Scripting News

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 16:09:09 GMT

I've got a new project called davegpt, it's in GitHub, open source of course. I also created a ChatGPT project with the same code. Presumably I can ask it questions about the code. Because I have a worknotes.md file in the GitHub project, ChatGPT understands where I want to take this project. Most amazing, it wrote a summary of what it saw in the project. I added that to the GitHub project, of course, and since it was in Markdown, it fit right in with no mods. The power of standards. I love it when things that should work, do. The next step is to implement a feature in the new Bingeworthy that can only be done with an AI bot like ChatGPT. It's such a thrill to be working on this stuff as it's happening. And what a delight that it has an API. I don't mind that I'm paying for it, I love the idea of paying to break down walls to create new things that couldn't have been created before.

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 22:26:07 GMT

The Democrats are, of course, failing to lead the 75 million who voted for them in the last election, which was a bit over a month ago. Maybe they should factor that into their thinking, what kind of relationship would you have with an organization that only cared about what you thought if they needed something very specific from you in that exact moment. Any other time, who are you again? We are without leaders.

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 22:29:25 GMT

What could journalism do to help the country? Move your shows out into the red territories. Make it a requirement that Chris and Joy, Lawrence or Rachel, if they want to stay on the air, have to broadcast from one of the red states. It could be a large city in a red state. The reason is symbolic and practical. The red state voters wouldn't be such a mystery if you knew some of them from your everyday life. And you might have a few of them on the show. You have some selling to do, the idea you're selling is that you care about the people you don't know.

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 16:43:45 GMT

I'm farting around with the OpenAI API. I have a nice encapsulation for calls to ChatGPT, one that hides all the tricky stuff, all you need is an apiToken to make it work, something that is available for free. The first place I put it is in an outliner. Basically I can write a question in a headline, click an icon and the response from ChatGPT is placed in a series of sub-heads. Interesting to see that they use Markdown to convey the response. The logical choice. I'm not sure how or if I will use this in my writing, but now I have an idea what it's good for. Here's a screen shot of a question I asked and the answer. Also the API is very slow. A question like that would be displayed instantly in their app, in my app it takes a half minute. And I have to pay for it, whereas in their app it's all covered by my $20 a month subscription.

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 17:07:04 GMT

I get my greatest ideas walking, riding my bike, on a ski lift, or sitting in a hot tub esp when it's really cold out and there's a full moon as there was last night. Sometimes the ideas prove workable and other times they're like the great brainstorms one had with cocaine in the 80s, not that I would know, but have heard. Anyway, I was daydreaming about what I'd do with Bingeworthy if I was going to continue working on it. I thought about the mode I want to use it in. I want to watch a series that I would like, not that Netflix thinks I'd like, because their idea of what I'd like is bullshit. I find that I'll like almost anything that's rated in the 80s by Metacritic, but really only if the NYT reviewed it well. I'll give almost any NYT critics choice a go. So what I really want in the middle of the Bingeworthy display of a program is 250 words about the program aggregated from various critics as Metacritic does so well. Unfortunately neither Metacritic or the NYT offer an API for this as far as I know. Oh too bad, same old thing. No access to the data where you need it (btw, ideally Bingeworthy would be baked into the TV set, or all the streamers could be played in the context of Bingeworthy). Anyway, then boom it hit me, holy shit the thing I was farting around with in the outliner could actually do this. Now I'm going to need to be able to call ChatGPT from a Node app.

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 23:11:38 GMT

Interesting episode of the Daily podcast about AI in Hollywood. They specifically mention a new movie starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, with bodies and faces edited by AI to be various ages other than what they are (mid-late 60s). The movie Here, was rated not too great by various critics including the NYT.

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 21:58:52 GMT

Martin Luther King Day is January 20 in 2025, also is Inauguration Day.

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 18:05:20 GMT

What if you had a twitter-like system that was embedded in a ChatGPT-like app. What would you do with that?

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 17:47:26 GMT

The journalism I pay attention is labeling itself as truth-based -- but it most definitely is not. When it comes to topics I am expert in, they tell a mushed up version of extreme points of view, that (surprise!) favor the continued existence of their jobs. The choice of the truth-based label is kind of a clue. 😄

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 17:44:44 GMT

This post spawned quite a thread on Bluesky: "The AI industry could give us easy tools to build our own models, from our own archived writing, for private use. This may be a blind spot. It's as if when personal computers started, instead of spreadsheet editors, we were offered great sets of tabulated recalc'ing data. Fun to watch, maybe useful for researchers, but nothing compared to the utility of playing 'what if' on our own models."

