Today's song: The Fool on the Hill. #

Gotta say it's not news when a Republican acknowledges that Biden won. Unless you report it as how pathetic the Repubs are. Even that's not news, but at least it's another way they are pathetic. For the time-being. They'll think of something else. #

On BBC Radio on WNYC this morning they ask why are people not listening to government warnings about holiday gatherings? The answer is eluding them. It's the commercials on the telly, dummy. Happy families giving each other hugs and presents. And the virus! Commercials are engineered to perfection to make you think of doing the things in the commercials. They're selling the illusion of an idyllic holiday with love and friends. It may work next year, but this year it ain't love that's being transmitted at these gatherings. 🚀#

Imagine both Dems win the Jan 5 runoff in Georgia because the Repubs self-suppress their vote with all the michegas about how Purdue and Loeffler don't deserve their votes because they're not giving it up for Herr Trump. The shock they feel when they realize the Dems now control both houses of Congress and the White House. The conspiracy theories. The sadness. Self-loathing. #

I like to evolve funny names for things. Just ask my close friends and family. Anyway, for a while I was pronouncing Facebook's name as a Dutch person might. Fasch Boke. You say it without opening your mouth very wide. It makes people laugh for some reason I can't figure out. Anyway, now I've evolved that to be more American: Fast Buck. Which oddly enough is what they are all about! 💥#

If I could go back in time and explain to my exes why they had so much trouble understanding me I would say that I was just beginning to learn that there are women who are nothing like my mother. So please be patient with me. I meant well. And btw, I'd suggest that perhaps they have me confused with the men they grew up around and to consider the possibility I'm not "just like them." (An accusation I've heard many many times.)#

Tonight’s Maddow says clearly we‘re going over a cliff in the next weeks. If true, one way to save lives is for NBC and other networks to control the seasonal commercials they run, ones that show families gathering pre-Covid style. Example. Commercials set the mood, everyone knows what Christmas season is, but this year has to be different or lots more people will suffer and die. I had this thought while watching her sobering presentation, followed by one of these feel-good everything's normal holiday commercials. #

I like watching Maddow, but every once in a while, usually when she talks about Facebook, I am reminded that she can be as mean-spirited and dishonest as any Fox host, Hannity, Carlson or Ingraham. An example from last night. Trump recorded an unhinged video that they distributed via Facebook. Something anyone can do. You can, I can, anyone. This feature has been used in some amazing ways. A woman recorded her boyfriend being murdered by police in Minneapolis using Facebook's live video. It was remarkable and I think even a journalist Facebook-hater would have to admit, revolutionary. The whole point of everything on Facebook is that anyone can do it. What Maddow said: "Facebook would run it." Technically true, but irresponsibly misleading. She repeated it as she often does, with pauses and a look that was withering in contempt for Facebook. Her implication was that Fox wouldn't run it, Newsmax wouldn't run it, but Facebook, super slime that they are, would. There's an honest way to explore this, the way she does with other things she isn't expert on, have a discussion one night the tradeoffs of allowing anyone to post live video. But -- I what I really resent is that Maddow, who I want to believe is doing the best she can, in this case is misusing that trust and it makes me doubt the stuff she reports where I don't know enough to see through the bullshit. #

I've been working on Categories lately, and referred to Radio UserLand for prior art. Radio's blogging functionality supported categories. Here's a screen shot. Radio shipped in 2002, when blogs were still called "weblogs."#

For a simple gift for a friend with a taste for spice, try these spicy Wasabi Peas. I can go through a whole can in one sitting! #

Our collective approach to the pandemic is very weird. #

I need to buy new silverware, everyday stuff, nothing fancy. I've bought two sets from Amazon in the last few weeks, and both were too flimsy to use. They'd never stand up. All I want is some unbendable functional silverware. (Lots of great advice over on Twitter.)#

I rearranged my office a few weeks ago so now I have room for a second monitor on my desk, something I had gotten accustomed to when I lived in Manhattan. But when I set up the second monitor, a BenQ, it was depressingly ugly. The text was fuzzy, the color was impossible to get right. On Cyber Monday, on Amazon, I spotted a deal for an HP montitor, the same size, 27 inch, for $170. It arrived yesterday and I set it up this morning, and what a difference! It's a pleasure to look over to the left and see the readout windows I leave over there. Night and day difference. #

If journalism is supposedly how we save democracy then I guess journalism isn't doing a great job. In other words, when you hear that hype, go through it. If I sold you a laundry detergent that gets out stains, you'd be right to ask if it actually gets out stains. #

This was the ad Coke had to run after the New Coke debacle. It's almost an apology. It certainly is a retraction. Clever. Not enough to erase the scar on the revered brand, which is still there 30-plus years later.#

Our political system was hacked in 2016. The hackers got in and were running the show for four years. They installed all kinds of new back doors. So even when we close the front door (took us long enough!) and removed the old bug-infested OS, we are still hacked, and, in uncountable and many as-yet-to-be known ways. #

Today's song: Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.#

Poll: Should anyone be able to get a blue check mark on twitter as long as the identity of the person can easily be verified?#

Interesting comments on yesteday's braintrust query. I've never used Asana -- I don't qualify, but apparently it's used for managing projects the way I described. I have used Trello. What I described apparently is "Agile" -- which, to me, means paying attention to how your product is used and making it better based on what you learn. Scrum is where you apply what you learned when being agile. I've always done this, made software for myself first, paid attention as it was used by myself and then others, and devised methods to get users to tell me more about their experience. Interestingly the BTQ itself is a form of agile, I'm trying to learn how to evolve my outliner to make it better for people doing this kind of work, and to make its advantage more obvious.#

