Scripting News

Martin Luther King Day is Jan 16

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:03:39 GMT

It's the day we celebrate the life of a great American hero.

At this point I bet most Americans believe that MLK is that.

Maybe next year we won't celebrate this holiday. Maybe Martin Luther King Day will be deemed too politically correct by our government.

That's why this time it's so important to make the most of the moment.

And when we have to make a choice, ask WWMLKD?

What Would Martin Luther King Do?

Why #pngWriter isn't available yet...

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 15:10:00 GMT

I've almost pulled the trigger a few time on a public release of pngWriter, only to change my mind and be glad I did.

I often release software too early. Later, when I realize that I need to change the software, after the initial release, there can be three big problems.

It might mean renaming, redesigning or removing a feature. Users are usually very unhappy about any of that. If I wait, I get to tweak the feature set and there are no users around to give me grief. And knowing that they're going to be unhappy makes me conservative, and ultimately hurts the product. And it stops being fun for me.
I might have to change the product in a way that makes the new version incompatible with previous versions. That means migrating the users, and these days that means doing it so they don't even know it's happening. Those "corner turns" can be complex, and require a lot of thought and work, and it's precarious. If there's a bug in the transition code, it shows up in awful ways. If there are no users, no migrations!
Also, if I limit the initial user base to people I know will report problems if they see them, I get something back from having users. It's been really disappointing for me providing software for net users the last few years. You never hear from them except to tell you that you fucked up, even when they treated the software disrespectfully, sometimes incredibly disrespectfully. People these days are often selfish, uncaring, rude, and demanding when it comes to software. Sometimes it's hard to see why I should ever release it, actually.

Just being honest with you. Software developers are people too. I know it's hard to believe. :smile:

Now there could be a downside to waiting too long. A competitor might come along and make an even better product. That's a real risk. I've never gotten bitten by it, but there's always the first time. That's one of the reasons I've made my pngWriter RSS feed public, so at least a hidden competitor can see how to be compatible, if they don't want to hold their users hostage.

I think ultimately if pngWriter works two things will happen:

A market will develop and that market will not lock users in.
Twitter will see that their online community benefits from having people be able to express full thoughts, and the "png" part of pngWriter will become vestigial. It'll still be a great writing tool for Twitter users, but it won't have to resort to an egregious hack to let people communicate fully.

My pngWriter feed

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 02:50:21 GMT

I've been using pngWriter more every day to write blog-post-length tweets. Some good stuff that isn't on Scripting News.

So if you're subscribed to the feed for my blog, you probably should also subscribe to this one.

http://pngwriter.com/users/davewiner/rss.xml

That's all! ;-)

Blogger of the year

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 18:20:09 GMT

Every year around this time I write a post, like this one, in which I tell the story of one blogger who most influenced me, or most exemplified what blogging is about, in the past year.

This year, I'm going to name two, one who broke through, taking us to new heights, and another who continues a tradition of fine blogging.

Trump

The first is the one who made the biggest difference, who drove blogging to new heights, and that's the president-elect, Donald Trump.

There was a time when I thought it was a stretch to say that most members of the US House would be bloggers, and by that I meant someone who goes direct to constituents, without going through the press. This is the sources go direct idea that is so central to blogging. I also thought money in politics was not as central as people thought it was. More important was an innate ability to communicate. The new tools would become that powerful, I believed.

Now Trump of course, in addition to being an instinctively gifted blogger, is also a super salesman, in person and in front of a crowd. I'd love to hear Walt Frazier do the play by play for a Trump interview. Dishing and swishing. Feline quickness. All of the words that would describe an agile NBA point guard apply to our president-elect. Now these are not great talents for a leader, commander in chief, or statesman. But it got him elected, that's for sure.

You can read the archive of my blog to see what I think of our prospects under the upcoming Trump presidency. I am not a happy camper. But as far as his ability to communicate directly through the tools of blogging, we've never seen anything like Trump with a smartphone and his Twitter account.

Why?

Why did I choose Trump? Well, I think Pete Rose should be in the baseball Hall of Fame. He has the most hits of any player of all time. I think acceptance should at least partially recognize the enormity of a person's accomplishment. Is Trump how I wanted blogging to triumph? Of course not. But there is no denying the enormity of the accomplishment.

