John Lithgow to portray Trump in new play. Livestreamed tonight at 9PM Eastern. I'm a happy camper. This my friends is what Hollywood should be doing. Look at the cast. Wowowowow.#

I watched the first episode of The Returned and was impressed. I have no idea where they're going, but based on the reviews, it looks good. Avoiding spoilers, thanks. #

Overnight I learned of a graphic novel version of the Mueller Report. Now that's on the right track. There are tons of great stories in the report. People love stories. Ideally, if there were infinite time, there would be a new version of The West Wing with Trump as president doing and saying the things Trump does and says. The actor would be distinguished, presidential, have gravitas, might be black, and possibly a woman, but he or she would say the things Trump says. It would be dramatic not comedic. But there isn't infinite time. Something like the Serial podcast would be ideal. It could start simply, and expand out into all the depravity that's in the Mueller Report. It would need great writers, actors and production. But it could be done reasonably quickly. I'm going to write up a very superficial and novice plan for that, because I have none of the skills needed to make it, but think it's desperately needed. #

Bill Gates' biggest failure in his words is that Microsoft didn't make Android. Hat's off to him. Most great men when looking back on their careers tend to be less specific in their regrets. But imho he's thinking too small. I think his biggest failure was to miss that at the point Windows became the default platform, the role of Microsoft fundamentally changed, and he fought that and that crippled his company and the market. He couldn't make Android at Microsoft any more than GM could make a Tesla. So imho his biggest mistake was not buying a big stake in Google when they were in the garage. And anything else that looked promising. Also it wouldn't surprise me if he read this. One of his strengths as a leader in the PC business was that he engaged with criticism, and learned from it. Most people in his position failed at that, and that's why he won so big, imho.#

Dr John's memorial procession in New Orleans. #

I am a subscriber of the NY Times. I am reading an article and a dialog pops up telling me it thinks I'm a subscriber and recommending that I log in. I log in. First thing they do is pop up an ad trying to upsell me. Thanks for the respect. #

What would you think if in Nazi Germany they had polled Germans on whether they approved of concentration camps? Pause for a moment and realize they are almost certainly doing that now in the US. #

My friend Phil Windley posted a stunning picture of the mountains in Utah on Instagram. Breath-taking. My first reaction was "America is beautiful." Not Utah. i thought about that for a bit. Phil had been traveling in Italy and Switzerland, posting pictures of stunningly beautiful places, most of which could not exist in America. because their civilization is older. Of course Utah is a Republican state. Then I thought why doesn't America market itself to Americans. The whole thing, not just pro-this or anti-that. The things that are indivisible. Like the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. That's America, not Republican. #

The Salt Lake Tribune on why concentration camp is the right word. We are going down a path that leads to what my grandparents warned me about. They barely survived the Nazis and they were smart people and told their grandchildren what to watch out for. #

The issues of opening a new recreational cannabis store in Great Barrington, MA, the closest location in Massachusetts to NY.#

Kamala Harris can dance. #

Yesterday I pointed to a test version of podcatch.com that runs off River6. A design issue I'm thinking about, how to present the podcast player. Here's a short video that explains. #

Here's a test version of podcatch.com that runs off River6. #

An idea for a destination resort. Buy some land in the mountains, build an old-style summer camp but for adults. Sleep on bunks, but they’re nice bunks. Everyone eats together. Arts and Crafts, you go on canoeing trips, softball, hikes, campfires, you can smoke weed and have sex, but you have to keep it wholesome, no orgies, this is summer camp (or maybe you had orgies in summer camp). You get to take a kitten home. And of course the lanyard and pottery you make. #

Banning private prisons is good. Also, related -- no tax cuts when we're at war. And reinstate the draft, and make it illegal to ever, in time of war, not have a draft.#

