There are 20K troops in DC. Who do they report to? #

Vaccinating all Americans in short order is the kind of thing we're good at. While I was growing up, we went to space. I remember the Mercury and Gemini missions, and I was 14 years old when we landed on the moon. When there are catastrophes elsewhere in the world, America helps them dig out. We can do this. It will be a great thing to be reminded of our capabilities. We've spent the last four years losing. We need a win. This one is a slam dunk. #

I needed a script to loop over a calendar-structured folder to generate a list of the most recent updates to a set of projects that are backed up in these folders. I used Frontier. Here's the script source. This is the kind of thing that's much quicker in a scripting system than it would be in Node or some another system language. #

People are obsessed with what others should do, but here's something you can do. 1. Unfollow and block trolls. 2. Unfollow and block friends who RT trolls. If we all did this, and were open about it, we could beat trolls. Trolls don't change, but you can.#

You know why you need programmers around? We're always looking for ways things can go wrong.#

Every so often the Daily podcast hits it out of the park, as with today's interview with Republican congressperson Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach Trump, after voting to certify Biden's win. #

I was looking at the home page on Memeorandum this morning, wondering how journalism would adjust to not having a daily Trump story (or more) to obsess over. How will everyone else deal with that. What will Maddow talk about every night? The fear factor should diminish, one would hope. Former presidents have much less power than sitting presidents. Trump could be the exception. They will have plenty to write about. First the impeachment. The trials of the January 6 insurrectionists. Trump's trials, bankruptcy. Trump going to jail? One can hope. Will this be good for Biden? For us? I don't know. The Democrats need to get a great online organizing machine rolling, for more than raising money and getting out votes. We need to have healthy forms of political action, to balance out the evil kind, which we're seeing so much of. Say what you will about Trump, he did organize an active base. The Democrats could too, but they don't seem to know it. Same as it always was. #

Come to think about it, Maddow will have plenty to talk about as details of how Trump and his associates hollowed out and looted the US government while they were in office. We'll be finding smoking holes in the ground for decades to come. Things that used to work that no longer exist. So if you need a nightly story of American carnage, you will be well taken care of. #

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's thread from the Wednesday about the "significant ramifications" of banning Trump from Twitter. In the thread he talks about Twitter funding an open decentralized standard for social networks called Blue Sky. I remember when they announced this in 2019, I think I offered to help then, and I offered again today. Creating an open distributed system at Twitter's scale is an ambitious undertaking.#

There are, as far as I know, two places to get a Covid vaccine in Ulster County, the county itself in Kingston and the Village Apothecary in Woodstock. Neither are making appointments now, but you can register to be notified when they are. If you know of others, send me a link and I'll try to post it here or in the linkblog. #

Last Wednesday was a horrible day for white Americans.#

White people should wear a MLK button. Here's what it says: "I am not a white supremacist. I believe in an America that loves and respects all its people. No one is allowed to interfere with or limit another person's right to vote. Government of the people, by the people and for the people."#

I wouldn't listen to anyone who spouts hate about white men any more than I would one who hates on black men. I'm so fed up with people who spew hate. They're all evil, sick, selfish people. There is no acceptable form of hate. #

The Nets traded for James Harden, one of the top stars in the NBA. They gave up most of their draft picks, so their future looks pretty grim. And they now have two of the most worst-attitude players in the NBA in Kyrie Irving and Harden. Not sure about Durant. But I wonder how many games Kyrie is going to play this year, when ball-hog Harden is on the court. Maybe he can lead the second team. Somehow the power has to gravitate away from the stars, and back to the teams. In the meantime, it's kind of a blessing for the Knicks that none of the superstars want to play there. That way every victory feels earned. The team has a spirit. Of course they have egos, but none so dominant as the ones who now play for Brooklyn. Now I just wish I could watch the Knicks for less than $65 a month, which is a ripoff that I refuse to pay. #

Why banking interfaces suck. Confusion makes them money with overdraft fees, etc. Hadn't thought of that.#

So many people like to be stimulated by their own rage, they look for triggers. They may say they're tired of it, but if they really were, they could block the trolls.#

Suppose for the sake of argument that the election was rigged, a conspiracy between state governments, including Republican state governments, and journalism. Do you think their coverup could be so complete we'd never have hard proof of this conspiracy? Hard to imagine intelligent people believing that it could. And BTW, don't think they're not intelligent. There were a lot of very educated and successful people who attacked the Capitol last week. What's going on inside these people? Not asking a question of people who read this blog, just expressing bewilderment. At what point will their deep gullibility lose out to their experience and bullshit detection?#

What's wrong with the Repubs. Trump ordered an attack on them. They came pretty close to killing all of them. Maybe they're robots.#

Yes, the Trumps are being cancelled, and I don't care how you feel. #

Repubs are objecting to being scanned for weapons going onto the House floor. Should we conclude that they have been bringing weapons onto the floor? Why else would the Capitol police want to put a scanner there? Are they afraid of a hostage situation where the perp is a member of Congress? So many questions. If in the opinion of some reps, they are entitled to bring weapons onto the floor, is there a limit? Can they bring automatic weapons? Grenades? An automatic grenade launcher? How about a tank, could they bring a tank onto the floor of the House. I suppose that could come in handy. #

