As usual journalism is cutting Trump too much slack. Here's what actually happened, via Occam's News, between Trump and the Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine. First, Trump doesn't care if there's an actual investigation. He wants Zelensky to say there was, and Biden & Biden are being charged with something heinous that carries the death penalty in Ukraine. That's the first round of hype. Then Ukraine files for extradition of the Bidens. Trump goes through a whole drama, trying to decide whether or not to allow Biden & Biden to be deported to Ukraine, or try them in the US, for interfering with an election in a foreign country, usurping the perogative of the US govt. The press reports on Trump's Decision, Day 1, Day 2 and so on. Reporters camp out in front of the White House all night waiting for a decision. Finally Trump emerges with AG Barr, he decides try them here, showing surprising mercy for the Bidens, it is reported almost everywhere. After all that Ukraine quietly receives the $250 million, of course with a taste for Trump. My guess is that all this will still happen even though it's been exposed. And Pelosi still will not allow impeachment. #

DHH wants something like the Scripting News nightly email for people he follows on Twitter. It's doable, the Twitter API has what's needed, but I'm not sure most tweets would look good in email. Think of the hacks people use to tell stories on Twitter. It would be easier the other way around, to take essays and turn them into a series of Tweets. Of course I have an app for that -- Little Pork Chop. There's also Happy Friends, a web app I wrote in 2014. It still works, but I don't use it myself anymore. Not sure why. #

I bet Steve Jobs was a Mets fan. #

Want a protest? Here’s a plan that would get things to change. A permanent occupation of DC by 100K people demanding impeachment. Leave when your replacement arrives.#

I had never heard of Yacht Rock before listening to the third episode of the 1619 podcast, which might be the best single episode of any podcast ever. If you love American music, you can, in a few minutes, find out what it is and where it came from. If you say "Alexa play Yacht Rock" you get a virtual radio station of the good stuff. #

Want to have marches that scare Moscow Mitch and Nancy Pelosi? All over the country we pretend it's Election Day. Dress rehearsal. March to your local polling place and have a have a street fair with booths for the candidates, for causes and political parties. Let the candidates treat you to entertainment, food and drink. We should make Election Day as much anticipated as any holiday. Or even better, usurp an existing holiday like Halloween. 💥 #

It would be great if we could make voting a party, a celebration, something to look forward to, not something you have to make time for. That would probably do more to improve the lives of all Americans than any other single thing. It's like the SuperBowl, the NBA Finals, Coachella or the Oscars, only better -- because we are the stars.#

Yogi Berra: "You can observe a lot by just watching." #

I finished Undone last night. Spoilers follow, so be warned. In the story, a teacher urges a student to be the sky (paraphrasing), observe your feelings the way the sky might observe the flow of a river. This is something I've learned, it comes with age and experience, self-knowledge. I think you can learn it at a young age, if you're taught and you practice. Once you can observe your feelings, fully feel them, but not let them become you, that's when you come into your power. Some reviewers say the series is about mental illness, but that's only one theory of the show, and not the one we're left with, waiting for season 2. I'm probably going to watch it again, it's such rich story and so beautifully told. #

Scott Love, via email: "I want to star or rate your best gems!" I always listen to Scott. He was hired as a product marketing manager at Living Videotext in the mid-80s, but he was so much more. We went to dinner probably two or three nights a week, and mostly about where to go with our outliner products, and what the competition in the Valley was doing. I would try ideas out on Scott, give him limited background, to see where his mind would go. Very creative and hard-working mind. Scott reads this blog via the nightly email. It's a lot like the old days at Chef Chu's in Los Altos. So Scott, there are features in the web version of Scripting News that aren't in the email version, for security reasons. They also aren't in the RSS version. You can Like any item on the blog, but only in the web browser version. 💥#

Here's a video demo of the Like feature.#

Add Likes to any website with this Node app. #

Lots of catching up to do betw Scott and myself. For example, here's a 2009 piece, Narrate Your Work, I'm pretty sure Scott will like. #

A feature I've been thinking about. When I mention someone who's a long-time personal friend, they might have a blue checkmark after their name like this: Bull Mancuso. #

The key to politics and media of today is giving the people a role beyond couch potato, social media sharer and marcher. You want people to be involved in your mission? Then involve the people. #

Farhad Manjoo and Ezra Klein are both wrong about Obama’s biggest mistake, which was thinking “President” and “community organizer” are different jobs. He should have moved his excellent campaign into the White House instead of disbanding it. #

Another mistake Obama made that history will probably judge him on is that he underestimated Trump and Putin, openly. Don't motivate your enemies. Never slam the door on the way out. #

Fascinating op-ed in the NYT by two political science authors about why the Repubs play dirty. They illustrate more generally that political parties play dirty when they realize they can't stay in power any other way. But -- consider this sentence -- "The only way out of this situation is for the Republican Party to become more diverse." As a programmer, which teaches me to challenge my assumptions, it's a critical part of design and debugging, I see that it's not the only way out. Political parties aren't like baseball teams. As long as there's baseball, your favorite team will continue, though they could move or change their name. For example, the Washington Nationals are the former Montreal Expos. But the same must not be true of political parties. The Repubs had a good run, but they went down a path that didn't work. So they lose elections. What of it. There's no way the Democrats will rule the whole country unopposed for any amount of time -- a new party will form. In all likelihood two new parties will form. There aren't enough white Christians in the US to rule, and many of them, esp the young ones, see themselves as part of a diverse America. Eventually the Repubs will disappear, the question is how much damage will they do on their way out.#

