Another list. #winning
Systems vs. People
Apologies for the gaps twixt newsletters. Want to know why?

Trust me the words haven’t stopped - it’s the transport layer that keeps changing, because this newsletter is but one of a number of communication vehicles I use and as I have been organising my thoughts and perusing my collection of unpublished Substack drafts, it struck me that you might not be aware of the range of PHI⑊PIN properties that run in parallel.
I’ve added a link to a more complete drill-down in the ‘foot note’ of this newsletter, but to get to the point quickly: Last month I completed an analysis of the subject matter of my blog (which contains twenty years of posts) and not to get meta on you, I then wrote two posts about that 10,000-plus post investigation.
Read More here - but in fewer words …
… a long, rolling attempt to make sense of systems that don’t behave the way they pretend to.
… tracking the gap between how the world is structured on paper and how it actually functions in practice - whether that’s tech, politics, identity, business, or the internet itself.
… and the consistent itch: why do institutions keep choosing the path that works against people, complexity, and common sense?
… why do we keep letting them?
Have to say, very happy about that summary - because I sometimes worry whether the blog - which is more a ‘public personal journal (hence the title I guess),
… becomes a little less relevant. Then again - they say that a good blog is to write about what you are interested in and what you feel - and let your audience find you. Have you?
Also interesting to see such consistency over those 20 years. I guess it is who I am. (Also makes me happy.)
I then wrote a second post that explored the overall themes of the blog, which were;
1. Systems vs People
Human-Centric vs Mechanistic Worlds
2. Digital Culture and Identity
Category: The Internet as a Social Mirror
3. Organisational Drift and Work Dysfunction
Category: Structural Failure in Modern Work
4. Politics, Power and Narrative
Category: How Stories Shape Systems
5. Personal Reflection as Calibration
Category: Lived Experience as Data
A Guide To The Other Sources can be found here.
All this to say I feel that this newsletter is cut from the same cloth as my blog - (need for analysis noted) … and if these themes are interesting to you - and aren’t subscribed - we have a fix ..
If you reached this far and want to talk more - I certainly do.
Let’s set up some time to explore how Structured Thought can be used to help your business transition into the ‘Age of Experience’.
BTW - this is not your typical ‘Human By Design’ fayre - which is more typically this (The Sound of Silence) or this (Marketing in 2025) .. normal service will be resumed in the next issue.
These days I write using an app I help make called Obsidian, but it’s a delusion to think it will last forever. The app will eventually become obsolete. It’s the plain text files I create that are designed to last. Who knows if anyone will want to read them besides me, but future me is enough of an audience to make it worthwhile.
Obsidian is the foundation of my new Blot Powered Wiki.
Sometimes it feels that I see one of my federated posts on the interwebs - whilst on my own feed I get;
The page you requested is still being published. It should be available soon.
Where's Waldo
Ok - ‘where’s John - online’ - a quick summary of the network of words and sounds in the PHI⑊PIN domain.
🔗 The Bluestocking 393: Orcas and popstar perks
How was my week, you ask? Well, it contained 100 percent more orcas than usual, which was delightful.
Not being picky now - BUT
There is only 1 Orca in the photo. So for ‘100% more’ the other is hidden? Because if Helen only saw one - and prior to that only saw zero - then the sentence should have read something like …
How was my week, you ask? Well, it contained infinitely more orcas than usual, which was delightful.
… “something like” - because I would need to check my Cantor if it is actually infinitely - or another order of infinite .. it has been a while.
Just leave this here to marinate.
I guess you wouldnât think to look underneath the scooter for instructions as to how to leave the scooter ⦠though to me, it shouldnât be that hard to work it out.
This relates to âStructured Thoughtâ.
This relates to ‘Structured Thought’.
I guess you wouldn’t think to look underneath the scooter for instructions as to how to leave the scooter … though to me, it shouldn’t be that hard to work it out.
Just leave this here to marinate.
I sell my soul - but at the highest rates.