Poll: Will Trump be president on January 21? #

Reality check: Trump attacked the United States.#

I wish I had that video of the Iraqi parliament, locked in by Saddam, being taken out one by one to be shot. The doors locked. Giving speeches saying how much they love Saddam, arms waving, crying. He had them shot anyway. I think the Congressional Repubs should see it. And Mike Pence. He already knows what it feels like. #

If the Mission Impossible people were still around, they'd figure out a way to get the MAGAs to turn on Trump. #

Seeming unlikely things keep happening, yet this doesn't affect people's inability to imagine weird freaky things happening. They snap back to "normal" whatever that is. Normal never actually existed. A more accurate way to describe that feeling is this: "asleep."#

Over the years Trump was on Twitter, I had him blocked. I urged people I follow not to RT him. That's the first and only rule of trolls, don't feed them. That's what they need. His fans love that he pisses off the libtards (that's you btw). How much more effective it would have been if instead of waiting for Twitter to ban him, we all did it, by blocking him. Pay no attention. That would have been incredible. But people need to learn. Okay now it's time not to RT the Repubs as they desperately try to reboot their reality distortion field. Let Trump's base take care of them. Don't RT them. Let them fail. When you feed their attempts at controversy you are, perhaps ironically, saving them.#

As things get worse for Trump, and they are getting worse, the odds he’ll blow a nuke go up. Will we look back on this, after the fact, and realize there was something we could’ve done to prevent it. Will history forgive us if it happens and we didn’t do anything.#

Today's song: Get Together. #

Trump doesn't need Twitter, he could just use a blog. If he did, there would be pathways for people to find out he updated, and software that would let his followers read his latest messages, in reverse chronological order. There would be no Twitter to shut him down. Now, I'm not sure where he could go to get the blog hosted. I wonder if Blogger and Wordpress et al have considered what they'd do if he started a blog in either of those places. Thing to know is RSS is a lot easier to deploy than a Twitter-like system, and it could be distributed. We looked at lots of those things in the heyday of Napster to route around the music industry. I hate that I'm helping Trump be the monster he is, but I feel obligated to share this with my followers, who probably want to think about real-world applications of distributed internet technology. #

Here's something positive. Re this profile of the GuyOnPorch and WomanInCar meme that became viral. Let me set the stage. The guy on the porch is an older white man. He's screaming obscenities at MAGAs (off-camera) telling them to get the fuck out of DC. Then the camera swings to a black woman in her car, and she's kind of astonished to see the white man saying what she was thinking. And she said so. I cried watching it. Later in the profile they said something that grabbed me. “Humphries was stunned that it was this 60-year-old White man speaking her truth. Their truth.” I wanted to give them both a big hug. We need to get our shit together. It's not just her truth and his truth, it's the truth of America. We love this country. And that means we love each other. For real. #

I had a post here entitled Morning Depression Notes. I deleted it. I don't need to make your day worse. But I do want to say Monday January 11, 2021 is one of the worst days ever. I somehow made it through 2020 without getting depressed. But 2021, it's a real challenge. Maybe I just want to say one thing. Let's remove all the Republican senators, except Mitt Romney. Send them all home. They had a chance to stop this, the Dems tee'd it up for them, all they had to do was vote to convict. Sure they might have lost their jobs. They're going to lose them anyway. But they might have had a tiny little bit of residual honor, and we all could have stood up for them, when the MAGA mob comes for them. Now, let em go -- out the airlock. Good riddance. #

When we throw the Repubs out the airlock, I nominate Lee Zeldin to lead the parade, for this tweet. #

As it settles in, what Trump and his family did, what Giuliani did, there is no penalty harsh enough to fit the crime. That they still have their freedom says there’s something missing in the Constitution. That Trump still have has freedom says there’s something missing in the Constitution.#

They need a new rule in Congress. Don't bother electing anyone who tried to overthrow the US government. We will not let them sit down.#

I decided to give Fubo a try, because I'd like to watch Knicks games. Well, there's a deal stopper, no CNN. The Knicks are not worth $65 a month, even if they are good this year.#

2015: "If we could get neutral places on the Internet, with no business models attached to them and no ownership we could create some important new stuff. What? We won't know until we have it."#

Via Dan Conover on Facebook: "It's only a coup if it's from the Coup d'état region of France. Otherwise, it's just sparkling White Supremacist insurrection."#

I'm getting stir crazy. I'm just starting to notice it, but I think it's been happening for some time. Let's try to remember that everyone else is dealing with the same fucked up situation.#

Your access to all of the internet depends on the permission of a lot of big companies. Any one of them could break your illusion of independence. So when you get all righteous about how they have the right to shut you down, remember, you aren't them, and they control you.#

It seems to me what happened with Congress on Wednesday was like that scene in The Godfather, when Michael realizes his father, in the hospital, is not being guarded.#

A long time ago I wanted to try Google Cloud Platform. I had to give them a credit card. I quickly decided I didn't want the service, so I turned off my test project. Now the card has expired and they're sending me emails saying that I have to register a new credit card. But my bill is $0, has been forever. I don't owe them any money and I don't want the service. I have written them feedback using their support mechanism. Yet I still get the warning emails. The easy thing to do would be to give them a new credit card. This is the power of huge faceless corporations. Even small ones can threaten your credit rating. A foot doctor sends me bills for $40 every few months. Can't talk to the doctor, they won't permit it. Or Experian had a bug that caused my credit to be hurt. It has hurt a lot of other people, I hear. This is the background to the idea of Amazon shutting off an annoying customer because people, including their employees, are hassling them about it. You better stay popular with the people Amazon cares about or you'll be out on the street. I'm not going to give Google a new credit card. Let's see what happens.#