BTW, the radical adjustments in the US political system are an obvious response to big changes in the Soviet Union in the 80s and 90s. People thought at the time there would be a peace dividend, and that it signalled the end of history. I didn't believe it at the time, I saw both ideas as tempting fate, the same way you brag that your candidate can't lose. God hears you and as my dear departed uncle would say goofs on you. #

Political parties should be seen as disposable.#

I listened to the Daily podcast today about what an Elizabeth Warren rally is like. I liked how people were asked to take a minute and introduce themselves to the people around them. Wouldn't it be great if everyone left with a task they would do to make the world better, right now, not after Warren gets elected. This is what we need, meaningful things each of us can do to make things better. We yearn to belong and to do good work.#

Political parties could have expiration dates.#

The new iPhone 11 takes fantastic night pictures. Jealous. #

I love everything about the HBO series Succession, but tops is how they sneak in Fuck Offs with such style and vigor. #

When you’re thinking how fantastic it must be to be one of the richest people on earth, remember to think of this picture.#

The only reason not to impeach Trump, as far as I can see, is it could hurt the Democratic Party. I have no idea why, considering what's at stake, anyone cares if the DP survives. We'll form another party.#

Some shows I binge in "savor mode," they're so good and there isn't much to binge on, so I go slow, stop often and savor shows to watch later. Undone is one of those shows. Two 1/2 hour episodes left. It is of a genre, wild misunderstood-as-crazy super-powered young woman, as much a victim of her powers as master of them. Undone is something like Russian Doll and Killing Eve. I'll know more when I finish. But it's one of the best shows ever. #

Matt Mullenweg: "I see open source as a hack to get people to work together that would otherwise compete. We could rebuild the same thing dozens of times, or make one really awesome version. I like that IE/Microsoft is using and improving Chromium, it also keeps Google honest." #

If you haven’t watched Succession, here’s a preview.#

Thanks for reading my blog via email. I love the comments, esp since only I see them, there's less grandstanding, pontificating, more hey here's a book you'd like, or I listened to that podcast too.#

My smoothie-making has evolved. In the evening I make orange juice from concentrate to drink, with ice, while watching the Mets. I leave about 1/2 glass for the morning, when I throw in frozen fruit, a heaping tablespoon of yogurt and a bit of warm water, and zap it in the blender. Pour it into a big glass and sip it for an hour or so while I write in the morning. It's delicious, cold, tasty and nutritious. I feel very loved. #

Today's Daily podcast is about Harvey Weinstein. The reporters covering him for the NYT got access to the notes, letters and emails of Lisa Bloom, one of Weinstein's attorneys, detailing the PR and legal campaign to get the story killed. Presumably these techniques worked in the past, but this time the story came out. #

Heart-breaking video brings home what it would be like to be a kid with an active shooter inside your school. #

I didn't have to read this piece about whether or not Elizabeth Warren is electable vs Trump. Of course she is. She's just beginning to hit her stride. Let's push her to the top. It's up to us to decide if she's electable.#

One thing I would insist on from Warren -- if she wins -- is that she keep the people organized. The campaign does not stop if she's elected, actually that's when it kicks into super high gear. That was the mistake Obama made. We had a chance to install democracy everywhere.#

History will not be kind to Obama re Trump and Putin. He vastly underestimated both. And showed it, in both cases, publicly. Presidents can't do that. #

Dave Carlick, marketer, a friend for decades. He did the Cogitank Ergo Sum campaign for us, among others. He also pioneered what he called Database Marketing. It's what the whole tech industry is based on now. He went on to do Netscape's first website, then became a VC, and a board member lots of places, but we still hang out like we did in the early 80s. Anyway, Dave was one of the first to subscribe to my blog via nightly email, and the other day he told me an idea I posted was good. That meant the world to me. For years there has been almost zero feedback to this blog from real-world friends. #

Idea for a product. Customizable search engine with prefs. I'd like to have Wikipedia page come first in all searches for which there is a Wikipedia page. I think of Google and Wikipedia as if they were two branches of government. I use them to check up on the other. That's really how search has evolved for me in 2019. #

Brian Lehrer's show today is all about Cokie Roberts. How she got away with being so forcefully opinionated and holding down a job at NPR, that's something to study. #

I just bought a new Apple Watch. I wear mine all the time. The reason I got the upgrade? Always-on screen. It's a pain when riding my bike and I want to see what's on the watch, I have to take both hands off the handlebars to get the watch to show me. So I don't do it. I'm getting $100 back for my previous Apple Watch, still in perfect shape. #

I used my Apple credit card to buy the watch. Surprised they didn't streamline that, it shouldn't have required me to enter a number. They know who I am, my identity connects the store and the card. They didn't even acknowledge that I used their card. Apple, who has often set the bar really high for marketing awareness, missed an opportunity for an obvious high five. They should also btw give you a discount for using their card, esp in early days. #