Marshall

There were many excellent political writers who I turned to for unique ideas in this election cycle. A few were outstanding, Nate Silver, Matt Yglesias and the person I'd like to honor, Josh Marshall at TPM.

Of all of them his editor's column is most like a blog. He often writes in the first person. He spends a lot of time thinking, but more than anything, he's a timely writer. When something happens, he quickly goes into motion. I find I can depend on him for instant valuable perspective in real time.

He has embraced the role of blogger as news transmitter. What he does there is not journalism, he is himself a source when he's writing on his blog. I read with great appreciation as he helped us through this incredibly turbulent and confusing year. BOTY-level work.

Press freedom is not my freedom

Sun, 18 Dec 2016 17:23:23 GMT

Brian Stelter in a short video from CNN says "press freedom is your freedom."

I don't buy it. Stelter is one of the more outgoing and accessible of the political reporters, but that's not saying a lot. I don't think he or the people who appear on his show have anything to do with our freedom, and I'm not in the mood to hear this kind of pitch after they sold us out in this election.

They're in the access business. And they all know it, and even the little people, like me, know it. So it's a total smh moment when Stelter gets all preachy like this.

Most of what you hear on the news shows are total lies. They're reduced to reporting on narratives, perceptions, optics, these are the actual words they use, but not the truth and certainly not the interests of the people they report for. A lot of people end up believing the lies, they vote based on the lies, or they go elsewhere to get other lies.

When they report on plans to kill Social Security, why isn't the headline about how it will affect the people? It's more about the horse race, and one party's chances to control the Senate in 2018. (Which is incredibly pathetic given that all the horse race coverage in 2016 was in the end totally worthless.) Millions of Americans, your readers, are going to lose their retirement savings. Why is it so hard to adopt that point of view?

It's totally apparent that we have to re-form journalism around the needs of voters, and ignore the charade. It's just acting-for-advertising, that's all that's going on here.

In 2004, when I lived in Boston, I heard a commercial on the local NPR station, a pledge drive in which the president of the station said "you are the owner of the station." The you in that sentence referred to the listener who in this case was me, Dave Winer. I was an academic and curious if that could be chased down, so I called her, got routed to a PR person who sent me their annual report, a glossy brochure and a letter asking me to contribute money. At no point was there a discussion of how I wanted my station to cover the news, or a suggestion of an idea that I might contribute content or even technology to the station that after all I was the owner of. (I wanted to tell them about the then-nascent podcasting, btw.)

Part of not normalizing our political situation is to not accept the way American journalism has evolved up to 2016. It doesn't work because it is centered on the perspective of a small number of people in New York and Washington. There is a solid impenetrable wall around it. It can't get better until it emerges outside the wall. A reboot has yet to happen and until it does I think the exact opposite of what Stelter says.

Their idea of "freedom" is killing our country.

PS: The fundamental mistake of journalism in the 2016 election is summarized thus: "So many people let this be about Hillary vs insanity when it was really all of us vs insanity."

PPS: I had another experience like the one with WBUR, about 25 years earlier. I realized when I was a comp sci grad student that encyclopedias, which came as huge sets of books, would work better if they were digitized. I wanted to start to work on this. So I contacted Encyclopedia Britannica, which was then the #1 encyclopedia, to open a discussion. Instead they sent a salesman to my apartment in Madison. He kept coming. I was a single grad student, no kids, with access to an incredible library at the university, and not much money. I was not in any way a customer for his product. But he kept coming. Every visit a reminder of how deaf his employer is. (Yes I do see the irony of pointing to the Wikipedia page for Britannica.)

Ignore Trump as much as you can

Sat, 17 Dec 2016 17:25:19 GMT

Should you pay attention to Trump's tweets? No.

First, my guess is that Trump made a deal with Pence similar to the one he offered to Kasich. Pence really runs the country and foreign policy while Trump "makes America great again."

Pence is getting the daily briefings, and he will be in the Situation Room when there's a crisis. And he is forming the government. All those meetings and dinners Trump has don't mean a thing. He's not making the decisions.

