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 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. #
Bingeworthy has an RSS feed (not public yet), and new ratings 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. #
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. #
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. #
- 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. #
This time of year every day feels like Sunday.#
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. #
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. #
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. #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. #
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.#
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. #
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.#
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. #
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. #- 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. 😄#
#
2018: I’m not picky about where I get new ideas.#
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. #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.#
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."#
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.#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.#
Chuck Shotton: "Posting a video to YouTube is infinitely easier for a lot of people than understanding how to publish a podcast." True. #
17-minute podcast I recorded on Tuesday after hearing that the president of South Korea had declared martial law. #
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. #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. #
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. #I am definitely the last person to hear about ListenNotes search engine for podcasts. It's incredible. Just starting to explore its capabilities. #
President Biden pardoned his son. I have no problem with that, because his son was accused as a proxy for his father. If there is any legitimate use of presidential pardons, this is it. Perhaps relatives of the president should also be immune from prosecution. Does anyone really think Hunter Biden would have been tried for such petty crimes if he weren't Biden's son? The journalists, as always, have equated two very different things. They're playing their own game, trying to self-pardon in a way, to avoid being a target for the incoming administration, which we're all scared of, and I guess that's the point, to scare us. #BTW, another thing journalism is getting wrong, the FBI is not the squeaky clean organization they present it as. #
I frequently have trouble remembering the names of things I want to use in my writing. I've come to rely on ChatGPT for help. So I wrote to ChatGPT: "I'm trying to remember the name of the stone that has the key to understanding a language." To which it replied: "You're likely thinking of the Rosetta Stone. It was crucial in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs because it featured the same text written in three scripts: Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphic. The Greek text provided the key to understanding the other two scripts."#
- I was very happy to see this post on Bluesky this morning from a friend, Matthias Pfefferle, who works at Automattic on the connection between WordPress and ActivityPub. #
- In his post he asks if there is a BDG for creating a PDS for Bluesky. #
- A BDG is a Busy Developer's Guide, something we did first for SOAP in 2001 when we were trying to figure out how to map XML-RPC onto it. Since then there have been lots of BDGs for all kinds of things. It's a useful concept because developers are often overly busy, so we need to get right to the problem before understanding all the theory behind it. We need an example that works, and we'll just do what it does. That also guarantees interop, which is the point of course. #
- Now we have a similar problem. Bluesky stores a user's writing in a PDS. If we can generate a PDS for our blogs, theoretically Bluesky should be able to see them and use them as if they were created inside Bluesky. If it were easy to understand we could get busy converting everything so it works there. We can do that because we're using popular simple formats like JSON (see below) to organize our work. #
- For example this is how I use JSON for my blog, the one you're reading right now.#
- Here's a folder in a repository on GitHub. Broken down into years, months, days, and posts. #
- Each post is a JSON file, like this. It has three bits of data, the text of the post, when it was created (which also serves as a unique ID, no two posts have the same creation date) and type. This item has a type of outline, because it can have structure, though this post does not. #
- Here's another post that does have structure. In Bluesky it would be represented as a thread. #
- Here's the question. What's the absolutely simplest way to have that structure of posts represented in a Bluesky PDS?#
- PS: I had a conversation with ChatGPT to scope this out. #
WordLand is the easy editor that writers using WordPress always deserved. I updated the docs this morning to include very basic getting started stuff, and it now includes a link to a form where you can apply to be a tester. At this time it's limited to people who know how to write a bug report, how to find and read the JavaScript console in a web browser, and take a screen shot that shows clearly what went wrong. This the hardest part of getting a product fit for general use, and I'm too old to try to wrangle workable bug reports from well-intentioned users who basically aren't scientists. This time I'm determined to do this the right way without excess wear and tear on me. 😄#The Big Interview with Dan Rather podcast is gold. Just listened to his interview with Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band and the Sopranos. There are nine seasons of this podcast between 2013 and 2021. Going to keep me busy for a while. The RSS feed works. #