It takes Charles Fitzgerald a while to get to the point. "Separating the social graph from Facebook has two fundamental benefits: Protecting personal information; Competition." #

Too bad Brian Cox was born in Scotland, otherwise he'd make an excellent candidate to go up against Trump for the entertainment president. The hats would say Fuck Off not MAGA. The configuration of the kids is right too. Two good-for-nothing sons, and a gorgeous daughter who seems she might have her head screwed on straight, but all along you know she's really her father's daughter.#

Revered news people from the past died today, Cokie Roberts, Sander Vanocur. #

I was shocked that Richard Stallman resigned from the FSF. He is the founder. I'd like to see a clear accounting that explains how and why he was forced out, assuming that's what happened. #

Kavanaugh actually blamed "revenge on behalf of The Clintons" out loud and in public in his Senate confirmation hearings. So you don't have to look to what he did with his penis in the past, really, to see why he shouldn't be on the court. He's as unhinged as Trump.#

Nadler: Impeachment needed to vindicate the Constitution. #

24 years, 11 months and yadda yadda. It's going to be 25 years in less than a month. I have no idea what will happen then. #

We wait for proof, then it comes, and go back to waiting for proof. We think we want proof, but what we really want is to not have proof. That is if you judge us by our actual behavior. Just a bit more normal, we'll deal with the truth when we have proof.#

I've had neck pain and stiffness for the last few days, but it's better and finally it's feeling good enough that I could do something, so (like a fool?) I went for a 20-minute bike ride. My legs were sooo ready for this. I could have easily done an hour. But I stopped at 20 hoping my recovery would continue. #

A corollary of your never knowing the struggles of other people. As the people you think about grow older, the chance they're dealing with serious health issues approaches certainty. So if you make work for them that might be one reason they don't do it. This is one of the most offensive things about what Google is doing to the web. Make-work, security theater, whose main consequence won't be a more secure web, just a web with bigger holes in it.#

Braintrust query: I'm being quoted in an oral history about podcasting. I haven't seen the whole piece, but have been shown two quotes, ostensibly from me, that are similar to something I might have said, but use terms that I would not have used. The quotes sort of accurate, but they aren't literal quotes. A question for journalist friends. Is this standard practice? Should I object?#

Someday archaeologists will uncover random pictures from this era and wonder why the primates were in so much pain. #

When I was a college student in New Orleans in the 1970s, I used to hang out at restaurants and bars on Oak St in Uptown. It's very close to the line separating the city and Jefferson Parish, and like most political lines in the area, it's marked by a levee. If one side floods it doesn't necessarily mean that the other does. It was also very close to the Mississippi River, which of course also has a levee. In this case you walk up the levee, and the river comes to within a few feet of the top, way above the level of the city. If the levee were to break, a huge volume of river water would flood the city. I understood at an intellectual level how precarious this place was. But Oak St was an affluent street in a mostly affluent area. Living there you had the sense that it will always be this way. It seemed impervious to catastrophe. Thirty years later, after Katrina, I came back and Oak St was destroyed. A fire had raged through the area, unchallenged by fire fighters who were gone. The civilization that seemed so dependable had folded. The people had moved to other cities. New Orleans was almost empty. The point of the story is that climate change may seem theoretical because you live near an Oak St in whatever town you are in. But its stability, the foundation it's built on, is mostly in your imagination. #

Yesterday I described Succession as The Sopranos without the sentimentality and intellect.#

I fixed a problem in the persists package yesterday. When initializing a shared object, it ignored all non-scalar fields. I was using a daveutils routine copyScalars to do the copying. I wrote a new local routine that copies everything. I can't think of a reason it should only do scalars. It came up in an application I was writing. We're at that stage in this project where I try to use it as it was designed to be used and discover that the system guy (me) didn't correctly anticipate the needs of the app developer (also me).#

Jimmy Cliff: Sitting in Limbo.#

Poll: Will Elizabeth Warren be the Democratic nominee in 2020?#

The Ruling Class, a comedy starring Peter O'Toole, was one of my favorite movies as a teen. The main character, a member of the British aristocracy, said he was God and spread a message of love for all. Some great jokes. It appears they have the whole movie on YouTube, for free. #

An idea for the New Yorker and other pubs with paywalls. Suppose I request a link to a story, you include a code in the url, so when you get a hit you know it came thru me. At least deduct that page from my monthly quota. Or maybe a twofer.#

It took hours of digging through various bits of software to figure out that the nbariver Twitter account had been suspended because they thought it was sharing personal information inappropriately. Here's a screen shot of the report. Obviously we were not sharing personal information, just relaying a news report from the Denver Post that some sharing had taken place. This is interesting because a human obviously would be able to tell the difference, and also it's exactly what we were discussing on Twitter over the last few days, how to automate these things. I did not delete the tweet, it was completely innocent. #

Interesting that the Denver Post had tweets with exactly the same text and was (apparently) not suspended?#

On Twitter, an interesting thread started by Emily Bell. It went off in a lot of directions, I brought it back to what I think is a constructive first step. A collection of RSS feeds from news orgs, maintained, with metadata. Something a group of j-school students, maybe even from different unis, could do. Lots of room for growth here. ;-)#