The deal they made is that Trump gets to be the frontman, he can talk to other world leaders so it looks to them like he's running things, but it's really the extreme Christian part of the Repub Party that's running things. (And the other world leaders get signals about what's really going on, so they know not to blow up the world because he said something idiotic.)

Trump is the outrageous distraction that draws your attention while the magician is doing his magic.

Here's what you should be paying attention to: The way the US is going to be looted by the Repubs this time. They'll try to finish the job the Repubs did last time, and to the extent they can, we'll be left with as big a wreck to dig out of when they're finished.

Tax cuts, war and a bubble

Tax cuts -- they will cut taxes drastically, and pay for it by completing the absorption of "entitlements" like ObamaCare, Medicare and Social Security into the treasury. There's a lot of money sitting there waiting for them to grab. And they do the transfer by cutting taxes.

War -- They'll start another war. This transfers government wealth to defense contractors, all Repubs.

Bubble -- There will be another bubble, made possible by the repeal of banking regulations. All kinds of scams will be legal.

That's it. We've seen this before. They can do it all right now because they control Congress and the White House. They will try to do it all very quickly because in two years, they might lose Congress, even with all the gerrymandering and voter suppression they now depend on. This is what you should pay attention to, not whether or not the person who's standing in for Trump on Twitter can spell a particular word.

pngWriter as idea processor

Fri, 16 Dec 2016 15:50:49 GMT

My first commercial software product was ThinkTank.

We called it an idea processor -- to differentiate it from the production tools of the day -- word processors, spreadsheets, databases. Places where you did your work. ThinkTank was for your ideas.

It really worked. I use a descendent of ThinkTank to this day to organize. I couldn't do anything very complex without it.

I've just been using pngWriter on my main Twitter account for a couple of days. I'm no longer using it to test the functionality. It works. I'm using it to test utility. That is, is it useful, and if so, how?

It's turning Twitter into an idea processor for me. A very different kind of idea processor from ThinkTank. This is not an outline. I don't even worry about holding on to posts. Because they're like Twitter things. Quick, stream of consciousness. Not much if any editing. That's a lot like the initial mode of outlining. Just get your ideas down, don't worry about how they relate. That comes later.

What's different about Twitter is all the other people.

If they get turned on by an idea you get feedback right away. And because I get a chance to fully express an idea where 140 chars would never have been enough, their feedback actually means something other than the usual grunts and snorts. It'll be interesting to see what happens when some of them have pngWriter too.

BTW, you can only use pngWriter for original posts, not replies. I wonder if that's a feature or a bug. :cat:

PS: This post began as a pngWriter post.

Jerry Brown got me thinking

Fri, 16 Dec 2016 14:28:31 GMT

Another pngWriter-originated post that should be here on Scripting News.

I was reading a story about how Jerry Brown says fuck you Trump if you take down the climate change satellites, we'll just launch our own.

I thought wow that's ballsy. I like it. I wonder if New York State could get in on some of that action. I'd offer to pay extra taxes for that. Why not.

Then I thought great, let's start an association of states with Democratic governors. We'd do cool things like provide health care for our citizens and give them free college. Yeah the taxes might be higher, but who wants to live in a state with a lot of sick uneducated people.

Then I realized the best part of it -- it would give people an incentive to elect a Democratic governor so they could get in on all this great stuff.

Why can't politics be that results-oriented? It's simple. You do something for me, and I support you. Everyone makes it so complicated. But that's what it comes down to. I like breathing clean air. I want government to work. I'm tired of super-rich people fucking over everyone else. If you agree, just elect Democratic state government, and we can go from there.

The Altered States of America!

Fri, 16 Dec 2016 00:43:14 GMT

I watched Jerry Brown give a kickass speech today. I was inspired! Watch it and you will be too. Then come back here. This began as a sequence of tweets. I didn't edit it much.

Jerry Brown is going to be President of the Alt-States of America.

Or maybe that's the Altered States of America?

No reason we can't bootstrap the successor to the USA in the USA itself. Kind of like how Mac OS X is also Unix underneath the GUI.

