I have a new religion when it comes to phones. I only do month-to-month, fully prepaid.

If I want to switch, I don't have to call anyone and beg. I just forget to add more money to the account. Maybe I'll get a few emails reminding me I'm about to lose their service. But there's nothing they can do.

Now with that in mind, I'm interested in knowing if anyone here has signed up for a 4G plan that is month-to-month and is happy with the service they're getting. Obviously I have a bias toward NYC, but I travel, so it matters how it works elswhere.

I'm thinking of trying ClearWire. But I'm not sure if their service is any good. Hard to find much comment on blogs about it.

 11/28/2011; 8:38:59 PM.   .

From Ben Hyde via email.

He searched for my name on Facebook, and they said that I only share some of my information publicly.

He sent a screen shot.

See, that's a lie. I deleted my account. I don't share any of my information on Facebook. Oh I get it. They're not actually lying, technically. It's true. I do only share some of my information publicly.

However their next statement is a fraudulent. "If you know Dave, add him as a friend or send him a message."

They don't have the ability to add me as a friend or send me a message.

He says he tried to friend me, and they didn't say they couldn't do it.

I was prepared to give them kudos for living up to their promise.

BTW, I don't really care if they have a page about me there from Wikipedia, as long as it's labeled as such. It's when they make representations that you can contact me through their service, that's really damaging. Because people will think they can reach me that way, and that I'm not responding when they try. Just think of the problems that can cause.

It's kind of like a phone company that won't forward your number when you drop them as a service.

 11/28/2011; 10:25:05 AM.   .

The Scripting News community river is one of the most exciting projects we've done here in a while.

Here's the OPML for the river. Look at how many feeds are there.

I took a snapshot of the OPML so we can have a benchmark, and if this thing takes off, you all can have proof that you were among the pioneers that got the bootstrap going. I have a feeling this idea is going all the way.

Another reason I'm so excited about this is the quality of the content. There are a fair number of people who blog about the same mix that I do. Tech, people, design, politics. Low-tech stuff that works. Empowering people. Learning about ourselves. And it's interesting stuff! I've already gotten some new ideas and perspectives. Folks, that's what I'm here for.

Each blogger has his own way of connecting with others that works for that blog. I've had comments here for the last few years, thanks to Disqus, but I find comments are good for brief notes tacked on to a post. When people start writing blog posts in the comments it stops working. It very much matters which "space" you're writing in. When people write in their own blog, the writing has to make sense mostly standalone. You get more interesting stuff that way. Comments tend to be very relative and therefore not so interesting. "You're right and btw, here's the product I'm selling," is the basic message of a lot of the stuff that gets posted here and taken down right away. The line between comment and spam is getting harder to find. If you can't find the value in posting a complex idea on your blog, then why should it be as a comment to my post? Only if you want to get some of my flow. And of course the people you want to reach have figured that out, long ago, and mostly don't pay attention to comments.

I'm also interested in trying more experiments with these feeds. Assuming we get a critical mass. And it's already driving ideas for the software that's running the river, which btw is free, and available for anyone to run. Mac or Windows. And this software does not have to be on a publicly accessible server, even if you want your river to be publicly visible. It can write static files to Amazon S3, which is a very economical way to host this stuff. For most people hosting a river there will cost pennies a month.

This is what I wanted. As the OWS folk say -- it's the beginning of the beginning. And I'm glad it's happening now! We're absolutely ready for it, knock wood, praise Murphy, IANAL, My Mother Loves Me and I'm not as stupid as I look.

 11/28/2011; 9:19:00 AM.   .