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 18:18:57 GMT

Deep in the thread: "I want to give a huge volume of writing to ChatGPT or something much like it, and then ask it to give me an outline of what I wrote, and allow me to massage the outline, churn out a synopsis. I'd like to see what's there, and there's far too much writing for me to do that."

Online communities can work

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 18:44:11 GMT

A piece in today's NYT said all networks flame out, but that's actually too crude a statement.

If you want your network not to flame out, give the users the tools to keep things moderated.

One of the best features of Facebook is it gives the author of a post the power to decide who can respond to it. (I know they're not the only ones, but they're the first in my experience, so I give them credit.)

If I write something that I know will attract trolls, I just restrict it to friends. If they flame me, or even try to provoke an argument, I just unfriend them, and I suspect they know that. The hotheads have been culled from the list over time, there's trust that people don't want and won't pick fights.

Assume adults know when they're asking to argue, and not only don't accept the bait, but don't allow them to participate.

Keeps things friendly. Not kidding. It doesn't flame out there.

It also helps that I've been using these networks since the 70s, and there have been times when I sought out the flames, because I could have shut them off at any time, but I let them keep going. Now I don't. I just don't argue online, and as a result the heat doesn't reach me.

In other words, if you give people good tools, and they use them well, you can make this work.

PS: To be fair, the NYT piece focused on Bluesky, and they are for sure going down a path much like the one Twitter went down, but it will happen much faster because the trolls are already plentiful and well-organized. They're going for the billion-dollar cashout, for sure and they will very likely get it, and as users we will still be looking for an open system that we can use to get work done.

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 22:22:35 GMT

ChatGPT gets projects. Haven't had a chance to explore, but I desperately need this. I organize all my work as projects, and need to have my ChatGPT work be part of that.

Mid-day ramble

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 16:18:41 GMT

There was a moment a couple of years ago when Mastodon was gaining traction in a serious way when I thought that Automattic should do something publicly to demonstrate support for it because I felt that WordPress and Mastodon were two sides of the same important coin.

As you know, I've felt as a writer that we've been tragically limited by the idea that Twitter popularized that there was glory in removing features that writers could use. As if to say that writers were over-using things like links, simple styling, titles, the ability to edit, or to finish a thought. These were all very basic features of writing on the web before 2006, as they should have been.

Somehow a mass psychosis took over and there was a belief that these limits were good. I am shaking my head as I write this. It's as ridiculous an idea as the one that's going around at the top levels of our future government that we should bring polio back to the children of America and the world.

Anyway, by supporting Mastodon, I hoped people would make the link between WordPress, which has none of those limits, yet is very popular for publishing on the web, and Mastodon, which I (it turns out correctly) believed would navigate away from those limits given enough time.

I think I sent an email or a text message to Matt, or wrote a note on their Slack system, communicating with Matt is an iffy thing, not sure if the idea got through. Then this morning, I woke in the middle of the night, and realized that what I wished for was actually there. Without any fanfare at all. I could write on WordPress and it would appear on Mastodon. How is that not exactly what I asked for? And theoretically at least (someone should test this) you can access my WordPress writing on Threads, the system that Facebook launched to (as it turns out) compete with Bluesky! (In addition to Twitter, which is no longer called Twitter of course.) What a strange world it is.

And in the interim, the focus has gone off the social web, imho because the limits are still very much in force at Bluesky, which still insists a post can only have 300 freaking characters and no links, styles etc blah blah blah and yadda yadda. We're still having this argument. Programmers vs writers. The world has lost its mind.

And in another thread there are idiots who propose trying to vilify and presumably cancel people who drive Teslas as if the car you use for transport is as trivial a possession as a fur coat.

I'm having a great day, no sarcasm, all of a sudden I feel like we might actually be winning, again.

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 16:22:52 GMT

Possibly the last moment when the Dems really kicked ass.

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 01:57:59 GMT

It's a big enough umbrella but it's always me that ends up getting wet.

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 15:58:06 GMT

BTW, I hear that Safari now defaults to using HTTPS. Not sure exactly what that means. But if they ever actually stop showing scripting.com, which will always be plain old HTTP, I'll probably ship an Electron product that browses the web, and doesn't care if it's HTTP or whatever new fad Google is promoting. I'm going to hold the fort for the original web. I can't change scripting.com to HTTPS, it would break all the images and probably a lot of other stuff.

I'll keep my Tesla, thank you

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 16:12:58 GMT

I saw a pundit suggest people harass people who drive Teslas.