If you're thinking about doing another format for web syndication, don't. There already are too many. In fact if you can think of a way to have fewer web syndication formats, you'd be doing a mitzvah. One of the fallacies of tech is that anyone is waiting for you to revinvent something that works, no matter how much people appear to be clamoring for it. I've learned over the years that asking, even begging for a feature or product or incompatible format is not an indication that once available people will actually use it. But developers will have to decide whether to support it, and making developers lives more complicated, esp ones who are working for free, is greedy, selfish and not appreciated. 💥#

It's been raining for weeks, but I've been getting bike rides in, between the storms. Everything is a lush verdant green and the sky is full of fog and mist, and the pictures are often stunning, like this one, of a meadow near where I live. No filters, no editing, taken with an iPhone XS Max. I might make this a header image after a while. #

If blacks are African-American aren't whites European-Americans? I am definitely a Euro-Am. My mother was born in Prague and my father in Bucharest. I was born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens (Jackson Heights and Flushing). I heard on the radio the other day that Queens has a larger population than 15 of the US states. That puts things in perspective. They sure make a lot of noise for such a bunch of punkasses. #

I'd like to watch a cable news station that had a rule to always refer to Trump in the past tense.#

When you buy something online that there is no Consumer Reports or Wirecutter review of, how do you decide what to get? There are a lot of what appear to be review sites on the web, but I guess they're all ads for what they recommend. I don't think the search engines have gotten around to this yet. Here's a search for "best bike cover." Which if any of them are serious criticism by people who know the area. #

Mathew Ingram reminds us that two years ago Twitter said they would revamp their verification program, but they're still doing it on an ad hoc basis. Maybe they should do what the US Post Office does when you register a change of address. They charge $1 on your credit card. That in turn gets them your real name and address. That's the information they needed, and it's verified to the extent that the credit card company can verify it, and it seems that's also the information that Twitter needs, at least for people. Not so sure about companies. #

If I were in charge of a search engine, I'd notice if someone does a lot of searches on a specific site, and increase the rank for that site in subsequent searches by that person. It's 2019. It seems search should be at least that smart by now. #

Sometimes I unfollow people on Twitter if I feel there's no chance of me being heard if I respond to what they said, esp if I often want to respond, not in the negative (that's another reason to unfollow) but to add a perspective or offer additional info. It's hard to explain, perhaps, without giving an example, and I don't want to do that because I have nothing against the person I'm unfollowing, it's just that their Twitter presence has gotten so big, or perhaps they've muted me, for whatever reason they don't seem to be able to hear me. I seem to only do this with people who I at one time considered a friend. I guess there is a state of friendship that could be described as "on pause" or "in waiting." That's why I unfollow. Until today I couldn't put into words why I was unfollowing, but now I can so here they are. :heh:#

I'm glad to see a few #indieweb people building on OPML. There's a lot you can do with it. For example, the native file format of LO2 is OPML. So it's really good for editing subscription lists for feed readers. And editing blogrolls. My listicle tool takes OPML files as input. And River6, coming soon, does a bunch with OPML. There's also feedBase which will blow your mind if you love sharing subscription lists. Yes there's a lot to discover in OPML-land and more on the way. 💥#

I should write a howto to explain editing subscription lists in LO2. I wrote one for the OPML Editor in 2008. It still runs btw, I use it, sometimes even to edit subscription lists. Two key bits for LO2: 1. You can make outlines public. Look in the File menu. 2. And you can edit the attributes of a headline, click the suitcase icon in the left margin. #

AOC: "'Never again' means something." She is what we want politicians to be. Not calculating about how to get re-elected, rather guiding our country and preserving our values. Being smart. Not being scared to say what's obvious.#