One way to help RSS-based podcasts is to promote individual episodes from the past. Sometimes shows are done, but the archive contains good stuff. Not everything is based on current events. Music, art, history for example. Also bring the feed out from hiding. At least the nerdy people should understand how this stuff works. One of the big crimes was when the browser makers tried to hide the feeds. I like to be able to lift the hood even if I don't understand what I'm looking at. #I'm using the term "RSS-based podcasts" in place of "podcasts" to make sure whoever reads it knows to ask the question of other "podcasts," are you RSS-based? The best answer is to encourage YouTube et al to just connect their "podcasts" to RSS and everyone's happy. Like "organic cheeseburgers." :-)#
For the record, Bluesky has completely taken over from Threads. Threads is basically at zero, needs something to shake it up. Obviously this could be different for everyone. And engagement on Twitter is pretty close to zero. I still check there periodically because despite what people say a lot of people I follow still post there. And I do too, since cross-posting costs me nothing. And it has been pointed out that deleting your Twitter account comes with a fairly huge risk. And if you do it, I wouldn't announce it, because anyone apparently can claim your account once it is completely deactivated. And that could create some problems for you. Probably better to hold the account indefinitely. #
I've exported the data from Bingeworthy 2 in JSON and uploaded to a new public repo. It can be used to seed the ratings table for the updated instance. #
Welcome to the last month of Scripting News in the year 2024. Each year goes by faster and faster. And as we move forward in time, there's less room in front of us on the runway of life, and more behind us. At some point in the next decade my plane will probably take off. I feel a sense of urgency about getting it done. Still a fair amount on my todo list, but I'm making progress. As someone once said many times: Still diggin! #
And welcome to the time of year you can't remember what the day of the week is. For what it's worth today is Sunday. Feels like Monday? #
I wasn't clear enough yesterday. We're losing the word "podcast" very quickly. It's coming to mean video interviews on YouTube mostly. Our only hope is upgrading the open platform in a way that stimulates the imagination of creators, and there's no time to waste. If you make a podcast client, it's time to start collaborating with competitors and people who create RSS-based podcasts to take advantage of the open platforms, otherwise having a podcast will mean getting approved by Google, Apple, Spotify, Amazon etc. And they, as we know, are nuzzling up to the new government, who will want to impose severe limits. This isn't a casual request, it's urgent.#
I want to add an important feature to podcasting that can only work with RSS, it can’t work with Spotify, Google, Audible etc. The idea is subscribing to subscription lists, which the influencers are likely to really love because they can create networks of podcasts. And when they want to edit the list, if this is done right, the users will automatically be updated. The RSS-based podcast industry just hasn’t been moving and if we don’t add features, improve the tech with new features for creators and users, then we deserve what we get. More on the technology to come in subsequent blog posts. But this is the core idea, just to get started. #Think about primarying Democratic candidates not from the right or left, but from courage, intellect, and power in communication. People who say what they think and know if the press excoriates you, you can survive it, and the users will love you for it.#
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate the holiday. What am I thankful for? Peloton for one. And living in the most beautiful part of the United States, except for all the other most beautiful parts. I know we're going to find our way out of this mess. My hope is we all start listening to each other more than we need to be heard. One way for sure to hear yourself is to listen to others. One of those paradoxes, true nonetheless. I'm very grateful for ChatGPT that has made me a much more proficient programmer. Amazing what an always-ready expert-in-everything programming partner is. It has a terrible memory for things I tell it to remember, but it remembers all the things it got from reading the web. I thank the friends who make the effort to stay in my life. And most important I thank you, dear blog reader. We got through 30 years of this crazy michegas. I think there may be a couple more innovations to come before we hang em up for good.#- Analogously, Trump is Kennedy and Biden/Harris is Nixon.#
- And the social web is, in 2024, what TV was in 1960.#
- Trump has mastered the new medium. To a large extent, he created the new medium, and the resulting network formed around him.#
- So when Carville says he wants to figure out how to communicate the way Trump did, he can't because our way doesn't work in his universe. We have to create our own. #