When I bought mine, it cost $70K, a large sum of money that I will not throw away just so a pundit can make a point.

Here's my rebuttal. I'd like to see you get on without buying Exxon products. We all agree they suck, but evil companies have a way of building dependence, that's how they stay in business while openly doing despicable things.

When I put down $70K for what is, btw, a fantastic car, no one knew how evil Elon Musk was going to turn out to be, how little he would care what you and I think.

And I don't believe anyone can live a pure life and extract all evil from it, and still participate in civilization.

PS: I wrote this initially as a post on Bluesky.

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 15:37:44 GMT

Bingeworthy has an RSS feed (not public yet), and new ratings show up in my blogroll, of course.

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 17:10:40 GMT

I have United Healthcare insurance. I got it as part of my Medicare package when I turned 65. I've had good experience with them. I had major surgery in 2002, cost hundreds of thousands, included a one-week hospital stay and lots of followup treatments. I know the hospital did all the work with them, I was shielded from any complications, but as far as I know there were none. Never had a treatment questioned or denied. I had another insurance provider for many years after that, but when given a chance I went back to United. Just want to say, so far -- knock wood -- I am a happy customer.

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 14:39:52 GMT

Just added to my todo list -- add the option to use the WordPress REST interface in place of the WPCOM interface, this will give WordLand the ability to edit WordPress sites anywhere, not just on wordpress.com. When I made the choice to go with WPCOM I didn't have ChatGPT to look at the other options, I was surprised to find that WordPress actually had a good JavaScript API. It doesn't look like the conversion will be too bad. It's obviously better to be able to work with all WordPress sites.

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 15:08:20 GMT

No more elections where Hope is the main theme. Better: Kicking ass. Kicking ass is for ass-kicking Americans. I personally like Hope, but I'm also a sports fan and understand the value of kicking ass.

Answers for a tester

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 20:33:05 GMT

A valued tester of WordLand asked a series of questions, which I answered in some detail, and felt it was a good idea to post the answers here on my blog.

Any kind of feedback you want to give is totally welcome. I'd prefer it be in the GitHub issues section so it might inspire other people to contribute.
Re image insertion, I'm not sure it could be simpler. The goal is to get an image into the user's document. If it succeeded at doing that then I'm happy with the design. ;-)
The target audience is writers who use WordPress. The idea is to put all the features writers need in one place, rather than scattered around the WP interface. And to use modern UI techniques you'd see in social web apps.
I've tried to answer the questions you raised in the only way I can. For example I need to use a term for the arrows that move you through the stories you've written. They aren't all posts, but they are all drafts. I can explain that in the docs, but I seriously doubt if anyone would read them. There is a distinction and it's important to make that distinction. I also don't think it's crucial to get that one "right" -- not that I think there is a right answer to that one other than removing the feature, which I like having there because it emphasizes that we're working with a set of documents that you can edit.
In all cases, you could raise any issue you have, I will think about what you say, but accept my response, and trust that I've incorporated your experience as data that might inspire a change in the design at some point.
But do understand that a lot of thought has already gone into this, and a quick review by a new user is no substitute for a product design.
I know the docs are non-existent. I am limited in the time I have and the commitments I've made. The truth is that even dedicated users won't read them. I know that by the questions they ask. But I will write the docs.
What I suggest is you try using the product for its intended purpose, and assume that all feedback is welcome (it is) but once it has been registered, you should move on to the next thing.
I've worked with testers many times going back a very long time. I've even hired testers. I don't take offense to critiques of the software.

BTW, if after reading this, you think you could be this kind of tester for WordLand, and you have experience with WordPress, and a site on wordpress.com, and are excited about the idea of a simple way to write and manage lots of documents in a WordPress environment, please fill out this form, I'll read it right away, and if it seems like a fit, I'll authorize your account.

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 15:36:23 GMT

This time of year every day feels like Sunday.

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 15:08:44 GMT

Here's a sad fact. When something open takes off, the vultures swoop in and try to own it. You wouldn't believe the greed I've seen. It's a virus, and it needs to stop, or at least be exposed as it's happening.

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 14:37:06 GMT

Yesterday I did a podcast about why it's important to choose humble names for groups of developers working on open formats, using podcasting as an example. Another case in point, the Social Web Foundation, which is about ActivityPub and the Fediverse, when there are many other forms of the social web. Here's where the rubber meets the road. They're having a meeting in Brussels where people can demo their social web apps, but it's only about ActivityPub. If you have a project for Bluesky, or Threads, or non-ActivityPub Mastodon, or RSS for that matter, you should feel welcome there, regardless of what their Call For Participation says.