My neck is out, the way my back used to go out. Very stiff and painful. I think the cause is bad shoes and too much walking. Taking it relatively easy for a few days.#

I was asked in a recent interview to talk about the first software I remember seeing demoed. This was hard, because when I started programming, in the mid-70s , what we think of as software today, didn’t exist. In 1979 I got my eyes opened with a demo of VisiCalc. I had never ever conceived of something like that. I immediately decided to copy their user interface. Didn’t take more than a few seconds to grok it. That's elegance, a clear breakthrough. #

They have red hats. We should wear MLK buttons.#

Two recent Node.js ships: XML-RPC for JavaScript and the persists package. #

Chris Lydon interviews Evgeny Morozov. I tried listening, couldn't get very far into it. In the last 25 years a huge amount of new media has been created, I can't think of a single thing that was created at the Media Lab. Negroponte's column at the back of Wired wasn't a place to turn to for new ideas. Mostly it was self-promotion, as I recall. Demoware has always haunted tech. In my experience that's what the Media Lab pushes. Stuff the funding organizations go for. It seems in all the mess that came out of the Epstein affar at the Media Lab, someone at some point would have offered a defense of the form, "But the Media Lab gave us X, Y and Z." But that never happened. I think in the early days, before the web, they did create some influential stuff, like the Logo language. What's been uncovered in this scandal is how little is created with all the millions of dollars of funding, not just at the MIT Media Lab, but at all the media labs everywhere. Moral of the story, at least in this round of tech, money isn't what creates new media, individuals with a vision who persevere do. #

I am not getting a new iPhone today. I could get an OLED TV for the same money.#

Truth be told Biden would be preferable to Trump even on his death bed. Frankly even if he were already dead he'd be a better president. Just sayin.#

I did not know that there is a Trump piñata. It could be a hit at your next party!#

Short audio excerpt of Jodi Kantor of the NY Times on Fresh Air, on the importance of journalism process. Inspiring. #

A minor league football coach could figure out how to beat Trump. It requires minor collaboration between the Democratic Party and the entertainment world. We need programming to go up against Trump. The programming has to be about Trump, because he's made himself the story. But it has to tell the story he doesn't want told, in as dramatic a fashion as he tells his story. It doesn't have to be good drama, it won't reach into your soul and make you cry, it doesn't need to because Trump can't do that. What it has to do is fill you with rage. Grab and hold your attention. But it must not be done by the Democratic candidate. The Republican team only has one play. It's a game where the quarterback runs. So you just fill the field with defensive backs. When Trump moves, destroy him. When he moves again, destroy him again. With what? Acting, childish pranks and low comedy. #

What nice internet users do, in a Twitter thread.#

Elizabeth Warren's campaign has mastered humble snark. #

If you read this blog via email, you can now see how long it has been running, at the bottom of the email message. We're getting close to 25 years. #

If someone says something to you that hurts, and on reflection you're sure it was because it hurts, then turn around, walk out, and never look back.#

It was asked: If you could take the next plane to any place, where would you go? I said I'd travel in time to when I was 22 and in love. ❤️#

Sorry last night's emails didn't go out until 4:25AM Eastern instead of 12:01AM. Here's the lesson I learned. When you change the password on an account, think about the apps that connect to that account, and change them too. #

I know how to be sure Trump doesn't win in 2020. It's The Trump Soap as described below. Here's a 12-minute podcast that explains. The movie I mentioned was Get Out.#

Back in the day they used to broadcast soap operas live. I assume they wrote the scripts the day before. So it would be interesting to use the same technique to dramatize the goings-on in the White House. Don't attempt to impersonate Trump and his staff, it's not funny or interesting -- maybe even given them different names to bring that home. Have them say and do the things the people in the White House are doing. Use your imagination. They can do things that haven't been reported on, or be dramatic flourishes.#

I was reminded with a note from a Boston friend that Radio Woodstock is pretty great. It is. It might be a good substitute for disappointed KFOG fans, of which I know at least a couple. "Acoustic Saturday mornings now part of my weekends!" If you have an Echo, you can listen by saying "Alexa WDST please." Easy. 🚀#

Yesterday's Fresh Air interview with the NY Times reporters who exposed Harvey Weinstein is totally worth a listen.#

Jonathan Franzen: "The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it." #

Wouldn't it be great if all the reporters in tech got together to see truly new stuff, without regard of which company it came from, or if it came from a company at all? The big message no one in the establishment wants to hear (a term that's become precise these days) is that money does not yield progress. Jobs left a seed for you all as a clue. It's people that make the difference, not piles of money. That's the big reboot of news we're waiting for. For our news to stop worshipping money and get down to telling us what's new. #

Twitter and Facebook feel equally important in news today, but in the future, if the archive of Twitter survives, it will probably be the more valuable, because except for blocking, it's on the web, where Facebook has access constraints that make it not a good record.#

I'm helping a publication do an oral history of podcasting. The writer is earnest, thoughtful, a good person. But... Would you read a history of cars written by someone who didn't know the basics of how cars work? It'll be a miracle if something coherent comes from this.#

Here's a new version of my XML-RPC for JavaScript. There's a client and server for Node, and a client for the browser. A debugger you can enter a call in, see what goes over the wire and what comes back. If you're using XML-RPC in JavaScript, please consider using this package and give feedback. If you have a current implementation for any environment, please post a note here. In my next pass I plan to make the rebooting page into the home page for the XML-RPC website. #