I have more ideas than I can implement. It gets worse all the time. When I decided to give them away that's when I started blogging, as a means to give them away. #

OK, here's a free idea. I just read an audiobook written by a living author. I loved the book, and think he's a great writer. The author of the book could say what three books he recommends reading after his book and why they would be good choices. Having just read the book, I have an idea of what I'd like to learn about next. And the author's opinion would have a lot of value. I'd just spent a bit of time reading what they wrote. And of course the author could update the list, change which three books they recommend, and why. #

What's the top thing you owe your surviving the pandemic to.#

The first day of every month is great, because all the paywalls reset, and you can read anything you want, except for a few brutal paywalls that allow zero free reads.#

Why no public funding of journalism? 1. The government would have to define journalism. 2. Journalism will be forever frozen as no more than it is now. 3. Journalism is bound to politics. So it can't change either. 4. Neither empowers their user base.#

I want to delete all the episodes downloaded by Apple's Podcasts app. I've done it before so I know it's possible. Any clues much appreciated. [On Twitter, the best advice, which I used, was to delete the app and re-install. It saves the subscriptions but throws out the data. I had 31GB of downloaded podcasts. I needed none of them. Podcasts aren't like music, if you don't listen to one after a week (say) the app should just delete it.]#

Today's song: Words of Love.#

Braintrust query. For programmers, suppose you get an idea for Project A while you're working on Project B. How do you get that idea down, to make sure it shows up when you're thinking about next steps on B, without disrupting your flow on A? #

The Undoing was even worse than I could have imagined. Still, it had HBO production values, acting, that part they do so well. I don't know what it is but HBO has a look and feel and the artists know how to be part of it. The story was utterly unbelievably lame. They copied an interesting Law & Order plot, it actually was the plot of an episode of L&O, and stretched it out to six fucking hours. There was one interesting plot twist, no spoilers. Also if they had cut the last episode off before it got ridiculous, I might have had a kind word for it. I've rated it a 🔥 over on BingeWorthy. Only the second such show. Somehow they got me to watch to the end. I guess it was kind of relaxing. #

I'd like to say something to my friends from Silicon Valley who have gravitated to venture capital. Not all that's good in tech flows through the VC industry. Y'all should become more aware of it. It's like your weather. A natural resource. It exists. #

Trump never tried to get re-elected. He threatened so many Americans' sense of what's right, of what America is, it's remarkable he didn't lose by more. It's similar imho to the approach of journalism. They have no responsibility for their declining business. They insist, over many years, that the tech industry owes them money. Somehow it never occurred to them that what tech provides is what people want. They don't listen so how could they know? And they don't bend or they would have provided something better than Google, Facebook et al. Now they're doing what Trump is doing. Asking someone to undo their loss. Like Trump they could study their predicament and learn what they need to do differently. Unlike Trump they are still in business.#

All daily writers hope to "life rent-free in your mind." #

Today's song: Dream a Little Dream of Me. #

Podcast: Why you're crazy not to use an outliner. It's just a tool, not a religion, or a cause, it has no mystical properties. It's just useful. Like you use a hammer for some things and a screwdriver for others. It's also easy to use. Text on rails. #

A new BingeWorthy page shows the 100 top-rated programs. No log-in. Has its own metadata, so when you see it on Twitter or Facebook, it announces itself in a reasonable way. This came up yesterday when a friend asked what they should binge next. I had my own recommendations ready to go, but I didn't have one for the whole community. You can help build BingeWorthy by helping spread the word about this page. Thanks! :-)#

An idea for an app the builds off Twitter. 1. Keep an online diary, real time, of shows you’re watching on Netflix, HBO, etc. 2. You can see a read out of what the people you follow are watching right now. 3. Later this can be built into TV sets.#

Try putting together a custom greeting card. A picture on the front. A sentence on the inside. A paragraph on the back. Send me 200, here's my credit card. All the sites are super powerful design tools with quirks and you can stare at the screen and not find any way to get to each of the elements. And they forget your font choice. And you have a funny feeling the thing you just edited is going on the back of the card not on the inside. Who wants to spend the money and time only to find that you created an unusable thing. I have a lot of experience as a web designer, so I can handle crazy complexity, but these sites have all beaten me. Every one of them. #

So here's a hypothetical question. I recall that as a boomer I am responsible for lots of stuff that's happening to people of later generations. Here's the question. Are they responsible for what's happening now?#

Good morning sports fans!#

Not much in the way of sports happening now. In normal years this would be NBA season, and I'd be hunkered down in front of the TV zoning out. Never been much of an NFL fan, and this year it's ridiculous. So many games canceled due to virus outbreaks. #

There's a controversy on Twitter, a disagreement between tech and journalism as to whether people and companies should speak for themselves. The reporters generally say it's "tone deaf" to do so -- the reporters are going to nail you anyway. That's such nonsense. We do so many things, create so much good, and reporters' ability to judge it is so limited. Paul Graham, who I rarely agree with (sorry) said something I totally agree with, citing several founders. It's a familiar theme to readers of this blog. Sources Go Direct. Here's what I tweeted: "My own experience supports Paul Graham's advice. If you depend on journalism to let you do the great thing you’re doing, if they didn’t think of it first it’ll never happen. By going around them I was able to make blogging and podcasting happen. Create the media you need." That last sentence may be another motto in the making. #

