John PHI⑊PIN

Thu, 14 May 2026 17:11:45 +1200

👁️ Sometimes it’s like wack-a-mole.

Crucial Track 🎵 May 14, 2026

Thu, 14 May 2026 14:37:28 +1200

"Une Nuit a Paris, Pt. 1 / The Same Night In Paris, Pt. 2 / Later the Same Night In Paris, Pt. 3" by 10cc

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Thought I would follow a prompt for a change:

Share a song you call something other than its official title. What do you call it?

That's the way the croissant crumbles

Epic - from one of the most underplayed bands in the history of 'oldy goldys' - 10CC - and this offering will always be 'One Night in Paris' - I am English for heaven's sake.

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Thu, 14 May 2026 12:04:01 +1200

🔗 AI is the New Netflix

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 @ameripie )

I hear the Mac Mini is selling well these days.

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:57:08 +1200

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

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:52:17 +1200

🔗 Diagrams from Willem ten Rhijne’s De Acupunctura (1683) — The Public Domain Review

I know acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medicine.

I did now know it had reached the Western world over 400 years ago.

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:49:50 +1200

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.

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:27:02 +1200

🔗 via Simon Willison

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

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:20:03 +1200

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

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:17:56 +1200

🔗 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

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:16:38 +1200

Fully aware that;

3 of my 6 sites are very broken.
1 is a little broken
2 are not broken at all.

Coincidentally;

3 of my 6 sites allow me to modify things - a lot.
1 a little bit.
2 not at all.

Off to read up on correlation and causation.

Wed, 13 May 2026 15:13:00 +1200

Spotted on LinkedIN.

Wouldn’t ‘Battery As A Service’ be called ‘Electricity’ outside of the Bay Area?

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:38:57 +1200

We just don’t build them like this any more.

🔗 Markus Brunetti’s Monumental Photos Venerate European Ecclesiastical Landmarks

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:38:14 +1200

🤯 .. A ballpoint pen❓

🔗 Habib Hajallie’s Meticulous Ballpoint Pen Drawings Examine the Depths of Emotion.

I used to get told off for doodling in text books when I was a kid. This guy’s drawing pictures on Ancient Texts. #Wonderful

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:36:48 +1200

🔗 Creative Thought Is Essential: A Letter from Our Editor

Thinking is my fighting.

💬 Virgina Woolf

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:35:57 +1200

🔗 Ranked: The Animals That Kill the Most Humans

Turns out that visiting Australia (arguably host of some of the most dangerous critters in the world) is safer than just being a human.

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:34:10 +1200

👁️ Thinking that we need a different collective noun. From here on in they will known as Feral Agencies.

Crucial Track 🎵 May 13, 2026

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:12:36 +1200

"Perfect Day" by Lou Reed

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Whenever it doesn’t seem right … Lou sets me straight.

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Forgive or not to forgive. That is the question.

Tue, 12 May 2026 17:35:55 +1200

🖇️ Kind of related to this … Galloway and Swisher recently debating Tucker.

All for it - but not for ~F~Tucker.

He knew what he was doing. Hell - I knew - as my Tяump posts from ten years ago remind us.

But ‘he' didn’t know?

Fuck Off.

If POTUS Says It - Why Can't We Report It?

Tue, 12 May 2026 17:27:35 +1200

I was listening to Frontline - an excellent podcast (or show I get confused) - but increasingly annoyed by the bleeping out of expletives. Organisations like the BBC need to do the same. For FUCK SAKE - even bloggers I read write stupid things like ‘F*CK’ - who the FUCK are they kidding.

Bottom line - ‘rules’. News organisations are essentially blocked from using words that are the exact words POTUS says and writes because of ‘Rules’. But we aren’t. Are we?

🔗 😂 📼 7 Words You Can Never Say on Television

This needs to stop. News needs to be reported. And stop fucking sugar coating it - we need to stop bleeping and actually report what that fucktard is saying

Then again: 🔗😂 Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Tue, 12 May 2026 11:12:12 +1200

🏢 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.

Tue, 12 May 2026 10:18:25 +1200

Doc’s 🔗 Identity as Root plays off 🔗 The Root Declaration from Devon.

Not to be confused with …

🔗 I Am Root

Tue, 12 May 2026 10:14:51 +1200

🔗 The shared tragedy of Red Queen hiring | Seth’s Blog

Successful fishermen understand that casting an ever-wider net is not always the best way to catch the fish you need.

Hiring is Hard - like everything else. F-O-C-U-S

🔗📚 ‘Small is Beautiful’ - and a big win IMHO.

Tue, 12 May 2026 10:11:22 +1200

🔗 An explanation of why …

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.

Tue, 12 May 2026 10:08:52 +1200

🔗 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

Tue, 12 May 2026 10:06:17 +1200

🔗 How Not to Respond to Political Violence

I dunno Peggy.

Three assassination attempts that nobody really talks about?
Politicians living on military compounds because they are being threatened? (If I wanted to demonstrate to ‘the masses’ that the country is unsafe - I would choose to keep a few loyalists on military bases for their ‘protection’.)

👁️ Doesn’t really stack up for this bear.