The President of the Altered States of America would always have a title, like the pope. Obviously our founder would be President Moonbeam I.

Obviously marijuana is legal in the Altered States of America.

Our national anthem would be Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee. Or maybe this one. Or this!

And this is how we factor out the Republiscam Parody. Your state can't join the Altered States until you get a Democratic governor and legislature. And agree to support ObamaCare exactly as it was legislated and ratified by the Supreme Court of the Legacy Government.

You also have to agree to fight climate change.

Demo of pngWriter

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 18:04:44 GMT

I'm getting pretty close with pngWriter, the kinder, gentler way to do tweetstorms. I did a video demo of the software last week. Have a look.

http://scripting.com/2016/12/08/pngWriterDemo.m4v

It's rough, there was no script, but if you watch it you'll see the software in action and can't fail to get the idea, imho.

Hope you like! :-)

PS: It's pronounced as if there was an I between the P and the N.

PPS: Here's an example of a post I wrote with pngWriter.

PPPS: And my pngWriter RSS feed.

The spirit of feedback

Wed, 14 Dec 2016 15:08:12 GMT

I was a math major in college and one thing math majors like to do is show other math people how we proved something and let them find problems with our work.

I then became a programmer, and designed software for people to use, and believe me, you become a sponge for feedback if you want to do this well. You get good at soliciting feedback, and listening to it, understanding what people are really saying (they often don't know the vocabulary) and asking for more info.

Good software is made out of, in addition to programming, lots of listening.

It's in that spirit that I offer feedback to journalism and political leaders.

We need to do better.

Two must-reads

Wed, 14 Dec 2016 14:49:34 GMT

Two must-reads for today.

Seriously, make the time, asap to read this and listen to this.

Now for some comments..

Missing leadership

Dahlia Lithwick and David Cohen ask in a NYT op-ed -- where is the Democratic Party leadership? The US is a car that's not in a ditch this time, it's flying off the edge of a cliff and about to fall into the abyss. And the Democrats seem too scared of being insulted by the Repubs to fight it.

Impassioned citizens have been pleading with electors to vote against Mr. Trump; law professors have argued that winner-take-all laws for electoral votes are unconstitutional; a small group, the Hamilton Electors, is attempting to free electors to vote their consciences; and a new theory has arisen that there is legal precedent for courts to give the election to Mrs. Clinton based on Russian interference. All of these efforts, along with the grass-roots protests, boycotts and petitions, have been happening without the Democratic Party.

Three people have been outstanding in their leadership. Larry Lessig, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow.

As a developer, I am ready to work with any leadership that shows up to build social networks that empower us to organize.

The tools we're using primarily to organize are well-understood and mature. For the next round we're going to need to try new ideas. I stand ready to work with anyone who stands up to lead.

Lakoff

I've written about Lakoff a number of times, I even did a podcast interview with him in 2006. The recording I pointed to is an interview on NPR's On The Media. If you want to understand the language of politics, and how we must use it better, it's 10 minutes well-spent.

Trump is a constitutional crisis

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 21:18:41 GMT

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that began with a clip from The West Wing.

Josh finds CJ outside the White House and says Leo is worried how it will look that they polled to find out what people thought of the president's MS which he had been hiding. CJ laughs. You guys are like Robert Redford worrying about jumping off the cliff, because he can't swim. Paul Newman laughs "Don't worry, the fall will probably kill you."

People worry about the constitutional crisis if the Electoral College doesn't ratify Trump's election. Hah either way we're in a nonstop constitutional crisis for the foreseeable future. We probably will never come out of it. That's how dire things actually are, as opposed to the Neverland a lot of people are still living in.

Donald Trump is, in every way, a walking constitutional crisis. You don't need me to list the ways. If you've been paying attention you know full well. For one, there's no divestiture possible that could keep him from being guilty under the Emoluments Clause. And that's just the beginning.

The instant he takes the oath of office we're in constitutional crisis.

But don't worry, the fall will kill you. ;-)

Chris Hayes in TrumpLand

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 14:30:30 GMT

So with one tainted election behind us, and the tainted candidate getting ready to take office, what are the chances of the US ever having a non-tainted election in the future? Virtually non-existent, imho.

