The Machine Internet
“I started talking about the Machine Internet nearly 20 years ago, before it was even called “the Internet of Things.” Sensors and motes, tied to an analysis by wireless networks. Anything whose performance can be adjusted can now be monitored and controlled by a central intelligence. You can monitor the condition of parts and schedule maintenance before things break. This matters if the part is your heart, and its breaking could kill you.”
💬 Dana Blankenhorn
I’ll take that claim and raise you by a few years …
A group of us started talking about the topic in the mid 90s.
We had the obligatory startup … Flypaper … with a back end we called ‘The Megaserver’ - and without getting into the details - the system allowed us to render a website - ‘just in time’ - by assembling components out of a database. Our message at the time … the website only exists when somebody is visiting it.
It lead to some interesting developments and conversations.
I can still remember one scenario where we envisaged every car having its own website, assembled from thousands of components that each mapped to specific things and functions in the car … this is mid-90s… people didn’t get it.
And then came the DOT BOMB. And oblivion swooped in.
Still very proud of what ‘we’ built.
Definitely ahead of its time … I mean think about the tools we had in the mid-90s to build this thing!
I have left the tracking data in this URL for a reason
Workplace Productivity: Are You Being Tracked?
It’s the NYT - but comes as a ‘gift post’ from Dave Pell and Next Draft.
It’s a topic near and dear to my heart … having refused to join a company that was doing exactly this a few years ago. And they haven’t stopped …. I saw an ad just last week where they were hyping a $400K a year salary for some kind of VP Product role … remote work!! (Their modus operandi long before COVID)
The small print of the offer is built on what the NYT is writing about.
There is so much wrong with this story.
Apart from someone like Adam Neumann rising again …. it’s the old VC trick again…
The 350 Million ‘values’ the company at 1 billion - and so far it has done nothing. But of course - if you put 350 million in - and get - say 30 to 35% of the company in return - then the whole company MUST be worth over a billion … right?
Andreesen himself is of course hot on property … so this is right in his wheelhouse.
His father-in-law: John Arrigala - who passed earlier this year is famous in the valley for being the guy that owns ‘all the property’ that these businesses are built on.
Beyond that - following in the footsteps of Oracle’s Ellison … he has been buying up Malibu property … last year - in the space of three months - he spent around 1/4 billion on THREE properties in Malibu.
Of course - his main house is in Atherton (the most expensive zip code in America), just down the road from his father-in-law’s estate in Portola Valley.
Carry On.
And The Answer Is ... Nick Clegg!
Zuckerberg’s New No. 2 Faces an Old Dilemma: Distrust of Facebook
Seriously? That’s the problem?
The new ‘number 2’ is Nick Clegg
Wikipedia
During the party’s time in coalition, the Liberal Democrats saw a significant drop in support and the 2015 general election left the party with just 8 seats, which resulted in Clegg’s ousting as Deputy Prime Minister and his resignation as party leader. In 2016, following a referendum in which a majority supported leaving the European Union, Clegg returned to the Liberal Democrat frontbench, concurrently serving as Spokesperson for Exiting the European Union and for International Trade from July 2016 to June 2017. In the 2017 general election, Clegg was defeated in his constituency of Sheffield Hallam by Jared O’Mara. After losing his seat, Clegg moved to the United States after he was appointed by Mark Zuckerberg as Vice-President for Global Affairs and Communications of Facebook, Inc.
‘#Winning
🎬 Has anybody seen the film ‘Luce’.
Good? Bad?
In case you were thinking that what you really need is another micro blogging platform to add to your arsenal …
When did Zoom change its terms?
I used to talk for unlimited time with 1 person with a 40-minute limit for 3 or more people.
Now that 40-minute limit is universal.
Poll
Is this going to incentivize more people to pay or will they simply find alternative solutions?
Four Nil.
Against Brentford?
FTW!
💬
FTC weighs new rules to protect Americans’ personal data.
Here is a good place to start …
Meta injecting code into websites visited by its users to track them.
We really need to use respectful words to describe our value.
Liz Truss facing first sleaze investigation over ‘murky donations’
Two ways to take the headline …
-
first … and the second, third, fourth charges are due any moment.
-
first … oh my goodness.
I wonder which it is?
Kevin Spacey ordered to pay $31m to House of Cards producers.
… the award seems a little out of wack compared to Alex Jones.
No?
Truth in humour …
Have to say, the ad is so famous with much written about it, that I thought I knew all the ‘nuances’ - at least those nuances in the public domain. Turns out I was wrong.
“Find a writer you like and read them. If you can’t find the writer whose work you want to read, become that writer. That’s what I did. It’s great.”
💬 Cory Doctorow
What the hell has happened?
Me: Can I order food to go?
Them: Of course, our next deliveries are scheduled for next Wednesday.
Me: Sorry, I don’t need a table, just food to go.
Them: Yes sir, I understand. We require 5 working days notice for take-away orders.
Clearly somebody decided to attempt to channel ‘chinese architecture’ when they decided to put this up … they shouldn’t have bothered.
Whenever whoever erected this sign, there must have been a reason.
Ageism - It Never Gets Old 🥁🥁🥁
The promo on some podcast this morning (my bold)
While Tim Cook (Mr. Excitement) has been the CEO of Apple for over 10 years, he’s now getting closer to mid-60s and is probably looking past where he’ll be running things. His legacy is pretty firmly set and there’s not much more at this point he could do, so who will be next in line to run Apple? We’ll look at some of the likely candidates in the second section.
So somebody else could do something that Cook can’t?
Speechless - though not surprised.
- Branson
- Murdoch
- QE2
- McCartney
- Jagger
- Buffett
- De Niro
- Scorcese
… oh why go on?
They should all just stop - right now - because they are all clearly way past the age that ^^^this^^^ dude believes to be the point where you should just put yourself out to pasture.