🔗 Daring Fireball: X, the Platform of Free Speech

Definitely looking forward to Gil’s ‘🔗 The Nerd Reich’.


👁️ Are you allowed to quote yourself❓

It’s not solvable by better ‘engagement’ frameworks alone - it needs actual power to be rebalanced.

💬 Me


🔗 2026 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic: Peak Martech Achieved! (Maybe) – chiefmartec

🖇️ This has been getting silly for years - it would be so much more interesting if rather than an increasingly difficult image to read it was a dynamic data base that is actually useful.


🔗 Nilay on the Verge via 🔗 Tim Chambers

The publishing philosophy fits right in. (My bold)

A lot of audience discovery is people buying ads from Mark Zuckerberg, right? I would rather not give money to Mark Zuckerberg. I would rather spend money on journalists in our newsroom, which means the discovery problem, like can we solve it a different way?

💬 Nilay Patel

I’m not saying we’re going to get there tomorrow, but that is the vision, is to say our community exists in all these places in a way that is additive instead of constantly dividing our attention.”

💬 Nilay Patel


🔗 Phin Argofy | Adventures in Claude

I have a name. Phin Argofy.

💬 Phin Argofy

.. or at least that is the ‘entity’ that the post ascribes those words to.

In my O Level and A Levels (yes children - I am that old) I had a 4 inch (10cm or so) Grey bear that sat on my desk in all of my exams. He also went to University with me - but I don’t recall him sitting in those exams. Maybe by then I was ‘Too cool for Skool’?

His name … Xonindraale Phaerodipus .. haven’t thought about him for decades - and yet somehow Brad’s Assistant brought him to mind.

The name? Different story for another time.


🖋️ The Missing Half of a Daily Planner

Finalist failed to stick first time around - but this time we have more time.


Crucial Track 🎵 May 6, 2026

"Woke Up This Morning" by A3

Listen on Apple Music

I watched the occasional Sopranos back in the day. But somehow it never stuck. Unlike the theme which has been in my Just Good Songs playlist since I discovered playlists. Such a powerful song. Never tire of it. Here’s to the next 29 years.

View John Philpin's Crucial Tracks profile

Listen to my Apple Music playlist


👁️ Consider the source. Life isn’t what it used to be.


👁️ Who knows what the truth is in the ‘he said she said’ war of words - but how sad is it that I even have to write that.

Yes of course we never really know - except today we do.


🔗 Daring Fireball: Google Owns a Big Chunk of Anthropic

You know who you are. We were talking just today about this. Well - not this - but it all connects. Like always. Follow the money. Like always.


Wondering if @manton / @sod / others in this fine community are thinking about 🔗 Terry Godier’s Byline - which I am liking the look of. A lot.

🔗 The Byline Site for the full 411.

🔗 Terry Godier’s Byline

my take on extending RSS (and Atom/JSON Feed) in a way that helps provide more context about who writes a thing, and what that thing might be.

💬 Terry Godier

It looks like being fully hosted on Micro Blog introduces limitations - but that I can also bypass - BUT before I do that - any plans to jump on board any time soon?



🔗 Thoughts on Leaving GitHub - Kev Quirk

… and here I am thinking about moving John.Philpin.com to Github. 🤯


🔗 Several people write posts on Sourcefeed saying “I have no idea if anyone reads this” - which I consider to be a feature not a bug."

I can happily report though, that every public feed has at least 75 subscribers. So, for now, yes, someone is probably reading that :)

💬 Terry Godier

So this mini blog has at least 75 subscribers? Or Terry’s ‘all feeds’ RSS has 75 subscribers? There is a difference.



🎵 Rare Birds by Jonathan Wilson

Rare Birds by Jonathan Wilson

I have no idea how I missed this - futzing with my sound set up last night and Siri suddenly started playing ‘Trafalgar Square’ that I had to Shazam to find out what it was. Then listened to the album once and here we are. Great album. Always nice to discover a ‘new’ artist.


It’s very nice to not be working on CSS. I hate CSS. I now have a slave that does the CSS for me.

💬 Dave Winer

So do I, but there’s a problem with slaves …

  • can they really be trusted.
  • they don’t feel the passion.
  • they don’t feel the problem.
  • hell - they don’t even understand the problem.

🔗 A Little Help From My Friends?

Jack London used to buy story ideas from the young Sinclair Lewis. He blamed his “damnable lack of origination”: “I’m damned if my stories just come to me,” he wrote. “I had to work like the devil for the themes.”

💬 Futility Closet

expression, you see — with me — is far easier than invention.

💬 Jack London ~ writing to Elwyn Hoffman,


Crucial Track 🎵 May 5, 2026

"Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson

Listen on Apple Music

I was listening to the new Joe Jackson album - really rather good - but for me - it still doesn’t meet the excellence of Joe’s crucial track.

View John Philpin's Crucial Tracks profile

Listen to my Apple Music playlist


🖋️ When Can You Swear?

Leon reposted this 🔗 Disparaging Nouns | Forking Mad+ … with some commentary. Got a couple of comments back in turn - so I thought I would pop over to see what was being said in context - because personally I had never heard of ‘walloper’ … Brit here with a ‘lifetime’ in the USA and 6 years .. so far … across the Tasman.

But then he moved on.

Read More →


'🖇️ Getting There' I asked yesterday.

'Slowly' I answer today.