I just got a question from a user about how to get the OPML source text from an outline you're editing in LO2. Two steps. 1. In the File menu, choose View OPML. 2. In your browser's File menu, choose Save Page As. That's it. You now have a local copy of the file.#

This week's 1619 podcast is fantastic. It's the story of American music. I laughed and cried, and get goosebumps thinking how great America is, thanks to slaves and ex-slaves and children of slaves. #

My friend Steve Garfield is now Twitter-famous. #

We were able to boot up podcasting from Harvard with $0 in funding. That's something we can replicate. So ask the Media Lab if their goal is to create new media, or spend lots of money. Because they are mutually exclusive things imho. 💥#

Why do they have to play music when you're on hold. #

I once went to a Brockman dinner at Henry's Hunan in San Francisco. It was loud and people moved around between tables. Henry's is not a snazzy joint, which made this event fairly un-Brockman. John Markoff and John Perry Barlow were there, with about 30 others. I hung out with Sean Parker, the future president of Facebook, who had just finished with Napster. I was a big fan of Napster, thought the music industry should have kept it running forever, if they had, they'd own Spotify, basically. Napster proved there was huge potential in networking music. It was inevitable, always, that music would go the way it has. #

We're in a very weird time when I feel compelled to write almost-obituaries for people who are alive. That doesn't seem right, esp without any kind of process. This is the first time I remember anything like this happening.#

The NYT has new, very nice, web-based archive software. It would also be cool if they had a way to embed a clipping in another web page, the way I can embed a tweet or YouTube video in my blog. #

Like everyone else, it seems, I am now obsessing over the HBO series Succession. It's my new family, and it's of course so much like my real family. I haven't watched Sunday's episode yet. After that I think I'm going to watch the Netflix series The Spy, though I'm not sure I'm ready to accept Sacha Baron Cohen as a serious actor. #

Google is being investigated for antitrust by 48 state attorneys general plus DC and Puerto Rico. That's good. I hope they look into their control of the web. It's even tighter than Microsoft's was in the 90s, which got them into a consent decree with the DoJ. Google is doing it with far less visibility, so they're getting away with more. The web is public domain. They appear to have no fear of being stopped, and that's a bad thing. I've written it up in this white paper-like doc. I've been beating this drum because it's so important that we preserve the resource. We'll never be able to rebuild it if they succeed in taking it over the open web. #

The NRA is suing the city of San Francisco for classifying them as a domestic terrorist organization. Seems like the wrong thing to do. Instead they should take it to heart and stop terrorizing us. Instead, suing SF is just going to keep this very valid idea in the news. #

Sometimes I can be very wrong. In 2001 I thought Microsoft was going to take over the world with Passport, .NET and HailStorm. Not sure what happened to Passport, their identity system, it's probably the legacy format of their current online systems, or long-ago deprecated. .NET is doing fine, but in no way dominating the world. And HailStorm was pure vaporware. A dream built out of hubris not software. I'm not even sure what it was supposed to be. The world did need a storage system (still does) attached to an open identity system, by a simple but powerful scripting environment, but in 2001, not from Microsoft. No one trusted them. BigCo's don't appreciate how much trust comes into it, they must think developers like being locked in the trunk while they drive the car. Heh. No.#

Andrew Shell emailed to say he bought a copy of ThinkTank for the Apple II. He has a IIe to run it on. #

Tone-deaf means something in music, but in politics it's bullshit. There are lots of points of view. Saying something is tone-deaf means you don't agree. Why can't you just say it that way? Why do you have to insult the person? To me it says you're not really confident in your own beliefs. In speech the only thing that's really tone-deaf is saying some else is tone-deaf.#

Something to ponder. Which of the blind men are tone deaf? #

BTW, I took the test, I am not tone-deaf. Scored 100 percent. :-)#

Blocking people from reading things posted publicly is weird. You can always get around it by viewing the same page in a different browser or an incognito tab. Something is public or not. If it's public it seems everyone should just be able to read it without phony barriers.#

This campaign ad for Valerie Plame made me LOL. #

One of the great things about having the email service in place is that I'm hearing from friends who are now reading my blog, maybe for the first time. Anyway I heard from Chris Lydon and Scott Love about yesterday's piece about the hero-making of big-dollar academic institutions for the reputational rehabilitation of billionaires. I've collaborated with both Scott and Chris, on successful projects, decades apart. They know what can be accomplished with very little money. The money can buy you the illusion of creativity, the actual creativity is invisible to the eye, but is reflected in the product of the work. There's an inverse relationship often between appearances and what comes out the other end of the innovation assembly line. #

BTW, a recent episode of Chris's podcast is about Quentin Taratino's latest. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm glad to discover that Chris is a QT fan, as I am. It's perhaps similar to Lisa Simpson being a fan of Itchy & Scratchy. Why do nice people love violence in video so much? A mystery.#

Joi Ito is here to stay on the web. How do I know? Earlier today I was searching for a reference to my longtime friend Scott Love. Scott worked at Living Videotext, the outliner and presentations company I started in the 80s. He went on to write his own outliner. Joi used it. How do I know? Joi is a blogger. He wrote a review, the way bloggers do. He told you how he heard about it, what it was like talking with Scott, and what the product was like. His body of work is there and useful. #