I'm in the middle of The Undoing, an HBO miniseries. It's not terrible. After the second episode I wondered if it was worth it, so I asked on Twitter and was told other people felt the same. But there's a quality to HBO dramas that you don't see elsewhere. The stars, acting, music, everything is first-rate, even the writing, even if the plot is just so-so. The series finale is tomorrow night. I expect there will be a surprise in the end, if not, the time won't have been totally wasted. Nicole Kidman is fun to watch, and Donald Sutherland, who plays her father, is still Donald Sutherland. I have a theory about who really dunnit, but no spoilers. 🚀#

For journalism, the Trump cash cow era is over. He’s like the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, dissolving into a puddle of ooze, self-pity and depression.#

We've wasted a shitload time repeatedly "learning" about the personality of an asshole foisted on us by the shitheads who voted for him. There's a certain symmetry to it.#

I’ve been right about a lot when it comes to networking our culture and politics. I’m sure I’m right about where politics needs to go, and have been waiting for decades for the Democratic Party to take a risk and try to win against the lunacy of Repubs.#

A reminder from late October, the Dems must be worse than the Repubs. There's no chance, from today's perspective, that they will be. So, sigh, here we go again. #

If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own.#

In a way it's a shame the vaccines are coming, because if they weren't, we would have to learn to trust and work together, all of us, without exception. The virus would be like AIDS, which transformed sexuality in the 80s and 90s. There wasn't much of a "safe sex" concept before AIDS. Back then, if we were as crazy as we are now, people would say "it's my right not to wear a condom. You're infringing on my civil liberties!" A condom to protect against STDs is fairly analogous to wearing a mask to protect against Covid. There is no vaccine for AIDS, roughly 40 years later. So we had to transform and learn new societal norms. We apparently will not have to do that for Covid-19. Shame. Because we really do need to learn how to work each other, for many other reasons. This is not the last crisis we're going to be facing collectively, and a new understanding of what our rights are is called for. #

I'm going to get the vaccine as soon as I can. If I get vaccinated, now you aren't my problem, not personally. I might urge you to get the vaccine or wear a mask because I care about other people, but it's not about me anymore.#

In the early days of the virus I said it would make us smarter because there's no way out that doesn't require us to be smarter. It was true, we did get smarter. But we didn't have to work together. We will be able to get out of this, individually, even if people are in it only for themselves and some immature misguided sense of what their rights are. #

The lame duck had a eruption yesterday, a very rude one, where he said he was the president of the United States and you don't talk to the president of the United States that way. Then I thought, is he really the president of the United States? He plays golf and other than that probably not much more. Can you say you're president of the United States if you aren't doing the job? #

For the Lincoln Project. Do you still live rent-free in Trump's head? I always wondered why campaigns stop entertaining us with videos when the election is over. That's when the fun starts, esp if you won. 💥#

Something I wrote on Facebook in 2018. "I hear a lot of baby boomer blame tonight. I just have one thing to say to you younguns. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. There I let you in on the secret. Now go "run" the world. Hahah."#

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! #

Today's song: Alice's Restaurant. #

A wild turkey came to visit the other day! 🚀#

Poll: Which company's products do you buy more than the others?#

I am thankful for my car. It's really weird but since the pandemic started, I've had this huge appreciation for what a fine bit of engineering it is. For a relatively big car it handles really well, esp driving on muddy dirt roads, which I do every day. It has more headroom than any car I've owned, which is cool because my torso is huge. In most cars, designed for normal-size people, I hit my head getting in, and have to scrunch my body uncomfortably just to fit. I sail in and out of the Forester, and I can sit any way I want. You'd be amazed how important this is. It also has technological flourishes which while not as flashy as a Tesla, still blow my mind. For example, the car likes to stay in lane. You could have a collision if you really insist, but you would know you were doing it. Very rational design. But the biggest thing is this -- for a civilization that is tottering on the edge of oblivion in so many ways, if this is the pinnacle, the highest point we ever reach, I have to say, well done human species. Very nice work. #

I’m thankful for WDST, a great rock music radio station, as good as KFOG, on the radio dial where I live. #

I'm thankful for the great food in Woodstock. For such a small town, there are an incredible number of great places to eat. Much of it is very affordable. I've lived in Berkeley, New Orleans and New York -- places known for great food -- and the food here is that good. And the farms are right here, so the food is often incredibly fresh. For a good bagel however, you still have to go to NYC. #

A bunch of big shots, including yours truly, are pretending we work for Gruber, after we all admitted that we couldn't work for anyone. Here's my vignette. "Dave has been ordered to add a feature to the app, and asked to explain why it’ll take so long to do. Finally Gruber in a fit of frustration asks for the source so he can add it himself over the holiday weekend. Dave gives him the code and starts work on a fresh project."#

I'm thankful to have survived the virus at least this far. Every day is a new day in this wonderful world. Of course I'm thankful Donald Trump is now a has-been, one-term, washed-up, lame-duck, impeached, loser. I have avoided listening to him and reading his tweets, all the time knowing they were possibly going to affect our lives, always in a bad way. At least for the time-being it feels like that is over. #

I'm sure we've lost a lot in the last four years that we don't yet know about, especially in 2020. But the United States is still the United States. Journalism tends to make it appear worse than it is. In day to day life, at least where I live, things are much the same as before. The store shelves are still full. You can still buy a wonderful meal. Want to buy a car? You can. The roads are clear. Gas stations have gas. Supply chains work. The health care system is a mess, as before, but much worse right now. The laws for the most part are enforced (except for you know who and his friends). Western civilization created and tested three highly effective vaccines in record time. We did this. To Americans who hate elites, if you understand these sentences, you might want to think again about living in a country that values education, science and math enough to get these things done, pronto, when needed, to save your life. Yours. You. Now we're going to try to get our political system to work for us again. Maybe you can possibly not get in the way of that? I know that's a lot to hope for. :-)#

