Patti Smith's new book

Patti in her 2016 memoir Year of the Monkey, on dreams, loss, life and love. And reaching 70.

"Marcus Aurelius asks us to note the passing of time with open eyes. Ten thousand years or ten thousand days, nothing can stop time, or change the fact that I would be turning seventy in the Year of the Monkey. Seventy. Merely a number but one indicating the passing of a significant percentage of the allotted sand in an egg timer, with oneself the darn egg. The grains pour and I find myself missing the dead more than usual. I notice that I cry more when watching television, triggered by romance, a retiring detective shot in the back while staring into the sea, a weary father lifting his infant from a crib. I notice that my own tears burn my eyes, that I am no longer a fast runner and that my sense of time seems to be accelerating… I try to be more aware of the passing hours, that I might see it happen, that cosmic shift from one digit to another. Despite all efforts February just slips away, though being a leap year there is one extra day to observe. I stare at the number 29 on the daily calendar, then reluctantly tear off the page. March first."

"This is what I know. Sam is dead. My brother is dead. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My husband is dead. My cat is dead. And my dog who was dead in 1957 is still dead. Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen. Maybe tomorrow. A tomorrow following a whole succession of tomorrows… No one knows what is going to happen… not really."

Work is a hobby

One of the reasons I still go into work every day is that I still want to try being a software developer in an artistic context. 
I've always seen software as a creative thing, like writing, painting or sculpting, but most of my friends can't seem to process this idea.

I've worked in Dublin, Trossingen, Altenberge and with customers all over Europe from Paris to Belgrade. Now when asked what I'm doing I get blank stares when I say I create software as an individual.

But why do you work?
I work for myself.
Who do you sell it to? I don't sell it.
I do make some money from time to time, by selling something I've created, but most of what I create doesn't make money, the opposite, it costs me money to make it.

I got lucky with Wolfgang and perbit, the company grew and our products were successful and we sold them for a long time to companies all over Germany. I enjoyed being a manager and was able to do the job, sort of, but now every day when I wake up, I'd rather create something than manage something. I don't like being responsible for other people's careers any more. So my manager days are over. It worked well for a long time and the money we made has made it possible for me to live a creative life, which is where I am most comfortable now.

I make software for others. More recently I've made products only for myself, with good results. Something new happens when you relax the assumption that software has to be easy to learn. People have a hard time understanding that you can do art with materials such as compilers, servers, editors, networks, display screens, etc. In general they have no idea what those things are but they're similar to the raw materials of writing (plot, character, story etc.).

In a sense I want to go back to the early 90s, when the internet was still a twinkle in the eye, and I had the feeling that if we created simpler networked software products, people would use them. We've been here before with the birth of the PC.

Woodstock at 50

It seems apt that the attempt to create a music event to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Woodstock music festival ended in shambolic disorder: the venue being changed to a different state, the musicians withdrawing, the tickets then being advertised free of charge, and the whole event then being cancelled.

The 1969 festival was also marked by chaotic disorder and ended as a scene of mud and rubbish.

The Woodstock festival still seems to many a defining moment in Twentieth Century culture, a rejection of tradition and convention and the assertion of complete individual freedom.

Except it wasn’t like that, I never thought it was. The festival was running late, so late that, rather than coming on at the culmination of the event late on a Sunday night,  Jimi Hendrix and his band played at 9 o’clock on a Monday morning. There were not hundreds of thousands, there were a few thousand who had remained amidst the mud and the rubbish, and their numbers grew progressively smaller as the band played. By the time of the encore, the footage of the performance shows people streaming away, and even the festival crew, standing on the stage behind the performers, are looking bored.

The programme concluded and there was a flat feeling. The only conclusions one seemed able to draw from Woodstock were that, after a party, there was a mess to clear up, and that weekends are followed by Monday mornings, when it is time to get on with the real business of life. It was hardly the stuff of dreams 50 years ago.

Amazon AWS still Number 1 in 2019

For the ninth consecutive year, AWS has secured the top-right corner of the Leader’s quadrant in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), earning highest placement for Ability to Execute and furthest for Completeness of Vision:

People don't change

Unless they want to!

Humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skillset.

But only when we want to.

The hard part, then, isn’t the changing it.

It’s the wanting it.

One of the greatest mistakes....

of all time!

Bill Gates' biggest failure in his own words is that Microsoft didn't make Android. Hat's off to him. Most great men when looking back on their careers tend to be less specific in their regrets.

But perhaps he's thinking too small. I think his biggest failure was to miss that at the point Windows became the default platform, the role of Microsoft fundamentally changed, and he fought that and that crippled his company and the market. He couldn't make Android at Microsoft any more than GM could make a Tesla.

So perhaps his biggest mistake was not buying a big stake in Google when they were in the garage. And anything else that looked promising. One of his strengths as a leader in the PC business was that he engaged with criticism, and learned from it. Most people in his position failed at that, and that's why he won so big.

Thanks again to Dave Winer.

In Memory ...

of Marlon's mother and Joyce's grandmother, Lissy Horvath, 1958 - 2019, Elvis fan.

Who passed away very sudenly and unexpectedly at home on 14th May, a sad reminder that all things must pass....