If you find yourself having a strong emotional response to something you see on the net, take a step back and remember there's a good chance you're being programmed. You don't have to take the bait. And you shouldn't accept emotional appeals at face value.#

I'm starting to catch up on binge-watching. I saved the whole of season 2 of Big Little Lies to watch in a binge. It was good. Meryl Streep, omg. I won't spoil it, but she plays a character from my neighborhood growing up. Something bad happened in her life, and we'll never know what role she played in it. The story is just as gripping as the previous season, and the acting superb. In other binges, I've started to work on season 2 of Succession, just watched the first episode. I'm going to savor this show. One of the characters reminds me of Jason Calacanis for some reason. Just as the main character of Despicable Me, Gru, reminds me of Mike Arrington, even though he looks nothing like him. But I digress. I still have to do something about Orange is the New Black. I stopped watching toward the beginning of Season 5. I have no idea how to get back up to speed. Same with the third season of The Handmaid's Tale, and Counterpart -- both of which were very entertaining, but complex. Getting back up to speed in multi-season shows is hard. It might be a good idea to have a digest, maybe in written form, to help you get rebooted in these shows.#

BTW, we know for sure that whatever door we leave open, Trump is going to go through it. It's time to believe the worst and start closing the doors before he gets there. #

I did a lot of work on the persists package today, including a new section in the readme that explains why I wanted it, what I'm using it for. It's going to be part of every Node app I create from now on. #

This is a clean impeachment. Clear violation of the Constitution, repeated, openly. Hand it off to the Senate.#

What’s the purpose of the Media Lab beyond creating gee-whiz demos that impress billionaires?#

Ultimately, imho -- the people who rise to the top of academic institutions are the ones who make donors feel good. The challenge is to use your agreeable nature to protect and promote innovators who generally rub donors the wrong way. As they say in the great Apple ad, they're the ones who actually get it done. #

I think I've got persists wrapped up pretty well. Here's the readme. There's a simple app, and I walk through it explaining what it does. And a more complex app. Finally solved the puzzle, how to get object database-like persistence using native JavaScript objects, using JavaScript object syntax. The key idea is that the objects are shared between the levels. One level takes care of persistence, the higher level keeps track of its data and doesn't care how it persists. I've been pestering friends about this for years. Allen WB said look at proxies. It took a few years, but I got there. #

Do you have comments or questions about persist? #

Jon Udell on coding an outliners. There is a reason to go for a full outliner, because without the ability to organize code, you can't deal with the complexity of ridiculously nested code as happens with Callback Hell in JavaScript. It's hell for some, but because I code in an outliner, it's heaven for me. #

Bojack Horseman is one of the best TV shows ever. Listen to this interview with the creator and showrunner for an idea why it's so good.#

Dr Strangelove: The Doomsday Machine. #

It's remarkable how lost the MIT Media Lab is in its obsession with money from billionaires. An organization at MIT focused on tech and media could do a lot of good, for very little money, by sending technologists into the world with a mission to create great open tech for the people. Instead the focus is on what percent of the world's billionaires you're on a first-name basis with, laundering their reputations by accepting their money. The work they do at the Media Lab is almost incidental. I understand why normal people feel so much disdain for the elite, because the dishonesty shines through, even if the details remain hidden. Read the MIT Tech Review story about yesterday's meeting to see how lost they are. #

Trump's obsession with Alabama is a test to see what happens if he modifies official government documents. Answer -- bewilderment. Otherwise nothing stops him. This is how you win an election that you really lost. #

How Trump's sharpie wins the electoral college in a landslide.#

The Dave-by-email feature is nice. 🚀#

I created a new Node package called persists. Here's a test app that uses it. Docs coming. I think this is the closest you get to imitating the Frontier object database, syntactically and functionally, in JS. #

Jon Udell demo'd a feature that lets you expand-collapse in Markdown files on GitHub. Here's how to do it. If you enclose text in an XML <details> element it is collapsable. A <summary> sub-element provides the text that you click to expand. #

The other day I wrote about an idea for persistent objects in JavaScript. It was dream of course because it requires a change in the language. So then I wanted to see how much of it you could implement with the Proxy feature, which I explored with Ted Howard thirty days ago, and it turns out -- quite a bit! Here's a test Node app that demonstrates. #

A podcast about the online system of the United States. A social network where citizenship and membership are the same thing. True to the values of the country -- of the people, by the people, for the people. Obama didn't do it. Thank god Trump hasn't. I doubt if anyone but Andrew Yang is capable of imagining it. 16 minutes. PS: The guy who runs Twitter is Jack Dorsey. And Twitter's market cap is $33 billion. #

BTW, Elizabeth Warren is still posting her position papers to a silo. The web needs her help. Sure tech companies seem warm and cuddly, but some things we should do for ourselves. This is one of them.#