Today's song: The Beat Goes On. #

Late on Saturday evening: Amazon gave Parler 24 hours to get off AWS. Lots to say about this. In the meantime watch my Twitter thread. #

We'll look back on this week as the moment everything changed.#

Assume Trump's devs are scrambling to get up a new social net. I'm sure they'll find something. I heard it said they won't get thru the App Store and Google Play. This is true. So guess what -- they'll have to use the open web. Politics and tech make strange bedfellows. ;-)#

A friend writes on Facebook: "Apple, Google, AT&T and Verizon know who was inside the Capitol. The FBI has names and warrants already." #

I would love to see Al Franken get a role in the new administration.#

The arguments about how you don't have free speech on private platforms don't reflect the reality of Twitter and Facebook, which have monopolistic power in the worlds they define. Those worlds are huge, powerful, growing, and most important here -- exclusive. We call them silos in tech, but they behave like monopolies in other contexts. They don't imho have the rights of truly private companies because they wield government-like power that can have the effect of restricting speech. Because they are silos, there's no way to route around them. This is dangerous stuff. Suppose for example the Republican Party owned Twitter. You can see how that would damage free discourse in our political system. And it's not impossible for a political entity to take control of Twitter, they're not very highly valued in the stock market. That's why the government must be involved in decisions that cut off political leaders. What made this situation so difficult is that it was the president who needed to be silenced, before he could do more damage. A tough call, and a very difficult precedent. BTW, I do advocate for political parties becoming social networks. I think they already are that. #

Also, having the employees of Twitter and Facebook influening the censorship decisions the companies make is not good ethically. The employees should do their jobs, they should not personally have any say in who gets to use the network. We need ethical rules for professionals in tech. Here's an example from the medical profession. If you were a doctor in a hospital, and they wheeled in someone whose political opinions you abhor, you have to treat them no matter what. We insist that bakeries in Indiana bake cakes for gay couples as they would for heterosexual couples. It's easy to see when people you disagree with overstep professional ethical boundaries, much harder to see it when you do it yourself. #

These kinds of decisions have a lot of impact. For example, I was blacklisted from speaking at a few tech conferences probably because their sponsors didn't like the affect my work was having on their closed networks. As a result, I'm perceived to having left tech, when in fact, a couple of powerful and/or rich people pressured conference promoters to not allow me a public presence. When I complained about it on my blog, or in person to friends, they shrugged it off, kind of the way Repubs shrug off ethical failures in their work. There are consequences to this kind of back-room deal-making. By this time very few people have any sympathy for Trump, but this act sets a precedent. You may not like it when someone you support is cut off this way. #

I would love to see the rioters deported to some country where they really don't have political freedom. Let them try to bust down the doors to the Kremlin, for example, see what happens. #

Good morning sports fans. #

Trump is leading the Keystone Cops version of a military coup. Yesterday's speech was clearly a KK version of a coverup. All the tracks lead back to him, as usual he didn't even try to hide them. God help us if he were even slightly more competent and slightly less narcissistic. #

My big objection with the way journalists talk about Facebook is that it's so naive. The questions are much much much more complicated. Shutting off Facebook, which seems to be what journalism wants, would be as stupidly disruptive as turning off Wikipedia, or even the phone network -- or for that matter, all the daily newspapers. Facebook is that important for information flow in our society. It's not a joke. John Naughton wrote an excellent rant yesterday about how reporters had no idea how to cover something like the riot in DC on Wednesday. Well they don't know how to cover Facebook either. Yes it is used for some awful purposes, so is everything. We have a much bigger job to do today. One thing journalists could do to help is being more outgoing, inquisitive, and respond to direct statements like this one. We need to work together. #

Sidebars to JN: 1. I wish your blog had permalinks so I could point to individual items. 2. I like strong language. The people who run these platforms are not elected, it's true. Neither are the other gatekeepers, and it would suck, imho, if they were. When someone screams fire in a crowded movie theater, as Trump is doing, it's up to the management to do something about it. Nothing wrong with that. I like the title "creeps" -- it fits, because like the management of Exxon, the people who run Facebook spoil the resource they monetize, in this case the open web. #

Tommy Lasorda is gone. 93 years old. A good run. He was manager of the Dodgers back before I hated them. But I can't say I ever loved them. I had an experience at the World Series vs the Oakland A's where we scalped tickets that turned out to be in the Dodger's wives section. They tried to have us removed, because we were very vocally advocating for the A's. Of course, this was at the Oakland Coliseum. They argued with the cops that we would have been ejected at Dodgers Stadium. You see that's the problem with baseball these days. Decorum. It was never meant to be a respectful sport, imho. Anyway, I digress. Lasorda was a famous manager of a winning team "back in the day." Sigh. We're all getting old and soon we'll be dead. That's what it all means. Oh la. #