- Analogously Nixon might have said about TV in 1959 -- how can we get into that? If you have to ask you can't get there. You have to fit like a hand in a glove, like Kennedy or Trump.#
- The next Democratic candidate to win the presidency will have to be a media creator. They must create a medium that's perfectly adapted to the communication interests of the 50 percent of the electorate that voted for Harris and the other 20 percent who would if they just knew who she was. #
- Look at the picture of Kennedy and Nixon. Did we elect Kennedy over Nixon because he had better policy? No. We elected him because he has better hair. Because on TV what counts is your hair. A friend who was a TV news person told me that. #
- So if you want to win, create an internet farm system. A network with everyone who wants to run for office nationwide on the Democratic ticket. And let's see how they work in the new medium. We get to know them like we knew Archie Bunker. And let's get some people we get to know who also tend to tell the truth (though they can screw up and we'll forgive them, remember the gotchas are over).#
Every generation or two you hear about a few tech wiener boys who think after getting founders stock at a Silicon Valley company and getting his picture in Business Week or TechCrunch that he should run Africa or make up some country and for a minute tries doing it and no one pays much attention and a generation or two later it happens again, and the conclusion is that being a tech wiener boy doesn’t really prepare you to do anything but make a bunch of money once, be bored, and really nothing else. First time I witnessed this phenomenon was with a few product marketing wünderbrats at Apple in the early 80s, smart people (not kidding) but not nearly as smart as they thought they were. A big part was the serendipity of being in a Hobee’s or Buck's when Steve Jobs or a Kleiner partner was having breakfast after a big IPO.#
Carville gets close to the answer. The Dems shut down their online operation on Election Day, go off the air for 3.5 years, then reboot. The Repubs never sign off. Trump is Archie Bunker. People vote for him, even if they don't agree, over the stranger they don't know. Voters kept saying this, but somehow this didn't register. Never nominate a candidate again who isn't well known to and tolerated by the electorate. Forget about gotchas. The old Dems revolve around fear-of-gotcha. No longer a problem. A flaw proves you're genuine, authentic. Dems need a complete overhaul top to bottom. Their next leader should have a top podcast, because that's how you will govern from now on. Expect to be surprised how Trump does this starting Jan 20.#
In January 2017, I scooped everyone, by years, on the idea that a billionaire could buy Twitter and thus purchase the presidency. That value wasn't priced into TWTR stock. No one listened. Here's the next installment. The US government acquires Twitter. Elon Musk is of course named Secretary of Twitter. The "constitution" reconceived for online twitter-like systems, says every other online system has to go through twitter.com to reach users. It will act as their gateway to the net. There will be resistance, but by that time there will be no actually independent twitter-like systems, they will all be owned by venture capital funds, or individual billionaires, and of course they will conform because they are also owned to a large degree by Musk. We will have been cartelized, which is one step beyond enshitified. #
It's important that Bluesky increase its character limit to 500 because they are not alone. Today there are so many twitter-like systems that are useful, people want to cross-post. If I'm writing something I plan to cross-post, and I pass the 300-char limit, but I'm not finished, what to do. These days generally I view 500 as the actual limit, which means when my cross-poster tries to publish to Bluesky it fails. We should be trying to coalesce on an idea of what a text document is in the mid-late 20s. I've put my proposal out.#The usual mindless block-inducing bullshit from twitter and every other online venue is showing up on Bluesky. I wonder if people understand the economic box that's pushing them into. It's so important that if it's going to be the next Twitter, we as a world, invest in lifeboats to get off the ship quickly and easily if Hulk Hogan ends up being the czar of Bluesky. Weirder things are possible my friends. #
Imagine if the Democratic Party ran a Bluesky clone where being able to post means you're a dues-paying member of the party. We can vote on referendums, support or not support Democratic initiatives. Site would never shut down, and would support campaigns when they're running. It would cost money to belong to the site. This would keep trolling under control, and would fund projects the community would sponsor, and also pay for operating the service. No advertising, no billionaires sponsoring. They can be members like everyone else.#If such a network existed, we would be nominating our own Cabinet members, the shadow Cabinet. Let the journalists compare the qualifications of our candidates vs the incumbent party's. Create news. That's what the Dems absolutely suck at. They very quietly pass legislation that the other party (which votes against) takes credit for. One party is on the air, the other is not. We need to change that. We make news. And we listen to each other, not just the stuffed shirts who run the party now. #
If there was going to be a User's Charter for Bluesky, item one would be: You can give me the benefit of the doubt. Let's not argue, esp not about details. We assume the other person is smart. That's one way we get stuff done. #
