200

Shoshana Zuboff calls this development The Coup We Are Not Talking About. The subhead of that essay makes the choice clear: We can have democracy, or we can have a surveillance society, but we cannot have both. Her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, gave us a name for what we’re up against. A bestseller, it is now published in twenty-six languages. But our collective oblivity is also massive.

💬 Doc Searls (my emphasis)

Hear her speak

🚧 It's A Pattern

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 14:49:23 +1200

In my book ‘For Business Leaders Slapped In The Face By A World They Thought They Knew’, I referenced an organization called 'The Prout Institute'.

It came to mind as I watched this relatively unwatched (in the big scheme of things) video.

Andrew Pancholi is definitely an interesting man.

It's a 2022 video - but predates the invasion of Ukraine, though not the build-up with the result that we have an immediate feedback loop on some aspects of how right or wrong his thinking is. (He seems to be right.)

The talk is only 35 minutes or so of the nearly 1-hour video (the rest is a Q and A) - and touched on many topics including China's penetration into the world that Peter Frankopan - amongst others - wrote about in his 2018 book The New Silk Roads. (The Guardian). An excellent book that if the future of the world is interesting to you, this book should be either on your bookshelf - or (as in my case) in your iPad.

There is part of me that questions the pattern making ‘proofs’. Kind of like the ley lines of England … that are in the canons of ‘lost knowledge’. If you are loose enough with definitions and correlations then yes - everything is going to align.

Still, for all of that, it’s a good 35 minute listen - and it gets harder to say that as each day passes.

Experimenting With Footnotes

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 13:25:51 +1200

🚧 I wanted to write this post as a permanent test of applying ‘footnotes’ on my blog.

Here in the time line it is almost certainly going to look weird if there isn’t a title - but the idea is to improve the reading experience on the site - and then of course explore what it might look like in an RSS feed.

Post Posting

The footnotes aren’t coming through hyperlinked. YET!

Click On The Arrow To Get Some Context

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.

Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.

Video embed test

youtu.be/F4SB8vIMt…

Blockquote Test

Normal

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.”

💬 Joe Blow

Hitchens Specific

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti."

💬 Joe Blow

Meanwhile ….. why not explore header formats while I am here

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:43:39 +1200

🚧

Just Finished Reading: Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci 📚

I don’t write many book reviews but for this one I will make an exception - with a good reason - but not yet.

I will be back. (If you will pardon a spot of ‘Arny Channeling’ !!!)

🚧Rebuilding My Micro Blog

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 09:56:14 +1200

By simply adding stuff / pages and plugins to my blog without thinking something eventually had to break - and it did. My thanks to @manton and @pimoore for pointing out the error. Turns out Hitchens doesn’t include a ‘Replies’ page - which caused my archive to disappear.

Flatearth time. I mean - everything. (Barring two hidden pages being used for 🖇️ 🔎The Readers Republic ).

The Rebuild

Install Hitchens ✅ - thankyou @pimoore
(need to move my footer into Hitchens footer.)
Install Conversation ✅ - thankyou @sod
Install Surprise Me ✅ - thankyou @sod
Reply By EMail ✅ - thankyou @sod

Next Steps

Install Bookshelves - courtesy @moondeer
Install Webmentions
Install Cards - courtesy @moondeer

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 18:34:00 +1200

🚧

I still need to write more about this - but no more dilly-dallying - time to share regardless. The image speaks volumes.

Credit Tim Urban via Chris Hladczuk

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 09:45:26 +1200

📚 🚧 Funny how you come across stuff that is so cool - and then it disappears again … such as the Literature Map

I used it to create a 🔗 series of 7 posts last year and then it got lost.

Maybe something to use in the 🖇️ 🔎The Readers Republic?

🚧 CSS Experiments

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 10:06:43 +1200

🚧 Experimental Post as I play around with the CSS ... a LOT!

“wise words being captured for posterity.”

💬 They Who Said It

simple markdown with cite separate

“wise words being captured for posterity.”

💬 They Who Said It

simple markdown with cite tight

“wise words being captured for posterity.” 💬 They Who Said It

simple markdown with cite tight and

“wise words being captured for posterity.”
💬 They Who Said It

simple markdown with attribution separate

“wise words being captured for posterity.”

💬 They Who Said It

simple markdown with attribution tight

“wise words being captured for posterity.” 💬 They Who Said It

Full On Quote

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.”