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Everyone be careful out there. #

Obviously Stacey Abrams should be the next chair of the Democratic Party. Just look at the electoral map. There's the great state of Georgia, a solid blue in a sea of red. Someone figured it out. Someone was determined it would work. Someone made it work. Another good candidate would be Pete Buttigieg. Because the Dems need to talk to white people. It may not be popular, but if they could steal ten percent of the Trump base from the Repubs, things would go a lot smoother.#

Where did people get the idea that this holiday season could be like last year's holiday season? Andrew Cuomo says it's commercials, and I think he's right. Check out this Etsy commercial. A feel-good holiday dinner. No masks. People of all generations together, indoors, no social distancing. Where did they get the idea that this kind of ad was appropriate in 2020? I'm sure the question came up. #

Political parties must become social nets. We're going through yet another Democratic transition where the voters are being forgotten as the insiders turn to governance. Our job is simply to give them money and vote. That's why it's working so poorly, why polling isn't able to read the electorate. Why as soon as 2022, the Dems could lose the House and then Biden will surely be impeached. We need to organize, so we can help -- using the best networking tools available. #

Occam‘s News reports the only reasons Trump pardons: 1. He’s being paid $ to do it. 2. He’s being blackmailed.#

The most frequently cited domains from my linkblog. BTW, this is the query that generated that table: select domain, count(domain) from links group by domain order by count(domain) desc limit 100; #

There was a time, a few years ago, when the NYT went to war with Facebook, leading the rest of the journalism industry. Since then I've never seen the NYT say anything positive about Facebook, or even present an alternate point of view of something evil they reported about Facebook. Add their obvious conflict of interest, and you have exactly what Fox, Breitbart or Newsmax does, except with added arrogance and pretense. They aren't even trying to present the factual information so their readers can make up their own minds. This has a very strong effect, it keeps people who follow the NYT from using Facebook to organize. Even on simple totally non-controversial things like being a way for neighbors to communicate. News is too powerful to be this fucked up. That should be the new Washington Post slogan like the one about democracy (which btw, they haven't done a great job of preserving, just sayin). That said, guess which pub is #1 on my list of most frequently cited domains? #

Want to fuck up the Repubs? Move to a red state.#

Today's song: My Wife. #

I wrote a script that's loading all my linkblog links going back to 2010 into a MySQL database. I'm almost getting good at this. 💥#

I listened to yesterday's Cuomo briefing. Highly recommend it. Here's the RSS feed. A story he tells: On TV companies are advertising Thanksgiving the normal way with people getting together for parties and big dinners. Lots of hugs. No masks or social distancing. This sends a message that we're back to normal. I know it's illogical, but with no one contradicting the message in as powerful a way (one or two news interviews with Dr Fauci isn't that powerful) people are relieved. But the density of virus now is very high. You might've gotten away with traveling in the summer when the virus was scarce, but now, it's everywhere, and the result is likely to be dramatic, awful, and the growth of the virus will make even more people get infected in December and January.#

BTW, at the supermarket this morning I saw a guy wearing one of those plastic face shields. That's not protection for the virus. When you breathe, it goes around the shield and enters the environment with no filter. It's as if you weren't wearing a mask, because you're not. #

We're in a period where people who understand math and science have a survival advantage over people who don't. It's not even high math, btw -- just the kind of stuff you would have learned in high school, if you were paying attention. ;-)#

A flaw in the Constitution we're learning about now, the period between an incumbent losing a bid for re-election, and the inauguration of his successor is unnecessarily long. This is a period when the president, as we're finding out now, can do real damage to the country. I expect we're going to learn a lot about what's happening now when Trump leaves, or maybe runs. The smart thing to do would be to remove the president as soon as the election outcome is known. And pending investigation he should be put in jail, no bail. A nice one, of course, but still we need to check out what he did.#

Season 4 of The Crown is good. About half way through, at the beginning of the Australia trip, I gave up. I felt it was unwatchable. But I gave it another try. It's quite a story. And the characters are more interesting than I gave them credit for, and the acting is good. The last scene of the last episode is the best. Ties it up in a ribbon. No spoilers. 💥#

An idea for a New Year's resolution. At least once a day agree with someone. Not silently. Say "I agree with you." No qualification, not "I agree with you, but.." It's jarring at first, then liberating. And the responses will surprise you.#

This is why I don’t trust reviews from journos who Apple chooses to review their products. They overlook the flaws that make the machine unusable. And all the gushing over what? A new CPU? Please. I can't tell what CPU any machine is running, and neither can you, unless you open the system About box. My main concern about the new Macs with the new CPU is if VMWare runs on them, and if I can run Frontier in there. Otherwise forget it. I'll stick with my Intel iMac Pro I bought in 2017.#

The Cuomo podcast is updating again. #

Increased air travel for the holiday is a form of national suicide. But on CNN they give a lame version of the story. Trying to find normalcy flying to a big family dinner on Thursday is crazy. #

