Doc Searls knows why there's a picture of Shirley Temple here.

 9/27/2011; 6:57:37 PM.   .

Sometimes I think of collaborative development as a game of ping pong. I pick up a paddle, and my partner picks one up too. He hits the ball over the net. I hit it back. Ping. Pong. Back and forth.

Joe Hewitt and I have been talking on and off for about five years. There's a pretty big age difference, I'm a generation older -- but there's a lot of similarity in thinking. Except in politics. Joe is a frequent commenter here, and most of his comments make me wish he'd start his own blog. I've asked many times.

Now he has started his own blog. If you read Scripting News you should also be reading Joe's blog.

Joe is an accomplished developer. He and Blake Ross got Firefox started. And he did the iPhone app for Facebook.

In his latest piece, he takes the web apart, and claims we can rebuild it without HTML. Of course I agree. I've been working on RSS and OPML for a long time. These are very much web-able technologies, though it might not be so clear about RSS. Want a demo? Do a view-source on my RSS feed and see the links to the OPML source for each blog post. That's not HTML. You could do a whole browsing experience for Scripting News without touching a single HTML file. I've been wanting Joe and others to take a look at that for a while. I think maybe now they will. One can hope!

And I have a new format that I think of as Rivers of JSON. You can have a peek at it by doing a view-source on one of the HTML rivers that my River2 software publishes. You won't see any data in there. The HTML is just a way of browsing the data behind it which is all JSON. You can think of the format as a super-RSS in JSON. It's got the content of many RSS feeds in it. But the elements would be familiar to anyone with experience working with RSS.

There's an example of what Joe is talking about. No surprise that the ideas interlock, because we've been doing verbal ping pong for a few years. My work is pretty far along. And he got me to roll up my sleeves and bake JSON into my world. So it's all sitting there waiting for him to take up a software ping pong paddle and hit the ball back over the net.

 9/27/2011; 4:50:30 PM.   .

Snarling is a way of life in NYC. Really. It's not an urban myth. A lot of people snarl.

Now I'm aware it has something to do with who you are, what kind of package you come in.

I once had a very beautiful girlfriend. Gorgeous and statuesque. Poised. Lovely. And cute too. She had it all. When we'd go to parties, I liked to hang back and watch the guys swarm around her. All smiles, offering to do things for her, get her things. When she went out in the world, it looked like a smiling, happy, pleasing place. We had discussions about this. I swear she didn't believe me when I said it wasn't like this for everyone.

And some days in NYC when I have good hair, I get looks that are almost smiles, but not quite.

That's why the times when people are nice are so special. I went for a couple of slices of pizza at a store on University Place yesterday, and the cashier was all smiles. Of course I beamed back, thanked her, and we had a little conversation. Nothing important. But I remembered the smile. It more or less made my day.

I try as best I can to offer a smile, most of the time. After all, if you're getting snarled at all day, who can blame the other person for being in a foul mood. You have a chance to make someone's day every time you go out. And don't just reserve it for people who are attractive to you. Make an effort to expand your horizons and everyone else's. Sure, the smile could be misunderstood, but then -- what are you actually risking? (And if it's too risky -- stay safe!)

This isn't one of those heavy pieces with an unobvious suprise ending. The ending is this. When someone gives you a happy look, appreciate it, and try, when you can, to return the favor.

 9/27/2011; 9:34:07 AM.   .

Good morning!

Woke up early and got in a 7AM ride.

Was a good time because I caught a huge cruise ship coming into port. I had caught the tail ends of a few of them but never one full-on. Got off the trail at the 46th St port, where the Intrepid is docked, and went all the way out on the pier and got some pics.

That picture doesn't really capture the enormity of it. Here are some closeups that attempt to give a sense of perspective.

And here's a romantic picture of a tugboat in NY Harbor just for kicks.

Map: 1 hour, 8 minutes; 11.78 miles.

 9/27/2011; 8:45:18 AM.   .