Another problem I have with the Dodgers is that my parents were Dodgers fans, back when they were in Brooklyn, and known as Da Bums. The name turns out to have fit, because one day they up and left Brooklyn. I understand the problem wasn't of their making, they were targeted by Robert Moses to be the team for his new stadium which turned out to be the stadium the Mets played in. And our family, before I was really aware of these things, switched allegiance to the Mets, who were called The Amazins, which was of course sarcastic. Which is fine, because as I said -- baseball is not a respectful sport. Even when it comes to your home team. 💥#

Zuck disconnects Trump's Facebook. Good move. Thanks. #

Twitter should also disconnect Trump. This is hard for me to advocate, as one of the first bloggers and podcasters, I believe, at my core, in direct communication. But this has gone far enough. Someone said the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Neither is blogging. #

Don't be a useful idiot. Don't RT the fascists. That's why they stay on Twitter, to outrage you and your followers. If you weren't helping them, they'd stay on their own private social net. What's ironic is that some of the worst offenders are reporters whose pubs blame Facebook for the garbage news. Their own reporters are distributing the same stuff on Twitter. #

Is this true? The House isn't coming back into session until after the inauguration, and the Senate is adjourned until January 19. When was this decided? On the other hand, hard to blame them. They were locked down, trapped in the Capitol with who-knows-what kind of monsters with what weapons roaming around, and some nice officers with pistols pointed at the doors. I'd want to get out of town too, in their shoes.#

David Frum wrote a rationale and plan for removing Trump last night, which of course did not happen. Must-read.#

Some men just want to watch the world burn.#

You want the truth?#

Today's song: Happy Days Are Here Again. #

I don't get why the DOJ is supposed to be demoralized. If I had stuck it out through Trump, and Barr and the other jerks, I would be pretty jazzed to see Merrick Garland show up to rebuild. Organizations rebound pretty quickly, I've found.#

2010: "An amazing scene in a Frontline episode in the Iraqi parliament while Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. It was time for a purge. Saddam had decided to execute the whole legislature. The doors were locked and they started taking out people one by one and shooting them. Saddam, sadist that he was, videotaped it. So you could see what these guys were doing as they figured out, one by one, what was happening. So what did the condemned legislators do while waiting to be shot? They gave speeches, denouncing each other as the real enemy of the state, and proclaiming their love for Saddam, the best friend he ever had. Didn't work, they were all killed." They used to have video on the PBS site, but it was a victim of the deprecation of Flash. If you know of another copy, please send me a pointer. #

I changed the header image on my blog to a beautiful shot of the US Capitol. Amazing how quickly the political action moved from Georgia to DC. But all this Trump michegas is masking the big story -- the pandemic is digging in with increased virality all over the world, but especially in the US. With power as it's currently configured, we finally have a chance to help ourselves. But only barely. #

I went to sleep around 10PM Eastern last night, woke up a little after 2AM, dreading the moment, and there’s good news! Goodbye Loeffler. Buh bye Perdue. Fuck off #moscowmitch. Better leave town now lame duck Trump. We must be doing something right. And of coruse the "we" who's doing right, is.. #

Stacey Abrams does it right: She finds out what the people need. That's a pretty good basic method for politics. And she says, I think correctly, that as the Dems get better at that, the Repubs will have to too. #

Let's see how much guts and vision Biden has. How big a role does he give Abrams, short-term, in forming the future of the Democratic Party. She's a big deal, for the long term. Let's see how beholden Biden is to her competitors within the party. #

The thing to look out for now -- senators switching parties. With a 50-50 split and things in motion in red-vs-blue states, there should be some opportunities for that. and right now is the time of max leverage.#

There's a continuous heartbeat connecting back in time, through your mother, and her mother, and so on back to the first mother with a heart that beats. #

If the Repubs are going to split in two, maybe the Dems can pick up a few. Couldn't hurt.#

Audible just gave me a status upgrade to "nibbler.' I don't know who designs these things, but did they think that I, a sentient human being of 65 years and many accomplishments would appreciate being labeled as such by a fucking algorithm? This is right up there with Heroku telling me (again via algorithm) that I am a "hobbyist" developer. Excuse me. I have a MS in Computer Science from a fine school. I have won awards for my software, and invented many things, probably as many as anyone at your fine company, so please keep your opinion of my programming ability to your robot self. Sincerely, Dave Winer, a master of science. #

I crack myself up sometimes. 🚀#

Highly recommend the Maddow interview with Stacey Abrams last night, esp her evaluation of Kemp and Raffensperger. It's almost accidental that they ended up on the right side of Trump's attempt to steal the election, the same way a broken clock is right twice a day.#

Dan MacTough: "My eyes (and head) been killing me this morning. Had the idea to change the 'picture mode' on my external monitor (warmer color, less bright) and instantly felt me entire face relax. Like I had been squinting to keep the sun out of my eyes or something."#

Subscribe to the Andrew Cuomo podcast. #

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about why I go for connecting big things to other big things. It's not for money or fame, it's about power -- for the users of the open web. Which is what got me back into software development with a passion in the early 90s. I had already lived through a couple of generations of wide open "blue sky" that was later foreclosed on by the bankers. I felt that the technology of the web, as with the personal computer before it, could be used to enhance communication, and that could be used to solve problems, the ones we're still grappling with today. That's why it's not enough to make cool software, though I admit I love doing that -- it's for the power it gives to people to solve our problems. I still believe in that, as I did when I first got into software development in the 1970s. #