A friend told me the other day that outliners are not good for planning software development work because they are "linear." I have no idea what that means. For me, the function of an outliner is to let me record ideas and events to flow to different places over time. Flow is the big word. It's the fluidity of the outliner that makes the difference. I think of it as text on rails. Paper and whiteboards are not so flexible because of limited space. Outlines have unlimited space. I can always add a note and the software automatically makes room. And I can move something without erasing it (a weakness of paper). Fluidity. Are outlines linear? Not in any obvious way, to me at least. A linear tool would force everything to be on one line, at one level. The point of an outline is that you can go infinitely deep. The work has structure. A line is unstructured. #

As far as I know, no columnist or editorial board has called for the House and Senate to remove Trump before he can do more damage. There is a provision for it in the Constitution. Here's the checklist.#

A big unreported problem in the political universe of the US is that our journalists are: 1. Cloistered. 2. Incurious. 3. Late.#

I'm about to give up on the holiday cards. All the sites are impossible to use. I want to put a picture on the front. A two-word message in front of the picture. Open the card, it says something like Happy Holidays, with my name, and enough room for me to write something. On the back it should not have an ad for the company. It should be just as simple as I've said here. I shouldn't have to figure anything out. Four questions, click Submit to preview. Bing.#

A vivid picture of how ideas flow in our political world: "He spent most of his career as a bit of an outsider to Washington’s social world, his face pressed against the glass. The cool kids, including President Barack Obama, occasionally mocked him behind his back for his cornball earnestness." They're talking about Joe Biden, who is about to become our president. So maybe the idea of people inside and outside isn't serving us so well. I can't believe how long it takes our stupid political system to neutralize a troll. If journalism weren't so walled-off from those of us with our faces "pressed against the glass" we might have avoided a lot of the still-unknown damage carnage of the Trump years. Two consecutive uncool presidents. Maybe it's time to air things out a bit, open the window. #

Very quietly Medium is no longer the online place-of-record, which is good, because as a money-losing tech startup they have no obligation to maintain a record. The bad news is that the new incumbent is yet another tech startup. If we want the net to work, we need some institutions that are not-for-profit. archive.org is a good backstop. But the web imho deserves more. #

Must-read article on the stupid coup that's happening right now in the US. The author makes a good point. There is a coup built into the Constitution in the delay between the election and inauguration. Too much time for a president who has been voted out to do damage. Previous presidents have limited the damage because they were goodfellas, and wanted to be seen by history as such. But now we have a mad king who doesn't give a shit what you think.#

Has anyone considered that the Trumps want to delay the transition because the Bidens will then find out that they’ve gutted our government. And that there’s actually no plan for distributing the vaccine. In other words it's a coverup. Hoping some catastrophe comes along that makes it unnecessary to do a transition. Think about how long Trump has stalled the release of his tax returns. #

Trump is like a programmer you're getting ready to fire, who gets wind of it, and starts destroying your servers and backups. I've seen this actually happen. Do you wait for all the I's to get dotted and T's to get crossed, or do you delete his credentials immediately?#

Today's song: Ironic. #

Sidney Powell is Trolling 2.0.#

I saw an ad on YouTube for a product I'm interested in, but didn't catch its name before they started showing me another ad.#

As Thanksgiving is almost here, this is what I'm most thankful for. The functional parts of the American government held back the corrupt parts. We had a perfect national election. Squeaky clean. The Trumps are proving that. The courts, even judges appointed by Trump, are sticking to and enforcing the rule of law. Is that enough to keep the system going for a while longer? We don't know for sure, but right now, it looks like it is. And think of all the things that didn't hold. And the corruption that made that possible#

A graph I'd like to see. 1. Make a list of all the most influential journalists. 2. Put their names on a map. 3. If journo A reads journo B, then draw an arc with a pointer going from A to B. That's it. I'd just like to see who influences who. #

Jonah Peretti of Buzzfeed says that because the NYT is behind a paywall and therefore only accessible to rich people, it can no longer be considered The Paper of Record. #

An interesting idea on Twitter, addressed to future generations: "So misinformation was free and facts were hidden behind a pay wall? And you all wondered why democracy was brought down by masses peddling conspiracy theories?" It's a fun theory but it's not true. Buzzfeed, Axios, CNN and many others, are not behind paywalls, and are just as reputable as the ones that are. #

BTW, I almost never cite Buzzfeed, which is something I should try to correct. But it doesn't show up in my Google news searches. Or on Memeorandum. Or in other people's tweets. It isn't very visible in my world. #

As a reader I see the web as a single entity, I don't feel the boundaries that news orgs try to impose. Even when I pay to go through them. News was unbundled a long time ago. It interferes with the flow, I want interesting ideas to circulate, to stimulate other ideas. I miss a lot of stuff that I shouldn't miss, not because I'm poor or can't pay, but because I don't want to subscribe, I don't want a relationship, I just want to read the story.#

I once had a script that gave me a breakdown of pubs I cite in my linkblog. I wonder what happened to it? Hmmm.#

Here's the deal on when we'll get back to "normal." If you or someone you love gets the virus, probably never. Because no one knows what the lingering effects are. We know some people are devastated by the symptoms. And we don't know if people who appeared to have been symptomless really were, or people who appear to have recovered really are recovered. This is a new disease. Not much is known about it. It's weird and different. If you roll the dice, the cost of a losing bet is unknown. One Thanksgiving dinner of apparent normalcy isn't worth risking the rest of your life being crippled, disabled or in pain, or seeing someone you care about similarly affected.#

I'd like more randomness to the NBA rosters. Each year, after the draft: 1. Create a deck of cards with the images of each NBA player. 2. Throw away 2/3 of the deck at random. 3. Arrange the teams around a table. 4. Deal the cards out as if it were a card game.#