A few weeks before the election, before the Comey catastrophe, I thought our biggest challenges were climate change and the ineffectiveness of antibiotics. But all that was on a slow track. Now the challenge is right here, right now.

I watched a town hall meeting on MSNBC last night, hosted by Chris Hayes, with Bernie Sanders as the guest, but the real stars were the voters of Kenosha. It was an eye-opener. Maybe Hayes should do his show from Kenosha for the next month, with guests from the community. There were a lot of juicy threads that were not followed-through on.

It seemed as if many of them had not met each other before. That was interesting.

The Trump voters, and there were quite a few, said some things that I think they are going to learn are wrong, and that will happen soon, especially if somehow there can be cross-pollination of news from MSNBC-land to and from Wisconsin-land, they might hear about the disasters-in-the-making before they are actually complete.

A Trump voter said, with no dissension, that the racist stuff that Trump campaigned on wasn't real. But it is real. A Muslim woman there, born in Wisconsin, she spoke with a Wisconsin accent, wore a hijab, said she was scared for herself and her family. There's talk in TrumpLand (the one on Fifth Ave in NYC) of requiring Muslims to register, even Muslims who are American citizens. So there it is. The racism is real. Registering comes first. Then armbands, then...

Do the Trump voters know that Congress, of the same party as the incoming president, is organizing to turn Social Security, Medicare and the ACA into a huge tax cut for the super wealthy? That's your future. No retirement, even though you already paid for it, and you can buy health insurance with money you don't have from an insurance industry that won't sell it to you.

They seemed confident that there would be time to vote Trump out in four years. A big misunderstanding about how long it takes to undo social programs if you don't care about the people who depend on them.

I doubt if the Repubs care one bit about how Mr Trump Voter from Kenosha plans to vote in 2020. Their goal is to loot their future right now. Cleaning up the human mess? Well if there are real elections (see above) and they lose, the Democrats can clean it up, like they did last time. That didn't get your auto plant to come back did it? And it won't get your Medicare back next time. By then your Social Security money will be in the bank accounts of already-rich Repub backers.

I know I'm talking to no one. Nothing can prevent the fall into the abyss. We're not in there yet, but we're going down. Not much more to say.

Was Trump born in Russia?

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 03:15:52 GMT

Some people say he was born in the US, or not. I don't know. But you should check it out. Have you seen the birth certificate? I haven't seen it. In fact I don't know anyone who has. Hmm.

You know how when someone accuses you of something out of the blue, it's pretty likely that they're doing the thing they're accusing you of? Like your wife says you're cheating, but you're not. That means she is. This happens all the time.

So when Trump said Obama was born in Uruguay or Egypt or wherever, and that meant he wasn't qualified to be president, that means that Trump was born in Germany or Russia. He was saying he is a "Manchurian Candidate."

I think we now understand exactly what's going on.

How to make news for the people

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 16:50:04 GMT

If journalism wants to care about the working class, start publishing stories written by the working class.

Locate one of your studios in the middle of the country. Give Michael Moore an hour every weeknight for a show emanating from Flint. Find the Michael Moore of Phoenix. And Dallas.

Put the news people where the people live, and not concentrated in New York and Washington. That would be an instant shakeup and guarantee that the perspective on the stories changes.

Give the rest of the country a chance to write the news.

And when the reps in Washington vote to kill Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, report on that from the point of view of a retired person living on Social Security, or a person who, without the ACA would be uninsured.

It's simple, act decisively to remember the people you've been forgetting.

Perspective is everything

Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:10:11 GMT

It's all about point of view.

I listened to a podcast yesterday at the recommendation of a friend. It's the story of a woman reporter for NPR talking about her experiences covering the presidential campaign, "as a Muslim."

That's one perspective. Another would be from the people she encountered, people who thought the United States was a country of white people, and were willing to say it to her. (She wears a hijab, but from the podcast she says she's not dark-skinned.)