Tomorrow is the NBA Draft and the deals are flying. It should be amazing. After yet another Knickless playoff season, it's interesting to see them back in the conversation somewhat. There were a lot of stupid dreams about the Knicks buying a contending team with their cap space. That's off the table because even Kawhi couldn't turn this team into a contender. The Knicks are in a rebuild, have been for many seasons, and no amount of dealing is going to make them a contender. Even the 76ers and Celtics who played it smart aren't contending yet. But at least they give their fans something to root for. The Celtics should be glad to be rid of Kyrie. Last year's team was much more interesting. Re-sign Horford and trade Hayward for draft picks. The most intriguing idea I heard for the Knicks is to pick up Chris Paul on waivers (haha not going to happen) or take on his awful 3-year deal, and get them to throw in Capela, say. In return they get a few mediocre young players that didn't work out (pretty much anyone on the current roster). And then what the hell, sign Melo and let him play out his career in the Garden. It's not like anything else is going to happen here for the forseeable future. Sign Jeremy Lin (he can bring his new trophy) and D'Angelo Russell, and we might even make the postseason. It'll certainly be entertaining basketball. 🏀#

I posted this on Facebook last year on this day. It's a zinger. #

The best movie ever, one that I always forget to put on my list, is Groundhog Day. So entertaining, well-done, a love story, a story of redemption, a prequel for Bill Murray's long career, and a wonderful Frank Capra-like ending. A perfect movie. #

I love smoothies. Frozen berries, a half a banana and a tiny bit of yogurt, cover with tap water. Zap in a blender. Voila, deliciousness, a cool summer drink, a happy tummy. #

There is an dimension other than electability and policy for a Democratic presidential candidate -- will the candidate further division in the country, or help bring the country together. #

Trump isn't really a presidential candidate and he certainly isn't a president, not as far as the job is specified by the Constitution. Which the begs the question, what exactly is he?#

A preview of another River6 feature. I reworked the feedViewer page. Here's an example, the single-feed view for Berkeleyside, the excellent local news site for Berkeley, where I lived a few years ago. It was founded by my longtime friend Lance Knobel. Since River6 is a river, there's less attention paid to the per-feed viewer, but this time I did a thorough rewrite of it, and added a huge optimization. It no longer has to call back to the server to get the JSON version of the feed, it's baked into the page as the server renders it. One more example, the single-feed view for Scripting News. #

Facebook announced their cryptocurrency, called Libra. Here's a list of their partners. I suspect government regulators will say it's okay just not with Facebook leading. Also note there are no publishing organizations on the partner list. #

A good reference on the directories of Unix. #

I like unflavored unsweet iced tea. I like the flavor. It's refreshing. I don't want sweet. I despise flavored iced tea. Peach and raspberry even lemon. What is wrong with the world. Doesn't anyone else like good old unsweet tea??#

If I had my druthers, everyone would write a blog like mine, and we'd have great tools for reading them in a myriad of different ways to please everyone. Innovation, independence, customization, variety and decentralization. Wonderful. #

Do you do online check-writing? I've been using a major bank checking account for many years. It's ok, it works, but they only keep records of transactions for six months. I want a bank that will keep records for decades. Can you recommend a bank that keeps good records?#

Tony Harper writes: "I worked in a similar industry for years. There was a lack of willingness to invest in more modern technology for cases where the ROI was difficult to quantify. Only when another company did it better did we see investment in stuff like this." To which I said: "I think you're right. The proper attitude is to have people running the place who love the business they're in and are thrilled by the possibility of doing it much better thanks to some new tech. ROI is so boring and dull. Esp from a user standpoint. I'd happily pay more."#

Here's a free idea for Twitter. Invent linking inside Twitter. So if I want to point to Kawhi Leonard, I could type his name, highlight it, enter his screenname, click OK. It would make Twitter more readable. Only steal from the best. 💥#

The grim reality of the Knicks is they make huge mistakes and try to fix them with more huge mistakes.#

Interesting concept. Kyrie wants his own team. Of course LeBron has his team. And Kawhi wants one too, he just rented the Raptors for a season (and got paid handsomely for it). #

If Kyrie goes to the Nets, the Knicks should make an offer to D'Angelo Russell. NYC likes him. Get him playing the Garden. ;-)#

I wrote a piece in 2014 entitled How to ask for help with software. I gave it an easy-to-remember title so I could find it in Google when I needed to send to a user. I just did the search, Google didn't find it. I was concerned this day would come. BTW, opening the page in my browser (I found it by other means) was enough to correct Google, it seems.#