Rule #2. You have permission. If you want someone else to do something, and they haven't done it, or you don't want to wait, you have permission to do it yourself. You can invoke this rule when someone says "who do they think they are." You had permission, according to rule #2.#
One of the best things about ChatGPT is that you can ask it to put together exactly the report you want, that the news orgs aren't writing, or you can't find, or get to through paywalls. In this query, I learned about how Republicans deal with intersex people and bathrooms, they apparently don't. Not surprising, to tell the truth.#
Given that the conversation has rightly turned to billionaire-proofness of Bluesky, if they allow devs to build on Bluesky with RSS in and out, that's enough to alleviate the concern about it being billionaire-proof. They already support outbound RSS. Now just let us get into the system with just RSS. Yes, I know it's a "third party opportunity" but something like this, to have the required value, has to be a fully supported and maintained feature of the platform. #- Let's do this right, and we can spread this into Masto-Land and Threads-Land and then we can thank Elon Musk for helping us not just bridge these systems, but make them all part of the same freaking system. #
- We can do this. #
I just realized that there's another kind of enshitification that we're experiencing now because the twitter-verse has split into so many forks. Bluesky is hot now, but this isn't over yet.#- Developers are deliberately locking their users in by creating new APIs that are not only incompatible with previously existing APIs, but also are difficult for developers who learned earlier APIs to adopt because now they have all kinds of replicated code for different systems. It adds another level of complexity to the developer's code. #
- What each platform vendor wants is not only captive users, but also locked-in developers. Why do you think they all have new languages? Come on is Swift really better than Go or React or whatever. Groups of Mac developers constantly spinning their wheels to keep up with Apple breaking releases. Groups of JavaScript developers. And there are many kinds of JS devs. When does it end. Ones who build on OpenAI and others that develop on the APIs of other vendors (I'm not even trying to go on that ride, too late in my career.) There's so much confusion, that leads to exhaustion. #
- Now we're feeling it especially hard when there are such ill-conceived duplicate APIs that all could have been done with RSS 2.0 and OPML. Every one of them. Cory Doctorow, who came up with the term enshitification, also wrote a passionate piece about RSS. I want to say to my friend Cory, if a system isn't built on RSS at this point, they are certainly trying to lock users and developers in. I don't care if it's ActivityPub or ATProto or Facebook or Meta or X or Twitter (sorry I can't keep up with their names). #
- I want to build on a system that's pure inbound and outbound RSS. Give me lists in OPML and the please just let me ignore the rest of your lockin strategy. They talk a good line about wanting interop, federation and standards, but their actions speak otherwise. #
- At a conference the CEO of twitter-splitter Bluesky said her product is billionaire-proof, but it doesn't seem too likely to me that it is. And maybe they're quoting her incorrectly. A billionaire could take it over and the users would have no recourse, the whole thing would blow up even more quickly than Twitter is (and I'm not convinced it has blown up, there still seems to be a lot going on there, I think perhaps people are exaggerating how polluted it is or maybe I'm being shielded by an algorithm). It would be nice to use a system that is truly billionaire-proof. How about building a network on top of something else that is 100 percent RSS. #
- And btw, RSS is probably the closest to billionaire-proof. I don't get royalties on it, lots of people have tried to make big bucks from it, but so far its only allegiance is to people who want to publish and receive news. If a billionaire could buy it, they probably would have by now. 😄#
Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan walk into a bar. The bartender serves them tainted alcohol because there are no regulations. They die.#
When people said they didn't know Kamala well, they weren't kidding. She didn't start broadcasting until three months before the election. That's not even one season of Abbott Elementary or Wheel of Fortune. Of course they didn't know her. That's because the Dems go off the air on Election Day and don't show up again for three years. Meanwhile the other party is on the air 24 hours a day, every day of every year. #- Next time we nominate a candidate, the voters will already know them and like them. No more of the "we don't know her well enough." That's what mattered. They want a sense that they know who you are. The same way kids of my generation knew who Archie Bunker was, and Maude, and Mary Tyler Moore. That's where trust comes from. We may not have liked Archie Bunker's politics, but we knew who he was. #
- We should be marketing the hell out of this shit all the time so when we choose a candidate the people will already know and like them. #
- I listened to a pathetic Daily Blast podcast yesterday where Greg Sargent and his guest kept saying "we gotta figure this out." #