Every year Mark Zuckerberg takes on a personal challenge, running 365 miles, reading 25 books. In 2018 he focused on "fixing important issues." I suggested one. "Stop killing the open web. Never mind fancy tech, support the features the web has had since inception. Linking, first and foremost, then simple styling, titles for posts and podcasting. Then take a vacation and kick back. We don't need boy genius heroics, just trust the decentralization you say you believe in." This is still on his todo list as far as I'm concerned. Be kind to the web that created your opportunity to create Facebook. #

For sure Trump is calling generals, trying to prep a backup plan, calling for martial law, occupying DC, making sure when Biden shows up at the White House, he is met with troops. The calls hopefully sound something like his call with Raffensperger. #

The first fifteen minutes of this podcast, from the Daily, about Stacey Abrams, is totally worth a listen. They put a little fluff up front, not sure why -- but it's not too much imho. #

This just in from Occam's News. The president broke the law in the conversation he had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday. "The people of Georgia are very angry," he said. According to our legal analysts that was a threat to physically injure Mr. Raffensperger or members of his family.#

We were introduced to Georgia governor Kemp and Secy of State Raffensperger in the, at the time, clearly corrupt gubernatorial election against Stacey Abrams. I still think they were the most corrupt of the corrupt. But these two, among other Repub state officials in swing states, turn out to be perfectly incorruptible and nothing less than stalwart saviors of Our American Democracy. Bravo!#

Poll: The hottest woman character in The Expanse.#

It shouldn't matter where a good idea comes from.#

I'm glad we have the audio of Trump trying to bully the Georgia secretary of state. As this is going on the country is botching the administration of the vaccine. And the states and cities are running out of money. And his "supporters" think this situation is fine. 🔥#

I wish the Washington Post would open source the audio. Upload it somewhere. The full conversation, not excerpts. This should be on the record, for all to hear, not behind a paywall. I'm not saying they should or have to, but this is history. We should get it all, right now. Everyone should hear it.#

Update: They put four minutes of the audio on YouTube. #

The president gets one vote, like everyone else.#

I said something in yesterday's post about podcasting that caused some understandable confusion. Here's what I said. "There are rules about this medium." I think that's true, not one rule for everyone at all times, but genres and practices, conventions. Any art has them, and then every artist breaks them. That's part of the art. Also only steal from the best -- another rule. Every artist steals. If there are rules for standards-makers, there must also be rules for podcasters, no? I don't claim that what I say are the rules. But there is one rule imho that art must follow, it must respect the observer, as a participant. If your art doesn't do that, I'm probably not going to like it. Doesn't mean I won't come back. Art is weird. If it isn't, it isn't art, imho. #

The Repubs backing Trump should be careful not to break the law. Trump won’t care, and won’t have the power to pardon, anyway. I bet he’d enjoy seeing Ted Cruz go to jail. I bet a lot of people would. Seriously, they would be easy scapegoats, everyone could agree they deserve to be punished. #

If Ted Cruz and his crew are true freedom fighters, if they are rebuffed by the corrupt deep state, and forced to choose between an illegitimate regime, or resigning in protest, they should must resign. It's the honorable thing to do, and we know they are people of principle.#

If the press didn't pay so much attention to the Repubs stunts, they would have less power. #

I heard today from a friend in the Bay Area that the homeless camps in San Francisco are shocking. Has anyone written a story about it, with pictures, or video? #

Larry Yudelson, a longtime reader of this blog, recommends The Story of Human Language audiobook, by John McWhorter. #

I hate sites that make you give them your email address before you find out what they do.#

Congratulations. You survived 2020. So did I. We did it. #

Facebook is useful. Journalism is evil. This contrarian view is brought to you by open media. You will never hear these simple ideas on closed corporate media.#

The best podcasts are the ones with experts who simply share their expertise. So many podcasts begin with a long discussion about how everyone feels, with lots of chuckling and self-praise and inside jokes. No. One. Cares. The first time I noticed this was a podcast about The Americans, a great show that I loved, with cast members. That's cool. Talk about the characters you play. But I really don't care where you, the actor, grew up. Exceptions are obvious. If you're a Beatle, go ahead and talk about yourself. If you're Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep, yes please. I would like to know what makes Joni Ernst tick. But most experts aren't interesting as people. Your audience is looking to learn something, so teach us. #

As was pointed out by Brian Dear on Twitter, it's now January 1, 2021, and I still haven't received a letter or email from the US government telling me how and when I'm going to get my Covid vaccine. As a user of Medicare, I am surprised they haven't yet sent me an email about this. This is actually the kind of thing they do at Medicare. #

The monthly ritual is done, and another year of the OPML archive is complete. The copyright notice at the bottom of each page now says 2021. #

Today's song: They All Aks'd for You.#

Really, today's song is: Nobody Loves Me But My Mother. #

OMG yet another song: Truckin.#

One more before the year is over.#

As Trump's long fade-away proceeds, a sad thought, going back to 2018 and 2019 when it seemed we might get past Trump without an international catastrophe like 9/11, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the financial meltdown of 2008, the Iran Hostage Crisis, because of course he couldn't handle it. It seemed every presidency had one or two of these, but it was looking like we might not pay the big price for having a child-man with a bad temper in the White House. Well, it's almost hindsight now and worth observing that we did not get away with it. The pandemic is still building, could still explode, and Trump is still playing Pretend President. We're not out of the woods yet. #