BTW, I just learned about fake timeouts in basketball. Didn't even know it was a thing. Apparently they work, but you can't do often because the other guys will anticipate it#

If you're the kind of person who likes an early look at new things, here's my collection of stories from feeds I follow in River6. By design, it's an evolution of the river of news readers we had for earlier apps. I've put considerable time into fixing bugs and adding new small features, and of course the engine on the back-end is completely new. The GitHub repo is still private. #

2016: "I'm not going to pay to get through 100 paywalls. They need to work together to solve this."#

In school, it was puzzling to learn about the rise of Hitler. Why didn't the people rise to stop it? We're living the answer now. They didn't believe what was happening. They thought the nightmare would end without them having to do anything. That's the mistake we're making too.#

I watched Maddow last night, saw it with new eyes. What Trump said isn't outrageous, it's the present, it's the truth, it's the future. It doesn't matter what the FBI thinks.#

Google treats the web as if it were its own private platform. Chrome is always generating new errors. Okay they don't like the way software I wrote five years ago works. I need a browser I can recommend that thinks the open web is not a corporate platform. Not Mozilla, btw, they generally do what Google says. #

At the Great Democratic Debate, one of the candidates should suggest they draw straws. Everyone who picks a short straw withdraws from the race, then and there, and endorses the candidate with the long straw. That would be the Democrats finally waking the fuck up and leading.#

I started watching When They See Us three times. I'll get through it. But it is so anger-making to watch how the cops treated the kids and their parents. If you believe we can depend on the basic goodness of people, well, clearly we can't.#

How do you know you're God? "It's simple, when I pray to Him, I find I'm talking to myself." #

The news should reflect what's obvious about what the next steps are for our increasingly authoritarian government. Project out from here. When do the loyalty oaths start for government employees? Members of Congress.? The courts? Teachers? You and me. When do the concentration camps for American citizens start? We need a thread that isn't looking backward as the news mostly is, but is focused on the present and near-future. That would help people see why impeachment is so important. Didn't they see it coming? Answer: They didn't want to look. #

You know the old idea of visualizing the audience as naked to overcome stage fright, analogously consider that every bit of hate you get on Twitter comes from an algorithm, a few lines of code and records in a database, not from your mommy or daddy, or even the police. You are not actually being threatened, even though it may feel that you are. #

Update: They added me to the beta group for GitHub Package Registry. Now I have to figure out what it is and how it might fit into my work. Have questions or suggestions? Post them here.#

Idea for a Serial-style podcast. Actors play various roles in the Mueller Report. Need screen writers. I'd definitely listen to it all. #

I have to admit it's getting better. #

One thing I learned from being an entrepreneur and software developer is that you have to listen. Put aside any anger or fear coming from the person with the idea, sometimes the best ideas come with angst. Journalism circles the wagons, listens only to ideas of the sort "Oh woe is me, we have been unfairly treated by tech, give us your money, or else." I've been hearing this since shortly after the web came about. Oddly the people who turned me on to the web were journalists They were excited about this great news distribution technology. That's the right way imho to look at it. The money is there. Look at all the money Facebook and Google make. A big secret of business is so obvious people sometimes miss it. If you are being hurt by a competitor, think about doing what they do. It's hard to listen to them, but then no one is entitled to tune out while their livelihood is undermined. #

The season finale of Gentleman Jack was just lovely. Not too perfect, because there are big clouds on the horizon, but a sweet ending. Most people I know didn't see it, but it and Chernobyl, both from HBO are the highlights of the year. And of course I'm going to binge season 2 of Big Little Lies, when it's done, no matter what. Adding Meryl Streep to the already estimable ensemble is too much to miss. #

It’s about time journalism started covering itself without the dishonest hype. "The industry doesn’t need—and shouldn’t ask for—a special law to help it compete with Google and Facebook." #