Edward Norton on Twitter on what Trump is really doing. I agree, and very well put. Short version. Trump is repeatedly stinking up the room, hoping to negotiate a deal where he is able to walk away, rich and with his head held high (in his own Trumpolini style), to live to fight another day. Norton says to call his bluff. Let him do his schtick and then say, no deal. BTW, every business and industry has one person who behaves so badly that they invariably get their way, because eventually no one wants to go as low as they are willing to go. I'm not going to name names, except Trump is the best at "stinking up the room." He keeps doing it until you give up. McConnell is pretty good too. Stinking up the room is a super advanced form of trolling. #

The truly significant developments, when viewed in hindsight, are almost never the ones that were hyped at the time of their introduction. There are exceptions, the IBM PC and Mac, both created important platforms, were quick hits. But usually the impactful products develop over time, maybe that's because to be a great product you need a quiet period to adapt to how people use your product. Right now I'm thinking about the way ISPs are gradually moving away from the server model to the app model, as pioneered by Heroku. I still plan to look at Digital Ocean's new offering. I have used Glitch and of course Heroku. Glitch is free, can't beat that price, but you wonder if it's just an introductory offer? Heroku's per-app price was way too high, made it diseconomic, which is unfortunate because it was so much more rational a model than managing your own servers, which is what I've been doing since switching off Heroku. All this is part of a larger thread that maybe it's time to move away from static sites because net apps are being successfully commoditized. #

I walked into a store the other day and was greeted by a smiling young woman. I smiled back, then she said "Good morning sir." Oy. I took a deep breath and said, after a little thought, "Good morning ma'am." Her face looked like I imagined my face did. I looked at her inquisitively (it's amazing how much conversation is wordless). She said she didn't like to feel so old. I said that's how I feel. (I then quoted my father when he was my current age.) "Inside I still feel 19," I said. She smiled. I smiled. She said "Well then Good morning dude." I laughed and said "Good morning dude," and we went on with our business, having brought a little cheer to each other, I hope. She meant well. But inside the feelings are complex. I know that she and I are of different generations. When I was 40 years younger I could've flirted with her, but now I can't. But I can still dream. ❤️#

BTW, in the South it's a sign of respect for any man to call any woman ma'am, even one who is a lot younger, maybe even especially if she's younger. It's a sign of respect for the power and authority of women. I always liked that part of Southern culture. (I should be more specific, white Southern culture.)#

Today's song: Georgia on my Mind. #

As the secretaries of state in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin do their jobs, it's remarkable that the US is still the US when it comes to elections. We wondered how deep the corruption went. We could find no limit in Repubs in DC. But the states held. We have to root the corruption out. To do that Georgia must deliver again. It's down to Stacey Abrams vs Mitch McConnell. #

I gave another $100 to FairFight to support the Democrats in the January 5 runoff in Georgia. #

Joe Trippi taught me something about politics. I said we, the people of the US, should buy ads in Georgia, asking the voters there to save our lives and vote for the Democratic candidates on Jan 5. I was very passionate about it, but was only looking at it from my perspective. Here's what Trippi said: "The South generally doesn't take well to people from 'outside' trying to influence them." That was generous, because no one takes well to that. It may be why Susan Collins was re-elected in Maine even though Democrats from the rest of the country poured huge money into defeating her. It's also why James Clyburn single-handedly got the nomination for President-elect Biden -- people in South Carolina listen to and trust him. It's also why Pete Buttigieg is a huge hit on Fox. They like a nice young white man even if what he says would be seen as socialism if it came from an outsider (ie person of color). You can't blame people for bonding with people who look like they do. It's part of who we are, not just Americans, not just whites, but everyone. It's also true that, as Elissa Slotkin pointed out, you can't win when you appear to be talking down to people, and an outsider automatically appears that way. #

What's the upshot of all this? Well, some part of the Trump electorate could probably be peeled off with better marketing to white people by the Democratic Party. Have someone who speaks their language, and looks like them, explain each thing the party wants to do in Congress next year. Respect them. Talk straight, but use white person talk and do it where they live, in the middle of the country. What matters even more than what you say is how you say it and where you say it from. #

Where's a good place to get customized holiday greeting cards?#

An article on Axios points out something obvious that I missed. Trump, by litigating his misery over the election, is ratifying Biden's win, over and over. #

Today's song: Something to Talk About.#

As I was writing the bit below about Emily Murphy, CNN published this story about her and the transition she's holding up, and why. She says she didn't sign up for this, but that's the way it goes sometimes. She's being called on to save her country. This is about as must-read as anything I've ever seen.#

I'd like to see a graph of all the people I follow, to see how many are connected to Trump, via a "follows" arc. I'd like to be able to disconnect from all of them. I'd like to exist in a Twitterverse that is completely disconnected from Trump. Even better if it's dynamic, so I can automatically re-follow them once they disconnect from Trump.#

Chess is on my mind. If we were playing chess with Trump, he hasn't knocked over his king yet, and he's right not to, given the rules he plays by, he still has a shot at winning. Losing as we know is a terrible personal outcome for him, not just the ego stuff, but practically speaking, he's been caught doing crimes that you go to jail for. Ask Michael Cohen. Most of us would accept the outcome, concede, show up for trial -- but not Trump. So even after the Electoral College votes, until he actually leaves the White House, it isn't over. #