Why are we paying taxes to the US Treasury when the government won't protect us from a deadly virus? Why are we funding a military when we can't get vaccine into the arms of Americans? This is a war where, if we chose to fight it, we could win in 3 weeks. What's the purpose of such an expensive military beyond protecting Americans? #

At the beginning of a blogging day, I have no idea what will end up on the page when the day is done. #

Watch this tweet. You won't be disappointed. How did they do it? My guess is a high quality drone controlled by someone who is as good a skier as the subject, and intimately familiar with the course, and can ski it backwards with no visibility, unless the drone also had a camera looking forward. How many times did the have to rehearse it?)#

Anthony Hopkins: “Today is the tomorrow you were so worried about yesterday."#

I like when news gives us lifesaving clues. For example, there’s a new more communicable form of the virus. It’s here, of course. This was inevitable, I learned from reading about the 1918 pandemic. Question: Does this invalidate current practice? Can I still go food shopping on my own? Gas up my car? Of course no one knows yet. But the question hasn’t even been raised as far as I know. #

On MSNBC last night I heard that white privilege means you know if you’re descended from royalty. I knew my grandparents, all lived into my young adulthood. I have pictures from my father, of relatives going back one or two more generations, but don’t know anything about them. That’s it. There is no doubt there is privilege in being white. I see it in my own attitudes, inside me. But knowing your ancestors, well that's a very particular kind of privilege that very few people have, imho. #

I've never been to Seoul, but thanks to modern tech, a dramatic moment of my life happened in the Seoul airport, earlier this year. NakedJen had gone on vacation to Bali, just as the virus was becoming a world catastrophe. I talked with her over Facetime in Bali and said Jen it's time to come home. She said I know I know. We talked at every step of the trip, from Bali to Seoul to Seattle to Salt Lake. At every stop, there was serious doubt as to whether there would be a flight home. Like Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. In Seoul, she made a wise decision. She'd defer and let Delta Airlines decide if she stayed there to wait out the pandemic or returned home. If there was a flight she'd get on it, if not she'd stay. Last night I had a dream that I was stuck in Seoul, trying to get home. I'd wait in a line, only to find I was no longer in the airport. Seoul was, in my dream, an ideal place full of happy playing children and huge pristine swimming pools. An enormous arcade of pinball machines. Why are there so many? Promenades with people in formal attire, out for a walk on a spring afternoon, with umbrellas, or reading old-style newspapers. All surrounding the airport. In the airport were people I knew in Silicon Valley in the 80s and 90s, familiar and friendly, as if we had been friends ever since. I don't usually write about dreams on my blog, but this one was so vivid, such a throwback to a tense moment from earlier this year, so what the f. 💥#

When cartoonists draw Biden, and they will, how will they do it?#

Just finished the audiobook biography of President-elect Biden by Evan Osnos. He has a simple and clear delivery style that reminds me of John Dickerson who did the Whistlestop podcast, which I listened to regularly before Trump and the romance of past presidents was gone for me. The Osnos bio is short, and good reading as the Biden presidency is about to begin. #

If you grew up with parents who acted crazy, having Trump as president seems somewhat familiar, even comforting. It could be worse, you think. It's a dysfunctional feeling, one you can spend years in therapy to uncover, because you bury it so well, as a child. You come to see things from the parent's point of view. You're a bad kid for thinking that your parents are wrong. Even when they were most definitely wrong. #

A fallout is that if Biden wants to gain our confidence, he has to first deal with the fact that a substantial number of people, even those who voted for him, are unfamiliar with the idea of a family that is based on love and a feeling that justice is normal or even possible. We may believe we feel this way, but that's intellectual, at a subconscious level, it just doesn't seem normal, like something you can trust. It'll be as if we're saying to the president, "Look that's very nice, but no one believes you're actually trying to help us. That's just hype. We weren't born yesterday." It seems as if Biden may actually be someone who isn't totally corrupt. If so, how's he going to get anyone to believe that. A frontal assault is not likely to work. This may be why I'm reluctant to write about Biden, or even listen to him. It was okay when he was just one candidate, or just one senator, or even the vice president. But it's hard to see him as president. It's hard to trust that. #

Last week I asked for recommendations for great audiobook listens, and got these titles from Seth Godin: 1. On Immunity. "Important, timely and beautifully read." 2. The two David Deutsch physics books on infinity. 3. Just Kids by Patti Smith. 4. The Art of Possibility by Roz and Ben Zander. The last two Godin calls "the best two audio books ever."#

I've created a few standards in my career. These are the rules I've learned. Why we create standards, and how to make them do their work. #

I brought my question to MSG on Twitter. I want to be able to watch Knicks games on YouTube TV. How about it. #

I've been hearing Serious Things about my writing here, and that's a bit intimidating. Now when I read over what I've published, I see all the mis-capitalized proper nouns, missing words, chopped out accidentally in rushed edits. Please note the caveat at the top of every page on this blog: It's even worse than it appears. That means what it appears to mean. However it is lovely to hear from people who read this stuff. I esp like to hear what time you read it. In Europe they read it with their breakfast it seems and in California, before retiring for the night. I tend to read it in the middle of the night, around 2AM or so. Yes, weird as it seems, I do read my own blog. 🚀#