💬 They Who Said It

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius sollicitudin consequat. Etiam cursus blandit nisl accumsan fermentum. Phasellus faucibus velit non porttitor tincidunt. Ut quis erat ac nibh auctor tempus. Sed a metus sed dui pulvinar dapibus pulvinar et nisl. Sed consectetur, magna sit amet vestibulum dapibus, augue orci dignissim nulla, nec interdum ligula nibh at dui. In in dolor sit amet urna tempor pulvinar. In ut odio et ligula faucibus placerat. Proin pulvinar ex et sagittis molestie. Vestibulum dignissim faucibus diam, quis lacinia lacus mollis et. In fermentum ex quis consectetur semper. Nullam ut metus quam. Suspendisse potenti.”
💬 They Who Said It

Managing Complex Change

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 09:19:34 +1200

🚧 Brought to my attention by Stuart Robbins, who went on to write ....

It is known as the Knoster Model for Complex Behavioral Change (circa 2000). For those who would like to know more, search for Timothy Knoster. In sum, Knoster identifies the 5 key elements needed for any Change Management initiative to be successful, and the relative symptoms caused if/when one element is missing.

Stuart Robbins

Interesting. I went of looking further and found an even better image (see below) that adds context to the steps and happy smiling emojis that reflect the expected feelings! :-)

The keen observers amongst you will also spot a different order and an extra step - but the principle holds. (The principle being - as Stuart said in his original message to me ... (I paraphrase) ... how much information can be packed into a single image (doffing hat to E. Tufte.)

John Philpin

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 15:48:03 +1200

🚧 I have moved my blog from an old domain to this new space. At the same time introduced some design changes which on occasions causes the old posts to look odd. As I see them, I fix them - but specifically not going back into the archives to fix proactively - life is just too short.

🚧 Navigation

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 17:57:56 +1200

Photo by Anete Lūsiņa on Unsplash

Some Useful Tips To Navigate The Articles

The RSS feed is here.

Article Navigation

Like any good WordPress blog, searching by category is of course possible. We have also work hard to only have a single category per article.

We then refine the indexing of the article with free form tags.

We have also introduced a second layer of article - which is 'post type' ... using this filter you can find posts, asides, videos etc

Combine the two look for

category = work
post kind = video

Hit 'filter' and back comes the list of all posts that contain 'videos' categorized as 'work'.

And then, of course, you have search!

Sun, 03 May 2020 14:55:48 +1200

🚧 Seen two separate references in the wilds of the blogosphere to this graphic in the last three days - no original source. Posting for posterity to revisit at some point.

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 12:23:00 +1200

🔗 The Roam Cult

🚧 Me? I’m still on the ‘let me in’ part of the list. Anyone else care to share their Roam Reflections?

🚧 Extra! Extra!

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 17:01:00 +1200

Extra! Extra!
Read All About It.

Apologies for this interruption - and breaking with my cadence of one newsletter a week. But I felt this was important.

Read The Whole Article.

“ I hope you agree that this ‘bonus’ addition - more than any other - deserves sharing wide and far. Please do that and let’s make sure that as many people as possible are aware of that they can do - even at home - to help fight this virus. ”
John Philpin

🚧 Data Is Being Used To Screw Us

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 15:13:55 +1200

This popped into a thread that I am part of ...

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=63)&v=z-_ARP8m4Fg&feature=emb_logo

Yeshimabeit Milner

A thread that caused 'Friend of People First' - Adrian Gropper to write;

A talk that argues that most of the big data is being used to screw us and mentions data trusts as a possible solution. Data trusts are an immature concept but worth considering because it's one approach to decentralizing governance. Until we figure out data governance principles that are transparent and contextual to specific communities we should limit data aggregation by default and focus on personal agents and other fiduciaries.
Adrian Gropper

It is interesting because on that very same day I received these words from another 'Friend of People First' and occasional colleague Daniel Szuc after he received my newsletter declaring Data is Energy.

Energy is energy.
Climate is a result of energy misused.
Environment is the outcome.
What are the impacts on our environment today, inside people and in the outside environment people live in?
What contributes to the health or toxicity of the environment?
Data, understood deeply, should be used to contribute to the healthy environment ... yet ... how is it being used today?
Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong

The answer, of course, is exactly what Adrian expressed above.

It is being used to screw us.

