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Searls of Wisdom for January 2024
Greetings from me and my Persona(BETA). In case you haven't met him, here's
what he looks like:
If you'll allow January to leak into the first week of February (as I have),
what a start to the year this month has been! I kicked off a brand new
podcast and cut 4 episodes for a grand total
of over 8 hours of explicit-rated, Searls-flavored content. Less importantly and
after 7 years spent cooking in the R&D oven, Apple Vision Pro finally
released, ushering in a mostly certain future amid a wildly uncertain present.
And the world is finally fixated on a problem relevant to my life: how much
of a time-consuming pain in the ass it is to fly between Japan and the
US.
But today, we're not going to talk about any of that. We're going to talk about
the nature of software and what it means to truly own an app.
You'll never guess what happens next…
Searls of Wisdom for December 2023
I bought Becky a piano for Christmas so I've been brushing up on the only
instrument I know how to play:
Congratulations on surviving 2023, everyone. Was touch and go there for a
minute, but if you're reading this: you made it.
Don't worry, I'm not going to do a year-in-review for this month-in-review
newsletter. One layer of retrospection is plenty. So let's just keep our heads
down and focus on the month that was December.
Turns out, there's more to it…
Searls of Wisdom for November 2023
I finished Starfield last
month,
which included this unsettling scene of my own avatar giving me some free
advice:
Having a receding hairline is generally miserable, but the frustration is
especially acute when futzing with a video game's character creator. As much as
I'd love to grant my digital analog the curly mop of hair I shed long ago in my
early 20s, I can never bring myself to so brazenly signal my dissatisfaction
with my own appearance. I will admit, though, I usually consider selecting the
hair I wish I had… before inevitably choosing whichever of the three balding
scalps matches mine best.
Turns out, there's more to it…
Searls of Wisdom for August 2023
Each month, it's my goal to get these newsletters out on the first of the month, and each month I fail. But in fairness to me, I took two overseas vacations in August and neither time did I bring anything to write with. Add to that, I just got home from Greece with that hip new variant of Covid everyone's talking about. So this month's newsletter is now a third of a month late as a result.
Content warning: more content…
Searls of Wisdom for July 2023
Whenever you read something I write, please know that I was having exactly this much fun writing it for you: 
Greetings! It was a slow month in the content mines, as I've shifted my focus back to Top Secret work at Test Double, the fruits of which will probably not be apparent for six months or longer. As a result, I can't really answer what July was "all about", because I was squirreled away working on stuff I can't talk about just yet.
Keep reading…