What's the difference between a citizen journalist and a journalist? It's not a useful term. A distinction without a difference. Are journalists who work for AP or the Washington Post not citizens? I like to walk. That doesn't make me a citizen walker. Putting an adjective in front of it is a priesthood thing. Condescending. Do they think somehow it's acceptable for the Chinese government to jail a citizen journalist, but it would be a problem if they jailed a real journalist?#

Somewhat editable tweets. An interesting idea from Alec Moffat. As you may know, you can put metadata in a web page that Twitter will display when you link to it in Twitter. For example, here's a page with an obvious spelling error in the metadata. And here's a tweet that links to the page (screen shot). If I correct the spelling error in the metadata, and eventually Twitter will notice, and the tweet will include the changed version. Voila. I've corrected a spelling error in a tweet. It's a really roundabout way to do it, but it works. 💥#

When you write an outline on paper, if you feel the need to reorganize, you have to write the whole thing over. This makes the initial structure something you resist deciding on, so you never get started. Doing an outline on a computer is different. Since you have commands to reorganize the outline, you can use any structure that supports your list-making. Because you can always regroup things, or ungroup them., Whatever works for you, over time. #

I saw Soul. I say meh. What a mess. I paid close attention because Pixar produces good movies. But this one was not good. I know lots of other people say they love it, including AO Scott at the NYT. It got a 85 on Metacritic, very high must-see. One thing I did like is how they portrayed NYC. That was a technical achievement. Maybe they should do movies like that. Star a real-life place. Have normal people just doing stuff there. More mundane. Boy meets girl, perhaps. Pixar movies these days seem to have to bite off so much. Toy Story was nice. I liked the story of the old man, a kid, a dog and a balloon, and the one about the robot who has to deal with post-apocalyptic Earth. Those are simpler themes. Trying to make a story about the before-life and after-life? Hmm. That requires a bit less Hallmark and more math, imho. #

One thing worth mentioning is we may have entered a new era of movie-watching. A major Pixar movie, a Christmas movie, opened without theaters being an important consideration. If you had predicted that just a year ago, people would have thought you're crazy. Things are changing quickly now.#

I turned on NBA TV last night and watched a bit of the Knicks v 76ers. A message appeared after a while saying that the game was blacked out where I live. Presumably because they want me to pay for something that provides a way to watch the game on local TV. Except since i cut the cord with Spectrum earlier this year, and went with YouTube TV for local stations, I can't get MSG which broadcasts the Knicks locally. I can swith to Fubo, which has MSG, but it's the same price as YouTube TV, and I have no idea what it is. So where I'm at now is paying $65 a month for YTTV and only watching MSNBC and CNN there. Seems pretty steep. Also if I get NBA League Pass, which I'm considering, I'm pretty sure they'd black out access for me for Knicks games too, even though I'd be paying $200 for the season. I remember when watching local sports was free, Not that long ago. What might be the smartest move, pay Spectrum, become a wire-splicer. What a mess.#

Two online acquaintances who share many of my values who I consider friends say something horribly negative about the US, a feature of Republican depravity, which I vote against every chance I get. I feel we’re on the same side, but I don’t like them making such sweeping statements about my country, which due to poor Constitutional design, has these awful features such as inadequate health care, or unregulated gun violence. One of these fellows is British and the other is an American expat living in Germany. I could respond by blaming the British fellow for Rupert Murdoch, who is enforcing Republican lunacy in the US and elsewhere. I suppose technically he’s Australian, but who cares. Or remind my German friend that Germany is where the Nazis came from, the same ones who menace my country now. He might say he’s really American so it’s not his fault. i won’t do it. But i liked saying it out loud just for a moment. 🤪🇺🇸❤️#

Today's song: Mandolin Wind.#

I got a pointer from Lew Perin to a NYT article about how the Nets have Mike D'Antoni and Amar'e Stoudemeyer on their coaching staff this year, supporting Steve Nash. I do have respect for Mike D, and of course Amar'e. But I have a feeling about the NBA this year that isn't too good. It isn't just the Nets, it's also the Lakers, who went from nowhere to champions. The Clippers. Harden. Etc. And Kyrie Irving who was too good to play for the Celtics, I guess. Basketball is a team sport, that's what's beautiful about it to me, but we aren't rooting for teams anymore, the franchises are the players. That's fine, I guess -- good for them, but the only player I've felt loyalty to in the NBA recently is Jeremy Lin, and he's playing in the G league for Golden State this year. And at this point there isn't much left there, anyway -- other than the bitterness at how the Knicks screwed it up. Maybe something will happen, no one saw Linsanity coming, so there's always hope. 💥#

Also I feel loyalty to Melo. I thought he was a bad choice for the Knicks, all through his career in NY, but how can you not feel affection for a man who keeps coming back, presumably because he loves playing. I hope that's it. I wish he had the humility back then that he has now. He might not have objected to Lin, who anyone would have to admit was good for a team that was going nowhere, both before and after. #

Before you complain about 2020, you may tempt whoever decides these things to make next year even more interesting. Remember we thought there could never be a year worse than 2016.#

I'm surprised I'm not a character in someone's book, yet. #

Good morning and ho ho ho! 😄#

We're having a huge rainstorm in the Catskills. Over five inches of rain so far. All the snow from last week's storm has melted and all that water is flowing downhill. And then it's going to get cold and snow tonight. Trees are down. Power and internet went out overnight. It's a wet, soggy, grey Christmas. Of course it is. This is 2020. #