🚧 Ditch The Binary - Redux

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 09:45:40 +1200

As I finished this short post, I headed out to the 'google-web-net' to see if I could find a suitable and representative image. I was failing unitl I focussed on 'Redux'. The images associated with Redux are highly Redux oriented, with a high degree of focus on their logo. What you might expect, given the name - but this is not about what they do. So I kept looking and discovered this.

It's as if Karin Edgett read my mind. The image was perfect and the words so in tune with my thoughts, that I couldn't resist.

My entry 'let go of everything or anything and breathe' is part of a series of paintings and haiku exploring infinity in it's transformative sense.
Karin Edgett

Back On Topic

Interesting to read this post from Doc Searls today - which also happens to be his birthday.

[blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2012/...](https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2012/07/29/the-final-demographic/)

Halfway down he writes;

For individuals, demographics are absurd. None of us are an age, much less a range of them. We’re animals who live and work and have fun and do stuff. Eventually we croak, but if we stay healthy we acquire wisdom and experience, and find ourselves more valuable over time.
Yet we become less employable as we climb the high end of the demographic ladder, but not because we can’t do the work. It’s mostly because we look old and our tolerance for bullshit is low. Even our own, which is another bonus.
Doc Searls

Two main thoughts came to mind as I read those words.

Doc doesn’t mention the boomer, gen x,y or z, he doesn't need to ... but he is circling around that world. And it reminded me of one of my posts from three years ago - where I was on one of my rants about the inadequacy of business having to define its markets by generations - if you are 24 to 35 you want this - but if you are 60 plus - you want that etc etc. I couldn’t resist and wrote Generational Categorization Akin To Astrology and not entirely coincidentally a couple of years later : Generational Astrology Redux. I think the second article is better FWIW.

Please stop talking about, categorizing and yes – judging people based on their age – and I do mean judging. It is absolute nonsense and yet we continue to talk and think and communicate in this shorthand because it suits lazy people in corporate marketing departments as they attempt to build personas that purportedly understand us so they can better target their ‘content’. And yes it is – just content. Homogenized, bland, insipid content that drives people along their customer journeys and through their engagement funnels.
John Philpin (Beyond Bridges)

I even managed to weave in some 'anti-content' sentiment!

Second thing? Why the newsletter from a couple of weeks ago - Ditch The Binary, which included a quote from Ashton Applewhite.

“Look at gender. We used to think of it as a binary, male or female, and now we understand it's a spectrum. It is high time to ditch the old-young binary, too.”
Ashton Applewhite.

Happy Birthday Doc ... there’s definitely 'Something In The Air' ...

[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTZoJ01FpD8)

🚧 Platform Failure

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 09:32:44 +1200

Sadly, this wasn’t what I thought this was going to be about.

A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail

"Platforms have become one of the most important business models of the 21st century. Five of the six most valuable firms in the world are built around these types of platforms. However, a study of 252 platform companies showed that 209 of them failed. The most common mistakes into four categories:
(1) mispricing on one side of the market,
(2) failure to develop trust with users and partners,
(3) prematurely dismissing the competition, and
(4) entering too late.
Researchers have extensively studied pricing decisions, yet managers still get them wrong. A platform often requires underwriting one side of the market to encourage the other side to participate. But knowing which side should get charged and which side should get subsidized may be the single most important strategic decision for any platform."
Kyle Westaway

Interesting what each of us takes away when we read articles. The quote above is from Kyle Westaway - and indeed nothing wrong with his takeaway. But there is more - and even the HBR article doesn’t really get down to it.

For me, platforms have been a key to my thinking ever since I read Platform Scale, which I first discovered by reading this blog, which I came to know through Jobsworth's Blog ... that I was certainly reading 10 years ago.

People, Passion, Platforms were even my 'three words' for a few years - but more recently I have been moving on. More on this to come - but increasingly I am seeing platforms as yes, a way to 'lubricate a market place', a way to do 'better business' and certainly 'good platforms' fall into place under this particular lens ...

BUT

But ... I can't help thinking there is more. Platforms serve the corporate masters well. Look no further than Uber for that, but in fact do they really serve people well?

Jeremy Heimans' 'Power and Values' model, I think highlights the issue perfectly. The graphic below is old, but I haven't been able to find a more recent one. Like all good 2*2 quadrants, top right is best, bottom left is worst and the other two quadrants have their challenges [efn_note]To be fair JH would disagree with my assessment - he argues that no quadrant is wrong - so long as you understand which quadrant you are in and work accordingly. And yes of course. But I am not in any of those quadrants. I am arguing for how people can operate in a 'Corporate First' society - and to me - the best chance they stand is in the top right quadrant.[/efn_note].