Yet journalists have lots of opinions about tech, and have no grounding with experience, nor do they listen to those who do.#

I signed up for the GitHub Package Registry beta, but wasn't selected as one of the lucky few. I do most of my server development these days in Node, and am of course using NPM. Sometimes it gets flaky, and I keep thinking there's more it can do. Am intrigued with the idea of an integrated package manager and GIT repository. If you have any experience wiht the new GHPR beta, write a post somewhere and send me a link. I'm really curious. #

Cory Doctorow is right. Make new laws that make lock-in illegal for dominant tech platforms. We've learned this over and over. Tech stagnates while platforms dominate, then there's an explosive new platform, the incumbent tries to kill it, and that slows things down again. Tech has an undeserved reputation for moving quickly. Actually it tears itself apart frequently, the periods where progress can be made are too short, and always comes with backward motion. Other technologies don't this. You can create a treatment for one disease without starting an epidemic of another. You can add air conditioning to bowling alleys without coming up with new rules to the game. #

Wirecutter on rating online banks: "We haven't covered this yet. We're planning to eventually, but it will be a big project and we want to get it right, so it's a ways out."#

Consumer Reports does rate online banks, but the page with their ratings and reviews is 404. I reported the broken link a few days ago, but it's still broken. #

I've been thinking lately that when you win an NBA championship, you automatically lose your top two players. There's a new lottery, redistributes the power players around the league, breaks up dynasties. So if Toronto wins, Kawhi will have to leave, possibly to go to Minnesota or Atlanta. The reason is that dynasties are not only boring they are unsportsmanlike, imho.#

In case you were wondering, the pragmatic cost of an unimpeached criminal in the White House is that there's no reason for him not to continue breaking the law, breaking more laws, ignoring Congress, and the courts, purging disloyal people in the DOJ, FBI, intelligence services, and even cancelling the election which the Dems are counting on winning. You have to put up the barrier as soon as you can, because all the time you wait they become less potent. By the time you realize you should have done it, that you had to do it, given how things have been going, it'll be too late. He'll just have you arrested for being disloyal. Maybe he's already threatening to do that behind the scenes. #

If you believe in the open web or the indie web (they're exactly the same thing) -- how could it hurt to ask Elizabeth Warren to post her position papers on the web instead of in a corporate silo? Get involved. Help. All you have to do is RT. 💥#

I'm working on River6, as I reported here. One of the things included with this project is a new river browser, the JavaScript code that runs on the client. There are a few new features here and there, but mostly it's just reorganized and debugged, and hopefully easier to work on. Today I decided to do something bold, I removed all the layers of CSS that define how a river looks. Starting with a clean slate. It had been written by several different people at different times, and in the interim my understanding of how to write modular CSS has come a long way. It was too hard to change things. I wanted to put this note here for this screen shot to show what a river looks like without any CSS at all. Not pretty! #

What's going on with Huawei and Android is the most extreme example of Dilbertism that's probably ever happened. There's Trump, the ultimate PHB making a grand royal proclamation, which ultimately forces a fork in Android, so the Chinese add even more malware to the world. I said a few years ago, during the 2016 campaign, that tech and politics are one and the same now, and our journalists are vastly unprepared for it. I urged the J-schools to run topical bootcamps for reporters. No one has done anything about it. #

Dr John was a phenomenon at a time when I was listening to lots of new music. I saw him at the Palladium on 14th St in NYC in 1973 or so. I couldn't figure out what kind of person he was. He was dressed in a long robe, holding a staff like a god, masked, and had huge colorful feathers coming out of the top of his head. Sang all the Dr John hits. He got me interested in New Orleans, where I ended up going to college. He died yesterday at 77. His music lives on. #

Journalism has been very conflicted about Craig Newmark. Truth is he isn't responsible for anything other than making a product that people wanted. The news industry could have done it, but for some reason didn't.#