🔗📼 Harlan Ellison 18 years ago #PayTheWriter
Had cause to post this today - again - on a LinkedIN feed.
Just to say thank you to @sod - reminding me that passkeys exist for log in - which historically I have avoided - because all experiences to date have been horrible - on micro.blog - simple - clean worked in about 5 seconds. 💯
Spotted on the web this morning - @dave .. I think ….
It’s not decentralized, it’s uncentralized. Important distinction.
Just Good Music
Reconnecting with my Just Good Music cofounder and introducing you to an awesome video from ‘Ren’. Truly stunning - and if there is a god - he is going to go far.
About This Blog - Part Two
After this, I asked for “the top 5 themes of the entire blog - and how those themes might be categorised.”
⸻
1. Systems vs People
Category: Human-Centric vs Mechanistic Worlds
This is the spine. You’re constantly examining how systems — corporate, political, digital, economic — drift away from the people they’re supposed to serve. The writing teases out the gap between stated purpose and lived reality. When you pull the thread, it usually reveals misaligned incentives, bureaucratic decay, or the slow capture of human agency by structures not built for complexity.
This theme is broad, but it’s recognisably yours: the quiet insistence that the world works better when humans aren’t an afterthought.
⸻
2. Digital Culture & Identity
Category: The Internet as a Social Mirror
You’ve been tracking digital behaviour long enough to see its cycles. Posts float between the technical (protocols, decentralisation, identity plumbing) and the cultural (“what is the internet doing to us?”). You keep returning to the tension between centralised power and distributed potential — especially identity, agency, and data ownership.
There’s a through-line about the internet revealing who we are, not who we pretend to be — and how platforms distort that mirror for profit.
⸻
3. Organisational Drift & Work Dysfunction
Category: Structural Failure in Modern Work
You dissect how organisations lose the plot: misaligned goals, leadership illusions, management fads, the tyranny of systems of record, and the way noise crowds out thinking. It’s not just critique; it’s pattern recognition. You keep orienting back to: • why clarity erodes • why communication collapses • why strategy gets replaced with theatre
This is the foundation of your People-First and Structured Thought work — the blog was the long preamble to those frameworks.
⸻
4. Politics, Power & Narrative
Category: How Stories Shape Systems
Politics shows up not as team sports but as a study of power mechanics: incentives, misinformation, propaganda, social drift, and institutional self-preservation. You’re tracking how political narratives shape behaviour, how media distort signals, and how systems use confusion as a feature, not a bug.
It’s less “left/right” and more “how does power behave when no one’s watching?”
⸻
5. Personal Reflection as Calibration
Category: Lived Experience as Data
Scattered between analysis are personal markers — moments of doubt, frustration, humour, curiosity. These aren’t diary entries; they work like calibration points. They show why you care about the themes above and how your lens shifted over time.
It’s not nostalgia — it’s grounding. The personal posts remind the reader (and you) that all the system-wide reasoning still begins with lived experience.
⸻
How These Themes Organise Themselves
If you zoom out, the five themes collapse into three overarching categories:
A. Systems Analysis
• Systems vs People
• Organisational Drift
• Politics and Power
These posts decode how things really work — beneath the surface narratives.
B. Digital Life and Identity
• Digital Culture
• Decentralisation
• Protocols, platforms, incentives
This is your long-running preoccupation with how the internet reshapes agency.
C. Personal Lens & Human Anchors
• Reflections
• Observations
• Small signals
They keep the whole thing from becoming a cold systems textbook.
About This Blog
What is this blog about? Apparently it serves as a reflective exploration of complexity in various systems, highlighting the disconnect between theoretical frameworks and real-world behavior, while aiming to promote thoughtful navigation through that complexity. Who knew? Click through to read the why, the method and the overview.
Looks like someone’s lost the plot …
🔗 Russian oil has flowed into New Zealand despite sanctions
Then again imagine the price at the pump reduced profits of the gas companies if that hadn’t happened.
Yup - ð The Gaping Void Post www.gapingvoid.com/just-fall…