Why is no one talking about Emily Murphy, administrator of the GSA. She's the single government official who could turn this situation around, yet she refuses. Why haven't there been any interviews? She has more power in this matter than any governor, or secretary of state, or McConnell even. Later it won't be so clear, once this situation has festered, but right now she alone has the power to turn the corner. I suggested on Twitter the other day we send her flowers with cards that say "Write the letter."#

Maybe Thanksgiving Day on Twitter should be for posting and RTing pictures of people who died from Covid in 2020.#

Idea for a science fiction story. It turns out that Bic lighters are an alien species sent to infiltrate our civilization and return spy data to their home planet, many light years away.#

I'm about 1/2 through the current season of The Crown. I think Claire Foy's queen with Lithgow as Churchill was the best combo. Here's a reminder of how wonderful she is. The current season so far is good, a must-watch, but not as compelling as previous seasons.#

Podcast: Marketing to White People. If Democrats marketed to white people, just a little, they could pick up another ten percent, because they don’t do any now. That could make a big diff. I've been wanting to talk about this for most of 2020, but wanted to wait for things to settle down a bit. It worked, we voted Trump out, but we can do much better, and be much stronger. This is a 20-minute manifesto, a plea, an idea that's worth listening to imho. PS: The rep I was thinking about was Elissa Slotkin. #

Will the Trumps continue to destroy the United States Postal Service now that the election is over?#

More attention than El Orange deserves, but it's funny, so wtf.#

I wish Amazon had come along with their online drug store earlier so I could have switched to it. Previously I had used CVS, and their online service was awful, and their in person service was spotty. I expect Amazon's drug store will work work like Amazon, i.e. as you would expect given that it's 2020 not 1990. I wish Amazon would go into competition with banks, so I could do my checking with them. I have an Apple credit card, btw -- and it works way better than the ones the banks issue. Perfectly integrated with my iPhone. And I use Google Fi, again, way better than T-Mobile et al. I don't know why the banks, drug stores, airlines, credit cards, you name it, can't just copy the online services, but clearly they can't. #

Today's podcast listen: The Daily on the split in the Democratic Party. I think both sides are missing the obvious answer. Study the people who are voting for the Repubs. Listen. Think. The Democrats are rightly recognizing the minorities, but this may be misinterpreted by whites, esp white men. Correct that, not by trying to correct the voters, but correct the way you explain the party. The Democrats implement programs that are good for people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age. The Repubs are poison for the people. How hard could it be to come up with a simple way of saying that truth? I agree that Defund The Police was a terrible slogan, but it wasn't a Democratic slogan. Yes I know what it's supposed to mean, but if the slogan were any good you wouldn't have to explain it. It's ripe for the Repubs. Stop leading with your chin. No one in their right mind is willing to get rid of the police. I want someone to come when I need help. Defund is the wrong word. #

I have another related question. Why didn't the Dems run ads saying that the Repubs aren't doing their jobs, starting with the president. He's a bum. He doesn't show up for work. Hasn't had a briefing in months. McConnell lets the legislation pile up on his desk. They're basically welfare queens. I remember the Repubs campaigning about that, effectively. Why would we pay for people who do nothing for us?#

Another question. Why don't the Democrats make an issue out of everyone voting. We learned in the aftermath of the Nov 3 election that the Republican Secretaries of State are honorable people. If the Dems put that idea out there -- that the Repubs are abusing the rest of us by trying to stop us from voiting, well it's an American value that everyone gets to vote, it doesn't matter what race they are or how much money they have (an appeal to white voters, btw). Everyone has a say. That's American as apple pie. Why don't the Repubs get on board with that? A nice way to push a wedge into the Repub voting block. If poor whites start voting against Repubs, you better believe they're going to disenfranchise your ass. #

Have you seen the new season of The Crown? If so, is it great?#

Nate Silver put together a quick and dirty table with the share of each state's population ever infected with Covid. 39% of people in North Dakota have been infected. In New York, 18%, California 13%. #

People are tweeting that Substack is building its own version of Google Reader. I'd be surprised. Imho more likely they're creating a place to read stories published on Substack, as they are published. I'd bet this is more like the reading function in Medium than Google Reader.#

I pay $65 a month for YouTube TV, which I use to watch CNN and MSNBC for a couple of hours each night. I wonder if there's a less expensive way to get these services. Seems like a lot of money, considering both channels have ads. #

Right now there are only two stories about Trump that matter imho. 1. How he is leaving and when. 2. What damage will he do before he leaves. Anything else is just him trying to cling to a dream that is over.#

If you haven't listened to the 1619 podcast, I highly recommend it. It's a whole new way to view American history, compared to what we were taught in school when I grew up. Five episodes. #

Has any news org written a story about what would happen if January 20 comes and Trump refuses to leave the White House. Not speculation, ie not whether it will or will not happen, but attempt to gather facts about it. Request an interview with the head of the Secret Service, for example. Seems to me this at least rises to the level of the famous "I'm in control here" press conference with Alexander Haig in the Reagan administration. There was a West Wing episode about this, btw, when the president is shot. Danny wants to know who was in charge then. CJ can't figure it out. Anyway what happens on January 21 when parts of the government are still responding to orders from Trump. Get ready because that's a possibility. That should be on the op-ed pages of every news org, now.#

I started a thread on yesterday's contemplation of a preprocessor for JavaScript that would allow us to define functions that perform asynchronous operations yet be called as if it were synchronous. I think this can be accomplished with a preprocessor. I want a scripting language for my JS outliner, that's the motivation. #

Today's must-listen podcast: Radio Open Source. A review of the election with eight regular guests. Take-away: Dems need candidates that working class people connect with. #

