I think all apps should be scriptable, whether they run on the desktop or in the cloud. See the use-case in this tweet. Eli wants a feature in Zoom. He has to wait for them to give it to him. If the app were scriptable, any developer could write it.#BTW, Stallman has a similar idea. He says everyone should give him their source code. But if you do that, you get a million silos instead of one. The correct way of doing this (freedom for users) is to build powerful systems that can be easily and arbitrarily hooked up to other systems.#
BTW, I'm going to be beating the drum for scriptable apps probably just as annoyingly as I did it in the 90s. We need to do it. Too many silos. System-level scripting is the same idea as it was on the Mac, except most of the apps now run on servers in the cloud. #
John Naughton might have the best view of independent writing on the web. Through him, I keep up with an amazing number of people, many of whom I knew long time ago, but have lost track of. I wonder if there's a way to develop something with that info. Hmm. #
All the water my house uses comes from a well 140 feet underground. The water contains some minerals, not much, because the Catskills are renowned for water quality. The pipes also contribute minerals to the water, esp when the pressure drops to zero as it did the other day when the pump failed. And again when the power went out. When the water comes gushing back after an outage, it dislodges little bits of crap from the walls of the pipe that were loosened when the support of the water suddenly disappeared. There are filters that catch the chunks large enough to cause problems in some of the devices hooked up to the water supply. But not all, some have no filters, and the bits get lodged in bad places, but then given enough time, they disintegrate and things slowly return to normal. I learned all this in the last few days. 💥#
- An idea -- a net where no one knows your name or bio. #
- People listen to what others are saying without an idea of who's talking. All you know is that they were chosen to be part of the group because they're interesting, known to think well/carefully, have respect for other points of view.#
- There are criteria to be accepted, like a university has criteria. #
- Maybe you have to take a test. I know entrance exams are inevitably skewed to favor white men. Hire a team sociologists to try to overcome that. #
- Limit to say 10K people. Like a good-sized town. #
- I live in one, so have an idea how communities this size work online. With good moderation, the communities solve problems, people help each other. #
- Your real world identity is secret. #
- All you know is that everyone in the community likely has something in common with you.#
- Your screenname persists, so people get to know you but have no idea who you are in the real world. #
- If you reveal your identity, you are kicked off the system. 😄#
- BTW, I was part of such a community a long time ago.#
- It was called CB Radio and was a service on CompuServe, an ancient and long-gone social media site. #