The answer is staring you in the face. Dems are only on the air for a few months every four years. Of course the other side spins you like crazy. #- You all are clinging to the "gotcha" model of journalism. There are no more gotchas. We've known that since Access Hollywood. The leaders of the new Democratic Party will be comfortable in their own skin. They tell you what they think. Fetterman, AOC, Tammy Baldwin. There will be many of them. #
- Get on the air and relax and say what you really think. And when the Repubs lie, say it like that -- they're lying. When you say nothing people think you agree with them. #
- Let's get the Dems back on the air before the inauguration. I'll kick in $100 to get it started, and I'll tell everyone I know to fund it too. There's no time to waste.#
It's noteworthy that we haven't seen many outages as Bluesky scales. On Twitter they had fail whales for years. #
What matters with social networks is what you can get done there, not so much the features of the network. Bluesky has the same features today it had a month ago. The difference is we had an election in the US, I guess that was the catalyst. The presence of Elon Musk so close to Trump says there is a need for a Musk-free place. I've kept my account on Twitter. I started there in 2006, and I love the web more than I feel it would do any good to erase my presence there. It's pretty much against my religion to deliberately erase bits of the web. And whatever you think of Twitter, it is most definitely part of the web.#
Basically, if you have to lock your users in, your product must suck.#
A quick podcast about the new 365-day-a-year campaign we need on the social web to keep our democracy alive. #
We've found Lauren Kapp, the 25-year-old creative genius behind kamalahq. We need to get her back on the air, with her team, fully funded and supported. We need leadership on the social web. Thanks to Brian Puckett for the link. #
- I posted a feature request on Bluesky that has gotten a lot of flow. #
- Bluesky devs.. How about a compromise. Support inbound RSS. Let me enter the URL of an RSS feed in settings. I'll ping a fixed location when the feed updates. Would allow the same flow to go to other systems. This would help a lot. #
- Discussion#
Imagine a Bluesky-like network that you could post to through any blogging tool that can create an RSS feed. Imagine the new tools that could be created. All of a sudden a whole world of writing tools opens up.#- It should happen faster than the proprietary format that Bluesky defined, because RSS is so well understood in the developer world. Lots of software out there for reading and writing. I have a couple of toolkits of my own, for JavaScript, MIT licensed. In use in deployed software so they work pretty well. (Knock wood.) #
- Also it would create an incentive for competitors to follow suit, and if they do we suddenly have a strong and simple and broadly understood basis for interop. It's a brilliant competitive move, if they really intend to give users choice, to not lock them in. It challenges their competitors to follow suit. I don't doubt that Mastodon would do it. And Threads might even do it if they're feeling competitive with Bluesky. They've already chosen ActivityPub as a basis for interop, but that's been slow to develop. RSS is so simple and well understood it should take a small fraction of the time to adapt.#
- Bluesky has already pioneered in providing excellent outbound RSS support. I helped them do it, a while back, before the huge onslaught of users. #
- The fact that so many users loved the idea is enough to have made it worthwhile to suggest it. But I wouldn't be tremendously surprised if they actually did it. #
- Why I haven't created an account on sez.us yet. #
- They ask for my first and last name before I sign up. Ask for that info later, after I've created an account. I gave it a fake name to get to the next screen.#
- Then they ask for my phone number. That's when I hit the back button. I already get too much spam on my phone, and the filters aren't good there. I am happy to provide an email address as my identifier as I do on all other systems. Later, if I become a regular user, I don't mind providing the phone number as part of 2-factor identity, but not up front.#
- Also I don't like white on black letters. It's hard for me to read. All the competitive systems use black on white background. Offer it as an option if it's important to you, but please default to black on white.#
Joe Trippi posted a video to his new sez.us service where Pete Buttigieg explains what the Russians have done to the US. I see it that way too. When Brian Lehrer asked a few weeks ago how the US got so divided of his guest Bob Woodward (a fascinating time capsule, recorded before the election) they both missed it. We were divided by an enemy that is on the cusp of destroying the US without launching a single nuke. Putin didn't have to invade Ukraine. I guess even he didn't think his plan would succeed so spectacularly. BTW, I don't think Trippi's network is the answer, but maybe it is. I wish I had had a chance to create the system he was using, we would make a good team. Anyway we need to be further along than his offering is. The right system would allow me to control my presence with only RSS, in and out. Maybe not for everyone, to start, but it would allow us to start building. It's why I have been lobbying for inbound and outbound RSS as a back-end for all these networks. With the rise of Bluesky in the last couple of weeks (things are happening that fast now) we may have a new shot at it because Masto and Threads are certainly feeling it, and when people feel competed-with they are more open to new thinking. #