There will come a day when a presidential candidate will be judged by where they choose to post their policy statements. If they use a corporate silo, that will be like accepting campaign donations from Goldman Sachs. Not a good appearance.#

GPS is an amazing thing, but there are places it just doesn't work, like what we used to call The Big Dig in Boston. Too many levels of tunnels. GPS can't tell if you're underground or on the surface. #

Consumer Reports does rate online banks. I thought I had searched for it, but there it is, thanks to a pointer from Tobie Stanger on Twitter. She is a senior editor at Consumer Reports. #

Seriously, a guy who ignores the Constitution and gets away with it is going to have a real election? Is that what you think?#

Weird. Same logic that says impeachment is futile because Senate would never convict also seems to apply to passing symbolic bills that also have no chance in Senate. #

HBO has taught us what happened at Chernobyl. Couldn't they do the same for the Mueller report?#

New header graphic, a rustic country road. Previous, my brother and mother walking to desegregated school in Corona, Queens in 1964.#

I wish Elizabeth Warren would set an example and not post her position papers on a silo. Her archive isn’t very robust since she doesn’t control the domain. Pretty sure it’s behind a paywall. She could set a great example of how to use an open and free web.#

I've been working on the next River product. This time I'm using a MySQL database. Three tables -- feeds, items and subscriptions. The folder structure is exactly as in River5, except there is no data folder (the data is in the database). I am still a relative newbie in SQL databases, but I think this model works. I'm documenting as much as I can and of course I will release the Node.js source. I hope it serves as a basis for distributing RSS intelligence around the net. Last time around (Google Reader) we centralized. That was a mistake. If enough people run instances of this database we'll have a less interruptable base of functionality. I want to try out more new ideas as well. We've been really stuck for a long time. 💥#

The Guardian Books podcast doesn't use enclosures. Come on, make it easy for podcast players folks. Use the <enclosure> element, and set the type and length correctly. #

Braintrust query: I have a Node server app that's behaving badly, on an intermittent basis. I finally tracked down what's going wrong, but it's a mystery. I also have an easy workaround, but before I do that, I'd like to see if anyone has an idea what might be going on. #

This is a test podcast.#

If journalism had the ability to look at itself critically, the way it looks at Facebook, they would find a smoking gun in this Les Moonves quote from 2016. You could argue whether Facebook knew it was profiting from Trump trolling, but there's absolutely no doubt that journalism was. We need a Mueller report on this too. Any journalism outfit could do it, btw. They have access to all the sources. There should be a Pulitzer in it. But of course none of them will do it. it would require an integrity they don't have.#

Disclaimer: I hate platitudes.#

What happened in Game 2 of the NBA finals? It was pretty evenly matched. Both teams were real strong on defense. Golden State found its groove at the beginning of the 3rd quarter, and the Raptors went cold. They got good looks but didn't make them. #

Cori's smoothie recipe. #

Bob Stepno recommends watching Meet John Doe. #

How does Alexa know what my favorite Rolling Stones song is?#

Every reminder about Father's Day on the net, supposedly directed right at me, are total triggers of grief and regret. You'd think with all their sophisticated data mining they would know what this isn't a holiday I want to hear about.#

The main reason Trump needs to be impeached is he's ignoring laws, breaking them, openly. #

freedomfarts.org is available. #

I really enjoyed last night's NBA Finals game. Because it was a real contest. Playoff basketball is like nothing else. You can go to a regular season game if you want, but it's like spring training. The problem with the Warriors is that they, like other dominant teams before them, forced the league to form around them. For example the Rockets, an excellent team, can't get by Golden State, so they'll rip up the team this summer and start over. Possibly the only player who's untouchable is James Hardin. When KD went to the Golden State that's when the NBA turned a bad corner imho at least for this fan who just likes a real game, not a rout, at the very end of the season. We got that last night. Looking forward to the rest of the playoffs. I don't really care who wins btw, I just love great basketball. #

You don't hear this on the news, but I assume at least some of the strange behavior of American politicians is due to blackmail or threats of physical harm.#