Everything I read about Trump says he'll do anything he wants, whether it's legal or not, and say that it's legal. This has been his M.O. in private life and people who know him say it's certain that will go with him to the White House.
I remember a town hall with Trump voters, just after the election, in Kenosha, a factory town that lost its factory, north of Milwaukee. A Trump voter was sure that checks and balances would stop Trump from doing anything too terrible. It turns out that's not true, and that was knowable before the election, and should have been factored into his thinking. It's especially not true if there's a Republican majority in Congress.
In this alternate reality people know the arcane rules of football and basketball better than they know the rules of government. This, in a country that has, if we do our jobs, self-government. We let people tell us it's too complicated, we listened to their confusing lies, and let them confuse us, thus giving them the power to decide for us.
All that stands between us and chaos now are the Republican members of Congress, the military and federal police (FBI, NSA, CIA et al). Maybe the courts. Because it's clear the president will do exactly what he wants until someone forces him to stop.
I'm doing some of the best writing of my life in pngWriter.
It's the combination of the Twitter writing ethos, which says typos are okay, and if you're wrong, well there's always another tweet coming up right after this one. Nothing is too important, so that allows you to be breezy here, where writing on the blog is more formal.
This works for me. I just copy and paste the finished copy from pngWriter into my blog, edit, link, add a picture and an abstract and publish. It's made my blog writing better.
I know people want me to release it. That's great. Hold on to that. My experience with product releases is that people say they're excited, but when it comes time to use the product, they either don't use it, or they abuse it. This does not create an incentive for me to release stuff. I finally decided I had enough of this system. It's amazing in a way that it took me this long.
If you want people to develop software in the space between social networks and blogging, we need to get the system operators, the Twitters, Googles, Facebooks, Amazons, etc to participate. They really don't give a shit. Both in appearance and fact. And users have to give a shit too, btw.
These networks are our world these days. And they aren't being well maintained. We don't have parks, or places to create and compete. They are stagnant, non-evolving places. They all suck. So how can developers make it better, when you all wallow in the suckage, Really, there's a problem here.
Users need to get a sense that they have something at stake, and stop herding to the cheapest most mass systems. Diversify and you will get diversity. And real innovation.
Take responsibility for your future, and stop waiting for people to hand it to you. When you do, you get shit.
More to come..
I saw Obama speak twice at the DNC in 2004. I was lucky to be there. Once at the blogger's breakfast. He was presented as the next hot thing in the Democratic Party. I didn't see what the big deal was about. He seemed like a state senator from Illinois. Then he gave the keynote and still, I didn't see anything there.
The pride thing finally hit me when he gave the race speech, about his pastor, who said a lot of very true things about America, things that Republicans don't want to hear. But I didn't mind. The thing I felt was pride when Obama explained race from his point of view.
Then there were prideful moments again and again, until it became normal, and DC devolved into the crazy that passes for government. I forgot that I was proud of him and us, for him being where he was.
Now, on the last day of his term in office, it hits me bigtime.
I am proud of him and us, for him having been where he was, for so long. And where he will be forever. As a symbol that we have greatness in us.
I am proud of Obama and proud of America.