Platforms are indeed lubricators of a a market place, but they are also a series of silos. Deep, inpenetrable tanks that inside are wonderful - but don’t work well for the outside.

Quick Example .... imagine that you work for Uber. You clock up 10,000 rides. You have a five-star rating and then you decide that you want to move to Lyft. (The same argument applies the other way round). You now have 0 rides to your name, there is no star count, your reputation is effectively locked up in Uber. You have to start again.

How hard would it be to have a universal reputation that travels with you. Spoiler alert - not hard at all (technically). Very hard if you actually want these silo'd platforms to adopt your reputation system.

More to come, but just as Sangeet was talking all that time ago abou the transition from Pipes to Platforms - so too I am asking you today to think about the transition from Platforms to Protocols. Specifically open protocols.

It's not a new idea. It's just that some ideas don’t get much air.

🚧 People - Not Assets, Talent, Staff ... People

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 05:03:44 +1200

I just read this and decided to drop in a few People First tenets to remind us all .... the problem Kevin raises is not easily fixed - it is a systemic view of how people are seen by business.

Bunker19

🚧 Our Greatest Assets

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 08:13:46 +1200

Our fourth Newsletter just dropped. The focus this week .. People!

Hamid Ulukaya - founder and CEO of 'Chobani Yoghurt' presents his plan - 'the anti-CEO playbook'. A fascinating journey through the early days of the company - and how it's success can be reduced to .... people!

Secondly, A reminder that when you build systems and make changes in your organization, it's

Finally, for a while now, I have been writing about why we should stop using the word 'Content' to describe our ”book, novel, short story, article, white paper, promotional piece, advert, painting, sculpture, song, opera, photograph …. you get the point.

This week Om Malik and Khoi Vinh have both written about that very topic. Personally delighted if finally this message is catching on and gettingg through.

As long as ‘we the creators’ fall into the trap of using ‘their’ words to describe our work, our soul, our passion, our beliefs as ‘content’, then our work will continue to be viewed as ’free - to - cheap - to - low - cost, homogenized, non differentiated, interchangeable fodder’.
John Philpin - People First

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 10:52:00 +1200

Micro Monday Recommendation Number ‘FOUR’

once more with feeling

Just a reminder that I keep my recommendation history here …. in case you are wondering who else to follow.

🚧

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 07:09:00 +1200

🚧 Micro Monday Recommendation Number ‘FOUR’

🧶 just a reminder that I keep my recommendation history here …. in case you are wondering who else to follow.

🚧 Cognitive Elites

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 10:23:33 +1200

“A 'cognitive elite' will rise to power and influence, as a class of sovereign individuals 'commanding vastly greater resources' who will no longer be subject to the power of nation-states and will redesign governments to suit their ends.”

🚧 Equifax Breach of Trust

Sun, 10 Sep 2017 01:00:20 +1200

On September 07, 2017, Equifax—one of the “big three” credit reporting agencies—shared a quiet investor relations document with information about a security breach that began in May, 2017 and was not discovered until late July:

[Criminals accessed] names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. [They] also accessed credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 U.S. consumers, and certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers.

It took Equifax another 40 days to let people know outside the company.

The response from Equifax has been “corporately cautious” with little consideration for the effect on people.

Ironically, the company is offering “complimentary identity theft protection and credit file monitoring.” If you do sign up, you are also agreeing to the small print that signs away your right to be part of a future class action lawsuit.

[caption id="attachment_767" align="alignnone" width="1440"] The small print links to Terms of Use that read on Section 4: PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE SECTION CAREFULLY BECAUSE IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS BY REQUIRING ARBITRATION OF DISPUTES (EXCEPT AS SET FORTH BELOW) AND A WAIVER OF THE ABILITY TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION, CLASS ARBITRATION, OR OTHER REPRESENTATIVE ACTION. (Source: Equifax)[/caption]

Helping consumers understand the impact of the breach was handled so poorly that according to Ars Technica, Open DNS initially warned visitors that Equifax’s website about the breach might be a phishing scam:

[T]he website … runs on a stock installation WordPress, a content management system that doesn't provide the enterprise-grade security required for a site that asks people to provide their last name and all but three digits of their Social Security number. The TLS certificate doesn't perform proper revocation checks. Worse still, the domain name isn't registered to Equifax, and its format looks like precisely the kind of thing a criminal operation might use to steal people's details. It's no surprise that Cisco-owned Open DNS was blocking access to the site and warning it was a suspected phishing threat.