The Mets lost last night in an unbelievable way. I watched most of the game, switching back and forth between it and MSNBC. I started to go to bed after the Mets batted in the ninth, I thought for sure the game was over, merely a formality to get the last three batters out. The Mets were ahead 10-4. The home team, the Nationals were defeated, in a humiliatingly stupid way, not just hitting, ptiching and base-running. Well by the time I got upstairs, with the game on my iPhone, I couldn't believe the score. Runners on second and third, tying run at the plate, one out. I thought well either they win or lose, I'm going to wash up, take my vitamins, brush my teeth, etc. Just as I was grabbing the toothbrush, a walk-off home run. I decided then and there that this was the end of the Mets season. It was a nice run, August was great, but there's no way a team comes back from this. Not even the Mets. #

BTW the moment when the Mets lost was when Pete Alonso, "put the icing on the cake" with a home run to put the Mets ahead 10-4. Don't ever say stuff like that. God is listening, esp when it's the Mets. #

Seriously I'm glad the Mets lost the way they did last night. It reminds me that deep inside the Mets philosophy is not about winning. It's about being the Mets. To the core. #

BTW, there's a game on at 1PM Eastern today on YouTube of all places.#

Maybe it's time for Mets fans to don Knicks fans' headware. #

Someone who knows please start a blog called “British Politics for Dummies.” I want to understand wtf is happening.#

When I lived in Woodside I would see celebrities in town, like Joe Montana, Coach Walsh, Neil Young, Joan Baez. One time I was waiting in line at the town pharmacy the tiny woman in front of me was Shirley Temple. Yesterday after picking up prescriptions at the CVS in Woodstock (I get confused because the name is so similar to Woodside) as I was walking out I saw Mike Lang, one of the promoters of the Woodstock festival in 1969 (where Joan Baez played, btw). Until I saw the PBS special, I didn't realize what an accomplishment it was, because they did it without enough time or people or money. Of course the moment passed, I'm glad I didn't say anything because everyone should be able to stop in at the pharmacy without meeting strangers who feel they already know them. #

There has to be an invisible sun, gives its heat to every one. #

Just like that summer is over. #

More and more I use Twitter to write the first drafts of posts that I then write more fully here on my blog. It really is becoming the context for my blogging, a very different role from what it played a few years ago. The 280-char limit is a very important change, but I think other things matter too. People are taking Twitter more seriously? Each of us sees something different of course. #

Going forward with the XML-RPC in JavaScript project. I realized I should must include an HTTP server in the package. It's nice that you can use the protocol over any transport, and use JSON in place of XML, but there is a standard, RPC over XML via HTTP. So this is what a typical server looks like with those assumptions. Much simpler than it would otherwise be, which of course is the point of using XML-RPC. 😁#

We need a prosecutor to organize Trump's impeachment. And we have a good one ready to go.#

Wirecutter may be the smartest thing the NYT has done, yet it's rarely mentioned in the future-of-news discussion. #

Ken Smith: "The idea that the Democrats are in many ways not really a political opposition is an important fact, regularly obscured."#

I don’t get why the state isn’t responsible for shooting victims' health care, for life. And all the work they won’t be able to do. And suffering and pain. Especially Texas.#

Axios: "Despite polling in the top 6 of the Democratic primary and getting plenty of online attention, businessman Andrew Yang is being treated by the media like a bottom-tier candidate." First time I read a quote from him, on Twitter, not in the news, I realized how smart he was. Yet as they say I never heard about him from reading the news. I think basically he doesn't get reported because news people read only each other, and they aren't writing about him. It's a closed loop. I don't think they mean him harm, it's just their network has a bug. He's definitely worth listening to and learning from. He has good ideas. 💥#

Thanks Doc. At this time I'm not making software to save journalism, I don't think I ever did that. I was mostly interested in tools that make people better communicators, and that of course includes journalists. Now I make tools that mostly make me a better communicator and a happier writer. If I had one bit of advice to journalism it would be this -- listen better. Journalism is very self-contained. At this time the answers are there, imho, with the readers and with the challenges of technology and authoritarian rulers. We can work together to save each other, but that's the key thing we're not doing -- working together. #

States should have to buy insurance against mass shootings, to fund health care for victims or damages to families of those killed. That would give them incentive to control factors that cause mass shootings. No room for the usual bs.#

It would be imho smart for the Nets to sign Carmelo Anthony. Knicks fans think Melo has suffered enough, he has a reservoir of goodwill in NYC. The Nets could use that, thinking long-term. #

When the government of a Republican state does something to help people I wonder how this isn’t the socialism they dread.#

2016: "If you want a favor you're more likely to get it if you're connected. This is true in business, the press, education, sports, etc." #

Braintrust query resolved. Peter Judge saw immediately what the problem was: no Content-Length header. Thank you for the help. Here's the postmortem. I'm writing an XML-RPC service, the request was being route through PagePark. Of course I blamed the one bit of technology that wasn't mine. Heh. Further, the XML-RPC spec requires that the Content-Length header be provided and be correct. If I had followed my own design, I wouldn't have needed the help. Dear Murphy, I am unworthy, I am unworthy.#

Beto gets to be the sane face of Texas. #

It's nice how open nature is. If Facebook made ginger, you would not be able to make your own.#

The very last thing I want to watch on Netflix is an ode to Bill Gates. Gates was the Zuck of the 90s. He tried to put our freedom in a Microsoft box and sell it back to us, without the freedom. His empire was brought down by his insistence that PC security was a third party opportunity.#