I've been thinking of how we could reconstitute tech so it's not all driven by bankers and techies with the principles and motivations of oil barons. I remember during the 90s, being at odds, publicly, with Microsoft. Bill Gates was still CEO. The company had risen to dominance in tech with Windows. Apple was on the edge of going under, or getting acquired and devoured for parts. The web was a source of great potential and optimism, but Microsoft was acting as predator. The web had no defenses. He had billions, and his software was the OS on all the world's computers, except for a few on the web (Mac and Unix machines were more common there early-on). He was going to encircle the web and cut off its air supply. You can read all about it in the archive of my blog. All the while Gates says he's going to retire soon and spend the rest of his life giving away his money. Something seemed terribly out of balance. Why not start caring for the world now, why wait until the damage is done? So much more leverage now. Why not think bigger than creating a company, how about building a technical foundation that encapsulates all the good stuff we've figured out in the 80s (there was a lot of that) and not charge rent for it. Or at least don't interfere with the rest of us trying to do that. Nope, he persisted, there was a case and a consent decree, and a new generation of tech monsters grew up in Microsoft's aftermath, and we're still living in a poisoned ghetto, only it's a lot bigger now. My plea is that once you're worth a billion, there's no value to making more money. Think bigger. There's so much potential, because so many of these avenues haven't been explored, yet.#

I don't want to pick a fight with the EFF or W3C but there isn't a non-profit I can give money to that cares about a free network without giving money to support the ambitions of the largest tech companies. If anything I want to donate to oppose them.#

thread.center makes really nice threads. #

It would be great to have a simple page somewhere that listed the changes on the major streaming services in reverse chronologic order. Even better if there was a preference where you could say which services you care about. #

Today's Cuomo Podcast is worth a listen. He wonders why the US government is doing nothing to restrict air traffic from the UK. Made me think what Cuomo will do, as a Democrat, when the president is a Democrat on the 20th of next month. Also, I wonder if Biden offered him a position in the government. He's been an incredible crisis leader for New York State. #

The epitaph of the United States may be that the idea of the rugged individualist was a lie, there never were any, and in the age of air travel and medicine we’re all very connected, our well-being depends on other people’s well-being.#

If we’re disbanding Silicon Valley that’s a good thing imho. Where ever it reassembles, if it does, hopefully tech will be motivated by more than money. In California, money has dominated everything. I found that intolerable.#

This is something that's waiting for me every morning when I log on my Mac. I of course have ejected the drive properly since this started. Anyone know what's up??#

Howard Weaver is a longtime friend, ex-journalist, blog-curious, and journo-arrogant. From Alaska and then Sacramento. Well he now has a blog. And he's ranting like an idealist. I knew he'd come around. 🚀#

My gamifying post is getting a bunch of comment. I was thinking of an app like SimCity. I was already a programmer when it came out, but it taught me so much about the interconnection of systems. Something like that with the virus and people interacting, and people dying or the virus dying (better outcome of course) would probably save lives. And even more important it would teach us the value of working together. Since gaming is something people do in all states, red and blue, it might also help us find common ground. #

BTW, there is something called SimVirus. Not what I was looking for, but interesting. #

I wish someone would gamify the virus so people understand how it works, and how it's actually something like a game, and how we're completely blowing it. One of the skills the virus has is it can mutate. So it's in our collective interest to reduce the virus to almost nothing before it can mutate to something our vaccines can't deal with. The more virus is out there btw, the more mutations there will be. The way we're doing it now, it's like we have all the time in the world. So a million people travel by air to go to family gatherings and then a month later do it again, and fly home, spreading all mutations of the virus everywhere. We don't have a lot of time. We don't have time to worry about who Trump pardons. We need to worry about what the virus mutates to and how it might not be very human friendly, even compared to the virus as we now know it. #

Another great clip from Dark Night. "Some men just want to watch the world burn." We've known Trump was one of them from the start. That's why there was so much dread about him being elected. Somehow we pushed that fact to the side. #

I turned on the first NBA game of the year last night, Golden State v Brooklyn. I had less than no interest. I couldn't even leave it on while I nerded around on my iPad. It was stealing energy from me. I don't like what happened there, in Brooklyn, nor in the NBA at large. It isn't a league of teams, it's a league of superstars and a weird form of narcissism. I lost the tune of the NBA. Maybe I'll get it back. It does come and go. #

A lot of people vote based on how comfortable the candidate is in his or her own skin. Trump, whatever else you can say about him is quite comfortable that way. Hillary and Joe are not. Trump lost because enough people woke up and realized that wasn't a good enough reason to vote for someone. Whether or not the candidate is a sociopath and would-be tyrant should have some weight. Imagine a candidate with the confidence of Trump and the depth of knowledge of HRC.#

I wish my hippie uncle had lived to see legalized cannabis in the US. He also would have loved smart phones. He was always looking stuff up in his Information Please almanac. The idea of having all the information in the world in his pocket is something he could have imagined, as a voracious science fiction reader, but I don't think he would have seen it as coming so soon. He was born in 1945, would have been 75 now if he lived, but he died in 2003 at the age of 57.#

Just for fun. Peter O'Toole dances The Varsity Drag in The Ruling Class, one of my favorite movies as a teen (and still is).#