If you want the perspective from their point of view, watch this video of interviews with Trump voters before the election. You see where they live, how they relate to each other. It's remarkable how much of what they say are straight recitals of Trump talking points. This is one of the best things I've seen, heard or read about the election. A real eye-opener.

It helped me understand how broken we are, as a country. Because it's not true that the country is for white people. That's just something people say. The NPR reporter was born in Indiana, speaks like all of us, she's American. But if Trump could so easily convince white people to fear Muslims, he could do it for any other race or ethnicity.

Anyway, that's not exactly the point of this piece. First I wanted to establish that point of view is integral to what your truth is. If you're a Muslim reporter for NPR you see it from one point of view, and if you are a white person in Des Moines you see it a different way.

A tip for journalism

Look at this screen shot of current stories about the changes that Repubs want to make, right now, to Social Security. They're all from the point of view of who? Reporters, Washington insiders, and unfiltered Republican misdirection.

Not represented is the point of view of a retired person in the Bronx or Sarasota or West Des Moines, who has paid into Social Security all their life and is now depending on the payments, and is going to lose them.

For them the headline would be "Repubs want to take your Social Security."

I think there's a good argument for changing take to steal. Maybe that's too much for a reporter to say. But it's not too much to put the cost to the reader/viewer up front. Imho that's where I believe it should be, must be, if you're doing your job.

And the article should clearly explain how you can register your displeasure immediately and clearly.

It's funny because I heard Megyn Kelly, also in a recent podcast, say that she reps the interests of her viewers. She sounded like she meant it. I like Megyn Kelly. I think she's sharp and she has courage. But I'm pretty sure Fox News isn't presenting the news from the viewer's perspective. They're probably running with the Republican myth that they're "saving" Social Security. In a sane world, reporters should be exposing the lie fully to their constituents and helping them act. And if it means cutting off a Republican spinmaster, all the better.

This is a missing component of today's journalism, the point of view of the reader. If you all could focus more on that, the readers would take more interest in your product.

Kleptocracy futures

Fri, 09 Dec 2016 17:12:40 GMT

Seeing all the Goldman Sachs people appointed to high positions in the new administration makes me think the next bubble will be derivatives created from the assets of the US government. Why be content with loaning money to the US for mere interest, when you can actually buy the country itself?

This is innovation in America in 2016. The Russians perfected the idea of looting the government for the enrichment of the friends of the government. In the United States, we're more democratic and inclusive -- we offer the same opportunity to everyone from everywhere. Goldman Sachs is running the IPO. What are they selling? You and me. Everything you own that isn't nailed down. Your Medicare, Social Security, your kids' education, the roads and bridges, the Internet, you name it, it's in there.

The only concern is when the bubble bursts this time we won't have anything left to bail them out with. Sad.

Trump's cabinet is a horror show

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 22:44:12 GMT

Joan Walsh's latest piece about Trump's staffing choices is inspiring .

He’s betrayed his working-class supporters by naming a cabinet of millionaire and billionaire insiders.

The Dems aren't going to tell the story. They're too confused and disorganized. No leadership.

All the bullet points in her story need to be ads that run on CNN, Fox and MSNBC, starting now, before the confirmations start. Get the people involved.

There are many thousands of people who would chip in to fund those ads. Can't count on the press (they're trying to be friends with the new administration) or the Dems (who knows what they're thinking).

Ads, like the ones Hillary ran, but not based on what could happen, on what is happening.

Silent vigils in the cities

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 19:52:06 GMT

I just saw a great video on Facebook, from a descendant of Alexander Hamilton, saying exactly what I've been saying to anyone who will listen. It's time to show support for the country, and for the electors. Not a protest, demonstration or march. A silent (or at least quiet) presence at government buildings all around the country, every night until December 19. Maybe even after that.

There's a lot of pressure on the electors. Let's show them we are behind them. For that we have to be there, physically. You can't "stand" for the country by signing a petition or sending email. You personally have to be there. In the cold and dark with a candle you bring, to provide the light.

Here's what I want to do. I want to start a Facebook group that's just for organizing the silent candlelight vigils around the country.

So for example, there would be a place in San Francisco, probably Market Street by the Ferry Building. In New York, Columbus Circle and Union Square in Manhattan. Some place central in each of the boroughs. Every city and town would organize something.