Pretty sure this is the best site for following the hurricane. #

The OPML source for August 2019 are uploaded to the GitHub repository. The monthly ritual. #

I've been reading a lot about the MIT Media Lab lately. I read that founder of the lab, Nicholas Negroponte, made a deal with Louis and Jane, the founders of Wired, he bought 10 percent of the magazine for $75K and got a column on the inside back cover, which was prime real estate. This got me thinking. The Media Lab and Wired were made for each other. I loved Wired, but I also was aware that they went for gee-whiz tech over substantial tech more than I wished they would. The Media Lab produced lots of buzzworthy demos that never turned into usable tech. What I really wanted? A Wired/Media Lab that only covered open source tech. It was the style of Wired that attracted me, at the time all tech pubs were made for geeks who were suspicious of anything that looked too slick. I want beautiful artistic simplicity, the kind of look that Wired was so good at, applied to practical almost mundane tech. The developers who love all that stuff are the people I want to work with. Stuff that works and that can change the world right now, looking good, not popcorn-like gee-whiz tech that has limited depth or substance. #

BTW, for some reason I find Wired's paywall particularly egregious even though it's no more limiting than other pubs' paywalls. I think it's because I'd like to link to them as much as I link to any other site. I used up my monthly quota just writing the above bit. Wired is a record, like my blog, of where we came from. That its access is limited, while I understand why, is also limiting access to the record. #

565 votes on yesterday's poll about date formatting. Many geeks, imho, get this wrong. If a format can be both human and machine readable it's better than one that's only machine readable. If I ever employ programmers this will be one of the questions I ask them. #

People from the blogging world of the 00s are now in positions of great prestige, wealth and authority. It pisses me off they don't use that credibility to help us dig out of the mess we're in. That's why we lifted them up in the first place.#

Hong Kong police deployed water cannons infused with blue dye to identify protesters and facilitate arrests. #

Lester B. Pearson: "If a man has an apartment stacked to the ceiling with newspapers, we call him crazy. If a woman has a trailer house full of cats, we call her nuts. But when people pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation, we put them on the cover of Fortune magazine and pretend that they are role models."#

Today's poll: Is Trump a Russian asset or a useful idiot?#

Podcast I want: Inside the NBA with Shaq, Charles and Kenny, moderated by Ernie, not just when TNT is broadcasting a game, but once a week, 52 weeks a year. I really want to know what they think. Also a Walt Frazier podcast, whenever he has something to say. #

How embarrassing for the Phillies, there are more Mets fans in their stadium. The Phillies are a humble team.#

It's nice to have the email feature, because of all the cool people I'm getting back in touch with. This was a good idea. And I'm glad I have control of everything about it, instead of using one of the commercial services. I have my own blogging software, and it's way better than the stuff you get from commercial services. Makes sense I should have as much flexibility with the mail feature. I'm still trying to figure out how to integrate the feature in the home page of the blog. I don't want it to be too intrusive, but I also want people to see it because like everyone else I want people to subscribe. #

At the same time I'm rediscovering Sting and The Police. I heard them play Englishman in New York on WDST, the excellent Woodstock radio station (I know some don't agree). It's so amazing to listen to music you loved 30 years ago. Somehow all that remains are good memories. They flood in, it's a pure happy nostalgic feeling. The way Don Draper meant it. A time you were loved. The pain from an old wound. Far more powerful than a memory alone. A time machine. A place where we ache to go again. #

Dave-via-email went out last night, the messages seem to have gotten through ok. I'm pleased with the new service. It's been almost 20 years since my blog posts were available via email. I immediately feel a stronger connection with readers, esp since more of my personal friends are reading than before. #

We got a response to the braintrust query for lawyers, from a lawyer. Recall I asked about the risks for a news org that disclaimed up front that they were not using journalistic practices, and only reported on what was obviously true. Occam's News. As an example the lawyer uses the assumption that Trump is a Russian oligarch, and tries to come up with a reason for us saying that. First Occam's News wouldn't have to say why they know it's true that Trump is a Russian oligarch, but if they did, they might use the equivalent of the mathematical Proof By Contradiction, and start with the assumption that Trump is not a Russian oligarch, and prove that's not possible. It's a perfectly valid way to prove something. Anyway the discussion continues. #

An academic who hangs out in a Billionaire's Club probably isn't much of an academic.#

An idea for the news industry to collaborate on. Sometimes a news org takes down the paywall on a story because it's important that everyone see it. Here's the idea. Make an RSS feed that combines all such stories across all pubs. Make spreading the news even more efficient.#

Twitter changed something important. Now if someone you follow replies to a troll, you get cc'd on what the troll said. This is not a good feature. It means that when you respond to a troll, you will lose followers. You should be aware of this.#

Why I don't use Brave. I figure that once they become dominant, if they do, they'll throw their weight around in just as awful ways as Google does. So why go out of my way just to create another monster. #

I am, of course, not British. So I try to imagine what would happen if Trump tried to do the same as Boris Johnson, in the US. At least Trump was elected. Maybe Brexit should wait until the people decide if they want him as their leader. And of course if Trump tried to disband Congress there would be a revolution here, I hope. 🙏#