Apple watch and Tesla

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:50:48 GMT

Many Tesla drivers wish they'd evict Elon Musk. On the other hand can your car do this?

My Apple Watch can unlock my Model Y, turn the heat on, open the frunk.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 16:08:36 GMT

Podcast: We all own and no one owns podcasting. 11 minutes.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:49:47 GMT

Anyone can build on an open format. That's part of what it means for it to be open. Developers and users are free to use anyone's ideas, or not use them, even if they claim to be the Holy Church of Some Open Format. No one can form an organization that owns the future of the open format because then it wouldn't be open.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:25:13 GMT

I've got the new version of Bingeworthy running here. When I saw how the database code worked, I had to redo it from scratch. It was probably my first SQL project, and I barely knew what I was doing. It's too bad, because looking at it from that point of view I could see how SQL could have been much simpler by making some of the optional features automatic. A higher layer on top of SQL is possible, it seems to me. Having ChatGPT review my ideas has been invaluable in this project. I'm going to use it myself for a while, and see how I want to reorganize the user interface. There were opportunities for factoring I didn't take back then because I was in a rush to do something else.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 20:08:15 GMT

How I know Twitter was great. When something was going on anywhere, any kind of thing, I'd go to Twitter and it happened there 14 minutes ago. It was the pulse of the news. And somehow they couldn't figure out how to make a business of that! Amazing.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 16:54:48 GMT

I bet a lot of people who voted for Trump hoped they were voting for Jimmy Stewart in Mr Smith goes to Washington, or It's a Wonderful Life. I think they may be surprised to find that they actually voted for Mr Potter or Ebeneezer Scrooge. Look for a lump of coal in the stocking.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:07:55 GMT

If you want to get excited about the future, I highly recommend this week's Jon Stewart podcast interview with Bernie Sanders. I recognize these ideas, it sounds like what we're waiting for in the social web and in journalism. And working for and with each other.

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 15:23:08 GMT

Mozilla has repositioned itself as "a global crew of activists, technologists and builders, all working to keep the internet free, open and accessible." These are all worthy goals, but in my experience Mozilla has been an obstacle to these things. I wrote in a comment on Mastodon, "A long time ago they invited me to present my ideas, and like an idiot I thought that's what they wanted, instead it was an ambush, people mostly wanting to ridicule me because they thought anything that a person does can't be any good, it has to come from a big company like Mozilla or Google. I thought then and still do now, how do they justify wasting their time on such a ridiculous thing. I kept on doing what I was doing, but switched off their browser first chance I got." If they really want to get behind projects that make the open web stronger, I'd be happy to help guide them, but only if they've sobered up and take that mission statement seriously, instead of just as a justification for holding on to their jobs a little bit longer.

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 16:53:06 GMT

Screen shot of my blogroll on Scripting News. It's dynamic. Shown are the latest posts on the emptywheel blog. When a blog updates it moves to the top of the list. A 2024 adaptation of a concept from early blogging days. It should be part of the social web. You can try it out realtime at scripting.com.

Why I like my Model Y

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 14:23:29 GMT

Yesterday I wrote that I'd trade in my Model Y if an non-Tesla EV came along that equaled it. A few people asked what I liked about the Model Y that I'm not finding in alternatives. Here's the list.

I love the handling of the Tesla. It's a muscle car like the 2007 BMW 535i I used to drive, great acceleration, but handles like the 1993 Miata another car I owned and loved. I've also owned really sloppy cars like a Subaru Forester or a Toyota Sienna minivan, even a 1974 Plymouth Voyager, the largest American passenger car ever made. I'm never going back to a car that doesn't have the authority of a Model Y.
The Model Y has lots of headroom, which my long torso needs, so I don't bruise my head each time I get in the freaking car.
I have a Tesla charger at home, so whatever I buy has to be compatible with or adaptable to it.
4WD is important because where I live it snows in winter, and I drive on dirt roads a lot too.
It's a computer. It's going to be hard for a competitor to offer the integration with a network that Tesla offers, they're a computer company as much as they're a car company. Their connection to Starlink (assumed to be coming) is going to be hard to compete with too.
Calling it self-driving should get them in trouble with the FTC, there's no way anyone should trust it to drive itself, and the car's OS enforces that view, so I guess they have lawyers at Tesla. That said, I like having access to this technology. I've been an innovative software developer for a long time, and I like using tech that pushes the leading edge. The marketing (a Musk feature presumably) is what I don't like.
Charging network. I occasionally take trips that are out of range of my home charger, to Boston, or NYC sometimes leave me needing a charge on the way home. I'd like to have the option of driving cross-country as well. The Tesla charging network is a big plus. I honestly don't know how good the charging situation is for other brands. This would be something for car magazines to rate, to have a way of measuring it, as people who are put off by Musk's politics (about 1/2 of American voters) look for ways to drive something other than a Tesla.