The vigils start at sunset every night and go through say 10PM or so. These are not "occupy" events. They are coordinated with law enforcement. We are quiet and still. No marching, no chants. Just people standing in observation, just standing up for America.

Everything else is forgiven. We can fight about it later when our democracy is safe.

The NSA loved RSS in 2004

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 03:09:50 GMT

In the latest release of Snowden materials from the Intercept, is a gem, an internal NSA memo from 2/18/2004, where someone (whose name is blacked out) at the NSA is spreading the gospel of RSS to the NSOC Operations Support Staff. She or he says:

On the Internet, data sources as varied as Dilbert, ESPN Sports news, bankrate.com mortgage news, and Microsoft security updates are all available via RSS. At last count there were over one million RSS feeds available on the web, with more being added every hour. RSS has the potential to revolutionize the way we view the web, both at home and here at work.

It's easy to forget how exciting everything was in 2004.

If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably remember.

And it's a reminder that techies everywhere love to cobble together networks using pieces that weren't designed specifically to work together, but because of interop, when you get the idea to join them (and here's the famous phrase that gets all geek hearts beating faster) "it just works."

That was the thing about networks built out of RSS in 2004. It was a miracle how well things just worked.

Geeks everywhere, including at the NSA, love this stuff. ;-)

Ryan Tate at The Intercept asked how I felt about this. I said it's awesome.

And thanks to Edward Snowden for helping to make this connection.

PS: Here's the archive page on Scripting News for that day.

Fake/real news math

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 14:30:42 GMT

Most people who read fake news only read the headline.

It's well known that the headlines on many "real news" articles are misleading, written to get maximum clicks/shares.

Most people only read the headlines in those pieces too.

So in a practical sense there is little difference between real and fake news.

Is Trump the new Jimmy Carter?

Tue, 06 Dec 2016 17:31:18 GMT

President Jimmy Carter was swept into Washington in 1977, in the aftermath of Nixon, Watergate, Ford and The Pardon, with a sweeping mandate to change. The nation hated itself for Nixon. Carter was the bitter pill we decided to swallow, for punishment.

So when he arrived, he brought with him a staff of outsiders from Georgia, smart people who knew nothing about Washington and they crashed into the legislature and lobbyists. No honeymoon. He got nothing done, and we switched when Sunny Mr Reagan promised us something on a hill that had sunlight on it. Carter was gloom. A guy who wore sweaters and told us we'd have to do without. A national malaise. Okay we suffered enough.

Trump is using up goodwill on stupid mistakes and scaring the bejesus out of not just you and me, but also the 1%. At some point the stock market is going to reflect the fear.

He's staffing up with people who could be characters on The Simpsons. Can anything coherent come out of this group? I try to keep an open (and worried) mind, but you have to wonder.

Where will the scale come from? Trump is criticizing Boeing today for a $4 billion project spread over eight years. Has he looked at the budget yet? Does he understand how big the US economy is?

The Carrier thing may impress voters, but he doesn't need the voters right now. They have voted. Now the establishment in DC has to bet on whether his charm will last. I don't know how they think. But in 1977 they took a look at who Jimmy Carter brought with him and decided not to work with him. And that was that.

BTW, not to dis Carter as a person. He is a good man who was not an effective president. And Trump and his family will do very well if he goes down the path Carter did. But he may not be the demagogue we fear he will be. He still has to get the government to work for him.

Easing up on Medium, for now

Mon, 05 Dec 2016 18:49:50 GMT

The last few days as important articles have appeared on Medium, I've been posting pointers to them without gritting my teeth. As much.

Right now we have bigger fish to fry than whether or not the blogging world is getting overly and unwisely centralized.

On the other hand if they would open their server to update pings, we could have a real network, and allay the fears that free writing is a little too easy to shut down.

PS: I wrote up the problem when I turned off my feed to Medium.

Let me help with that conundrum

Mon, 05 Dec 2016 18:31:21 GMT

When Trump lies...

The story should be that.

Trump lies.

Because that is the story.

Don't give weight to deliberate lies.

Be better.