Poll: Are you going to a Thanksgiving dinner with more than your immediate family?#

Thread: Suppose one were to contemplate a new scripting language that was minimally different from JavaScript, was implemented by a pre-processor (ie it generated JavaScript code), that could handle any JavaScript code or data structure, but -- allowed you to implement asynchronous functions that were called synchronously, both in the built-in functions and developer-defined functions, without using special syntax such as promises or await/async to invoke them. Has anyone attempted that? Delivered? #

Today's song: Surly Joe. #

This week's Joe Trippi podcast is a must-listen. He says the Senate Republicans are playing Trump. They need him to win the Georgia runoffs on January 5. Trippi has experience managing (and winning) the Doug Jones special election in Alabama in 2017 and thinks turnout in the Georgia runoff may be similar (ie much lower than on November 3). Democratic turnout will be managed ably by Stacey Abrams. Trippi says the letter Loeffler and Perdue sent to the Georgia secretary of state demanding he resign was primarily for Trump, look boss we're carrying your water, come campaign for us! Once the runoff is done, the story goes, they will dump Trump and turn to the Biden inauguration. If they lose in Georgia, they become the minority party, and McConnell et al don't want that. Pretty amazing how depraved these Republican senators are, if Trippi is right, and I suspect he is. All for two years in the majority, obstructing the recovery from the virus.#

I asked Michael Hunt about the status of the Woodstock Library bond issue. "Down by 80 votes but over 1000 absentees to count by November 17. We won early voting by 10 points (55% to 45%) but got clobbered on Election Day. I think absentees could look like early voting. It will be a nailbiter but it ain’t over."#

Elissa Slotkin (D-MI): "You know, the one thing I will say about Donald Trump. He doesn’t talk down to anybody. He is who he is, but he doesn’t talk down to anyone. And I think that there is a certain voter out there because of that who identifies with him and appreciates him."#

The reason to vote Democratic in Georgia in the runoff is to save your life.#

Surprising to learn the Republican Party is not corrupt to the core. Republican Secretaries of State at least sound like high integrity professionals who are committed to a full and accurate vote. And it's wonderful to know that voting still works in the USA. #

Tommy Williams: "Even here in Montana, where the vote went red up and down the board for probably the first time ever, our Secretary of State, Corey Stapleton, told President Trump to concede on Nov 7." #

Before you hit Send on a reply, check what you said, and if you’re talking down to the other person, think again.#

Trump is firing the people who protect the country. I wonder if that's because some other country is going to attack us.#

The difference in quality between the two groups of Georgia senate candidates, Dem and Repub are like night and day. The Dems will use the power of the US government to be sure the Georgians get through the winter of the pandemic in as good shape as possible. The Repubs will not. It's really simple. And when they save the lives of thousands of Georgians, they will also be saving the lives of many thousands of people in every other state of the union. That's power! Thanks in advance to Georgia for helping us out. We won't forget. #

Rosental: "As a journalist, I covered many coups in Latin America. If I were still there and saw a president who doesn't accept his defeat in a legitimate election, fires the head of the military who refuses to use troops against protesters, I would conclude that a coup d'état was imminent."#

SNL must planning a new Jeopardy hosted by Trump.#

A Twitter thread from Timothy Snyder. He says we should be out in the street protesting now. "Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete we are powerless. In an authoritarian situation, the election is only round one. You don't win by winning round one. Peaceful demonstrations after elections are necessary for transitions away from authoritarianism, as in Poland in 1989, Serbia in 1999, or Belarus right now." #

CNN: "As Trump mounts a fierce battle to remain in office and refuses to concede the election he lost, he has shown little interest in the work of being President."#

Trump et al had months to prepare for this coup, most of us can't even believe it's happening.#

The Trumps aren't going to court to win, they're trying to create a hierarchy of grievances. First there was the cheating, so they took it to the courts but that was rigged too. #

I just heard a rumor that Alec Baldwin is refusing to leave SNL.#

Did you get a chance to try the Similar Users command in BingeWorthy? It came out in the middle of the election frenzy. When you choose the command, BingeWorthy looks through the database and finds people who like similar programs to you. You may get ideas by looking at their picks. Here's a screen shot of what it shows me. #

More exploration into the world of Fargo blogging. Here's the OPML source for Kim Parker's blog. Kim Parker is a fictitious person, a support person at a tech company called Bloatware. Her blog was the example I used in the docs for Fargo's CMS. Not sure why I used #attributes instead of using outline attributes, which are hidden and out of the way. But there you have it. A 2013 blogging system, does it differently than Old School. It's more like Frontier's CMS. #

On Sunday I said Joe should throw an elbow. He did, at least three. Netanyahu, MBS and Erdoğan didn't endorse his victory without getting something in return. This is where we're glad it's Biden that's President-elect, with lots of experience. He knows where the levers of power are in the US and internationally, he has credibility that other Democrats didn't.#

Lawyers: Which states don’t require the electors chosen by the state legislature to be consistent with the vote of the people? Which of these states have Repub legislatures that voted for Biden?#

How about a social network where you choose people who lead you and people you peer with. Not for discussion, for organizing. #

I gave $100 to FairFight to elect Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and help Democrats take back the Senate.#

A two podcast Tuesday. Today's Daily podcast on how polling went wrong in 2016 and 2020. Lincoln Project on what's next, and how deeply dug in the Trumps are. We still live in their country.#

I grew up 4.1 miles from where Trump grew up, if you go via Utopia Parkway. #