So this turned into an ad for Tesla. Heh.

There are reasons we love it so much.

Just separate from Musk and all's well.

I've been thinking Tesla drivers who love America should have some kind of demonstration. We all park our cars around local Tesla dealers, let the police tow our cars, only to be replaced by other Teslas. We're all computer nerds, we could probably even figure out the scheduling. We probably have nearly as much money as they do. Just sayin.

Tired of companies that push us around politically and Tesla is one of the worst. So far they've managed to convince us they aren't Elon Musk, but that's a mirage, he is the company and the company is him. They are completely one and the same.

Like the My Pillow guy and his pillows. 😄

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 23:14:40 GMT

2018: I’m not picky about where I get new ideas.

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 22:30:59 GMT

As Trump's cabinet takes shape it's as if the cast of HBO's Silicon Valley is taking over the US government. I'm glad to be alive. I really liked the show, it was incredible satire having lived through pretty much the whole thing, I swear some of the scenes felt like they were set in my backyard at the hacienda in Woodside or at one of our offices, esp in the early days of DaveNet and this blog or the early days of TechCrunch.

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 22:28:41 GMT

When Bluesky was experiencing its huge post-election surge, it was exciting because lots of users were experiencing the surge in followers and engagement. It was exhilirating. That has slowed to nothing now, no more engagement there than on Threads, Masto or Twitter. The character limit on Bluesky being considerably less than the others makes it harder to rekindle interest imho. And btw the euphoria being gone is neither good or bad, it just is.

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 22:00:57 GMT

ChatGPT is also a tutor. I'm learning new ways of coding SQL through drill and it's also improving my JavaScript code. It's infinitely impatient. It does make mistakes, but that's also good for the drill, catching the mistakes is instructive too. And in programming you always have to be looking for errors, because you'll almost always find them. "Runs the first time" is a rare occurrence, no matter who wrote the code."

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 15:04:15 GMT

I drive a Tesla Model Y, the best car I've ever owned. I wish Elon Musk wasn't associated with it. If there were a good alternative to the Tesla, I would divest in a minute. I could afford to do it and would welcome the opportunity.

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 15:10:18 GMT

I'm getting a new Apple Watch today, the latest model. My current watch, which I wear all the time (except when it's charging) is a 5th gen. The new one is 10th. I had to upgrade because there's a Tesla watch app out now that won't run on my old watch. It's the most rational add-on for the car. A must-have.

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 18:00:19 GMT

Looking for more excellent WordLand bug report writers. 😄

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 22:55:19 GMT

Chuck Shotton: "Posting a video to YouTube is infinitely easier for a lot of people than understanding how to publish a podcast." True.

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 23:14:26 GMT

17-minute podcast I recorded on Tuesday after hearing that the president of South Korea had declared martial law.

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:32:03 GMT

Dom Christie has an interesting idea related to listening lists. Aggregate all the shows from all the feeds in a list into a single feed. This seems brilliant because it reduces the implementation in the client to almost nothing, just rebuild a feed periodically, it could be done entirely in the client app. But it also could be something users could share with other users, sort of a meta-channel. I think it's brilliant with the caveat that sometimes when you implement it you find something that makes it more complex than it seems at first. This is the second idea I've heard that the initial listening lists idea spawned. I think there's a lot of unexplored possibilities here.

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:38:16 GMT

As if in response to Dom's idea, overnight, via email Leslie Joyce sends a link to a feed containing first episodes of new fiction podcasts. First comment, how useful! I love this idea as a user. And second, how innovative! I love this idea as a media hacker, what a clever use of RSS. I've added it to my blogroll and to my shared list of podcast feeds.

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 15:09:41 GMT

I filled out the Podcast Ideas page I started as a placeholder on Nov 30. If you have a friend who works on a podcast client, please send them a pointer to this piece, or link to it from your social web accounts on Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads or via your blog. Let's nurture and feed new features to the open podcast world, ones that helps creators and influencers build new networks that can only work outside of the silos. It's time to start moving the market again, it's been stagnant for far too long.

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 15:43:16 GMT

I am definitely the last person to hear about ListenNotes search engine for podcasts. It's incredible. Just starting to explore its capabilities.

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 17:29:21 GMT

Today's song: Where is the love?