🔗 On Paperbacks and TikTok - Cal Newport
In 1939, Simon & Schuster revolutionized the American publishing industry with the launch of Pocket Books, a line of diminutive volumes (measuring 4 by 6 inches) that cost only a quarter; a significant discount at a time when a typical hardcover book would set you back between $2.50 and $3.00.
Meanwhile in the UK, founded fully four years earlier, Penguin didn’t need the ‘qualifier’ preceding ‘the publishing industry’.
Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its inexpensive paperbacks sold through Woolworths and other stores for sixpence bringing high-quality fiction and non-fiction to the mass market.
History.
🔗 How The AI Bubble Bursts In 2026
We will see. We will see.
🔗 Rocket Lab Secures New Defense Contract … writes ‘Memorandum’.
Are we sure?
🔗 As I remarked on LinkedIN a couple of days ago
The order is for ..
the manufacture (of) 18 satellites for the Tracking Layer Tranche 3 program under the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
(My bold)
Replying To A LinkedIN Post
Linear sales funnels oversimplify reality and fail to account for the complexities of customer journeys and the importance of data in optimizing business processes - and more - IMHO.
Take Apple News vs iBooks - they’re both reading apps, so why is it necessary to have two separate apps? Because they’re extremely different reading and writing experiences and it doesn’t make sense to lump them into a one-size-fits-all approach.
💬 Michael Tsai
Nailed it and why I don’t';
- read
- pdfs in 🍎 Books
- saved articles in a browser
- listen to podcasts
- in a music app
- on YouTUBE
BUT anything I highlight, save, make a note on/in ANY of the things I am reading, watching or listening to all ends up in the same place.
(Another discovery in ‘Drafts’ March 2023)
Just found this in my drafts folder from April 2023 ❗️
I wonder where they are going wrong ..
For the last 15 years, many companies chased ‘digital transformation.’ But if we’re honest, most of us didn’t transform, we digitised. We took analog processes and made them digital. We moved pieces to the cloud. We modernised within silos. We upgraded the present - instead of redesigning the future for a digital-first world.
💬 Brian Solis
** I have a draft that I clearly need to finish that is exactly along this theme although I call it a ‘**data-lead people first world’.
A reminder from 🔗 Brian Solis - possibly a riff on John Caswell’s mantra - “the last thing you need near a problem is an expert”.
When Steve Jobs was finally convinced to pursue the iPhone (and he had to be convinced), he gathered his inner circle and asked: Who should we bring into this project? Naturally, the team responded like experts, they brought forward the “smartest people” in the industry.
Jobs exploded.
“I don’t want anyone to work on the iPhone if they’ve worked on a phone,” he said (minus the expletives). “Because we’re not building a phone.”
Rewatched 🎬🔗 The Thursday Murder Club last night. Turns out the first time I watched it I didn’t log it.
At the time I remember I gave it 3 stars - because being a big fan of the books - expectations high.
Now I give it 4 - Because I wasn’t expecting much.
I guess the truth sits at around 3 1/2.
Can New Zealand Win? No. Unless it redefines the game.
🔗 Responding to Bill Bennet’s article.
The dependencies are clear - but if the EU, with 450 million people and deep talent pools, is only now waking up to the fact they can’t compete head-on in AI and cloud infrastructure, then NZ’s current posture makes even less sense.
The EU’s defaulted to regulation because that’s what they can actually do. But even that gets framed as geopolitical interference by Washington. They’re playing defence from a position of relative strength.
NZ pursuing direct competition in AI, quantum or advanced chip manufacturing isn’t realistic. More importantly, it’s the wrong game entirely. Our constraints should force us to be smarter, not just smaller versions of what’s happening in ‘The Valley’.
We have genuine strengths if we care to look around … Agriculture. Biotech. Climate tech. These are domains where our size becomes an advantage because we can move faster and stay coherent. They’re built on foundations this country has already established.
From where I’m sitting, I see less of that and more of organisations either chasing every race simultaneously or reinventing the wheel in isolation. It goes all the way to government. Nobody asks the straightforward question: where can we actually win? We’re all chasing whatever we’re afraid of missing. The EU might sustain that scatter. New Zealand has no chance.
We need to stop managing dependencies and choose the fights we can win. Then do them exceptionally well. That’s the part we struggle with, even with our number-eight-wire mentality.
Then again - here’s a win - fiscally a BIG win
Chris Keall reported last week …
Rocket Lab will deliver satellites equipped with advanced missile warning, tracking, and defense sensors to provide global, persistent detection and tracking of emerging missile threats, including hypersonic systems.
Luxon has historically been a big drum basher for RocketLabs - but on this one - so far - silence as far as I can see - including nothing from www.beehive.govt.nz - as surprise given how often they are helf up as ‘a great Kiwi Company’ ..
Maybe it’s how these are going to be used for (apparently) the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture
So I guess we need to first define winning?
🎥 The Thursday Murder Club, 2025 - ★★★
I watched this when it first came out - with great anticipation - being a fan of the books and all - and ... sadly disappointed. Nice enough. If there was a follow up - would watch that - but definitely fell flat.
It’s 2025 - more than 50 years since The British Tabloids dubbed Andrew (formally known as Prince) ‘Randy Andy’. I continue to be surprised that people are surprised at how this all turned out.
I think it was @jsonbecker that wrote a post about 🔗 Introducing CSS Grid Lanes | WebKit - which I am only just getting\g around to look at and wondering - anyone get this working against their photo library in Micro Blog?
🖇️ Yesterday’s was the hardest to date. Looks like today’s is the easiest - at least so far.
