🔗 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
🔗 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.
🔗 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.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 12, 2026
"The New Math (What He Said)" by OSI
I was sat on a plane reading an interview with Bowie who talked about this band he'd just heard. Made a note of it, and ordered it online. Their first album arrived and this was the first track and I was IN. How could you not be?
About Those Org Charts
Towards the end of last year I had a few questions about my latest rant against org charts. I mean, we all hate them - but it would appear that some think I’ve ‘turned it up to 11’ (RIP Rob Reiner).
They aren’t wrong - because I think the problem requires to be turned up to eleven. It’s louder.
Why Most People Think Org Charts Are No Good
They Don’t Match Reality
Everyone knows the real decision-maker often isn’t the one at the top of the box. Influence ≠ title.
They Hide the Humans
Org charts reduce people to job titles and reporting lines. No context, no relationships, no nuance.
They Ignore How Work Actually Gets Done
Most collaboration is cross-functional, informal, and messy. Org charts don’t show the messy bits - just the illusion of order.
They Leave Out the Important People
Contractors, freelancers, cross-border teams, AI tools, and shadow networks? All notably absent from the chart.
They Reinforce Bureaucracy, Not Agility
Org charts suggest you need to ‘go through the chain’ but we all know that efficiency is about people reaching out to those that they know can get it done.
They’re Static in a Dynamic World
Roles change, teams form and dissolve, priorities shift while the org chart remains frozen in time.
They Signal Status, Not Value
They’re often more about who reports to whom than about who creates real impact.
They Confuse Structure with Clarity
Just because you can draw it doesn’t mean you understand it. Org charts create a false sense of understanding.
They Can Be Weaponized
Who’s in, who’s out, who moved up, who got sidelined. Org charts can fuel internal politics and turf wars.
They Don’t Help You Navigate
If you’re new to an organization and trying to figure out “who to talk to,” the org chart is usually the last thing you turn to.
Org charts have become the wallpaper of corporate life. Ubiquitous, tidy, and comfortingly hierarchical. But they’re wrong - not just in how they look, but in what they imply.
Not only that - but they have become too complicated and detailed with the ever beating drum of The Fractalisation Of Work.
… and …
They are just wrong. Always.
That said - I do fit myself into every org chart out there … I assume the role held in the ‘blue’ box …
I can so this because work may have fractionalised - but I haven’t - and work happens at boundaries.
Crucial Track 🎵 May 11, 2026
"Thank You for the Music" by ABBA
Today’s post is a sister post to this one.
My memory … sitting alone tin a large Odeon(?) cinema - South London - Streatham. I really can’t recall the movie - except the closing credits - as Wiki says:
The song also plays over the closing titles as the camera pans out from the band performing in a hut on an island in the Stockholm archipelago to views of the archipelago itself.
That is my only memory and on that day, for whatever reason found it so uplifting. Where are we now? What 47 years later - and that memory is locked. That song. Locked. Loved it then. Love it now.
Abba? Sure I have great respect for what they did. The songs they wrote and recorded - but in all honesty - never really my bag.
Except this one.
🎥 ABBA: The Movie, 1977 ★★
Abba was never my bag, so why I went to see this in the Odeon (I think) cinema in Streatham, South London - I have no idea. It was fine - until it exploded into the closing credits. All this time later - I still remember the image and the music - a movie all by itself. Only two stars - but try to find the closing credits - sound up - on a big screen - dark room. Still 🤯
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
👁️ Software companies are brilliant at building smarter mousetraps; they’re terrible at asking why the mice are there in the first place.
Being ready is not the same as being able
Crucial Track 🎵 May 10, 2026
"When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease" by Roy Harper
I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan of cricket .. but this one is nothing to do with cricket and everything to do with life. Been in the soundtrack of my life for 51 and counting years and hard to reach the end without life memories coming to the fore.
🎥 F1, 2025 ★★★★
I have no idea why it took us until last night to finally get round to watching. But get round to watching we did. I now have even less understanding as to why the delay.
If you still haven’t seen it … rectify the situation ASAP.
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