Many of these issues have been corrected since the release of the website, but it stands to reason that a company would want to secure the website they’re using to rebuild trust with their customers. News about executives within the company also doesn’t bolster their appearance.

According to company spokesperson, Ines Gutzmer, when Equifax executives, including the CFO, unloaded up to 13% of their shares before the breach, they “had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred.” This comes reported by Anders Melin on Bloomberg. Whether these executives knew of the intrusion, it feels that people in a power come out ahead in any circumstance: win or lose. The people who trust Equifax to hold their data securely are the ones that lose.

Chris Drake, the Founder of the security firm Armor, reminds us who suffers most from a security breach:

Regardless of emerging details, one thing is certain: big companies will continue to be the ones that make headlines when breaches occur, but the millions of people affected will ultimately suffer the most as their information is potentially traded or sold on the Dark Web.

Companies like Equifax can take this as a calling to make the people who use their services a priority, because it’s clearly not happening. Their investor relations document went on to assure investors that, “We ... expect to increase our capital spending in an effort to further accelerate IT infrastructure, systems and data security and resiliency improvement actions.”

[caption id="attachment_764" align="aligncenter" width="500"] "After falling as much as 12% in the after hours, EFX stock stabilized... then fell as much as 19%." (Source: Zero Hedge)[/caption]

Zero Hedge, an investment website, responded cheekily:

Oh, good, because a hack involving 143 million SSNs is one of those cases where capex probably should have taken precedence over stock buybacks. Don't worry though, because as it explains in the same quesionnaire [sic], "Equifax remains committed to delivering on the long-term financial model of 7-10% revenue growth and 11%- 14% growth in Adjusted EPS on average over a business cycle. Equifax’s long term financial model reflects our continuing fundamental ability to utilize our unique and differentiated data assets and leading analytical capability to deliver high value products and services to our customers."
Uhm, after this… what customers?

It’s more honest than I can write. We’re getting an idea of the truth, but how can we make this better? Our friends at Adaptable Security are working to combat unethical business practices by making privacy and security transparent, one company at a time. They help people understand which companies can be trusted with their personal information.

I spotted a call for papers on ethics in business as this story broke. We know it’s a problem, we know it needs to be addressed. Now, let’s get out there and do something about it.

🚧 Lost Knowledge

Wed, 23 Aug 2017 22:17:50 +1200

Forty years ago, I belonged to an organization called RILKO. As you can see, they still exist. A friend of mine, Randall Rospond, Posted this to his site today. And it occurred to me that this too is a 'little bit' of lost knowledge that we could so easily regain... with thought.

What do you think?

Tee Total ?

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:36:00 +1200

🚧

An Irishman walks into a bar in Dublin, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finished all three, he comes back to the bar and orders three more.

The bartender says to him, "You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it; it would taste better if you bought one at a time." The Irishman replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in America, the
other in Australia, and I'm here in Dublin. When we all left home, we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the days we all drank together."

The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there.

The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar and always drinks the same way: he orders three pints and drinks the three pints by taking drinks from each of them in turn.

One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars in the bar notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss."

The Irishman looks confused for a moment, then a light dawns in his eye and he laughs.

Oh, no," he says, "Everyone is fine. It's me..."
"...I've quit drinking!"

ITS.A.JOKE.PEOPLE

Originally Posted On Humor.Philpin.com - a now defunct site. I moved the content here for posterity. The date of this post is the date that it was originally published on that site.

🚧 Fainting Goats

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 04:17:00 +1200

Fainting Goats - click here … the video needs to be watched.:

OK - I shouldn’t laugh … but so you know

“Myotonic goats are also called Wooden Leg goats, ‘stiff leg’ or Tennessee fainting goats. These are one of the few goats that are indigenous to the U.S. There are two strains of this animal. Most of those found in Tennessee and the eastern U.S. are smaller. When the goat is being fed or becomes startled its muscles become stiff allowing the goat to fall on the ground in a fainting position.”

ITS.A.JOKE.PEOPLE

Originally Posted On Humor.Philpin.com - a now defunct site. I moved the content here for posterity. The date of this post is the date that it was originally published on that site.