A new Node package called reallysimple that reads feeds and calls back with a simple, consistent JavaScript object. Works with RSS, Atom and RDF feeds. Part of the RSS 2.0 twenty-year review.#
I totally agree with this editorial in the NY Post. News orgs have lost touch with what their jobs are. This of course is advice the NY Post should take to heart. Disappointed but not surprised to see other news people dismissing it.#
I uploaded two more of the early Lydon podcast interviews to YouTube this morning: Jim Behrle and Eugene Volokh. It's a bit of a slog. The next podcast has three parts, which means I guess that they have to be merged somehow into a single video. #
No one trusts "open" formats and protocols from big tech companies. For good reason. 😀#
I think capitalism, practiced honorably, is great. You make a product, convince people to buy it, make a profit, attain financial security, live well from a material standpoint. Good for you. But some of the most successful people in business don't stop there, they seem to get a thrill from destroying things for profit, especially it seems, things that don't belong to them. #
A great example, the oil companies. They sell a product they know makes our planet uninhabitable. Eventually it will fall to all of us to clean up after them, but also thanks to them, not before lots of people die and our quality of life is dramatically downgraded. That's just one example. #
And now a very successful tech entrepreneur, Jack Dorsey, a man who has made billions, and until now has had a reputation for caring about the impact of his creations on the rest of the world, has taken something that is not his, the idea of an open web that belongs to everyone, that is the actual technology that made it possible for him to be so successful. Instead of giving back, he proposes to dismember it, deposit what's left in his bank account, and build something in its place that of course is designed to make him even richer, and have more control, while saying it will do the opposite. #
I never have understood why people who have made billions want more. It can't possibly do anything for them. They aren't smart enough to run the world, no one is -- I don't care how lucky you got, or how competitive, hard-working, even brilliant. No one is so smart that they can plan on a world scale how technology will work in the future. We can all put our ideas out there and let them mix with other people's and hope there are enough people who want to work with others (as opposed to destroying them) to actually do something good at a large scale. That's as good as it gets. There is no example in our past, when tech was much simpler, of a human who did anything more than add an idea or two to the mix. #
So please Jack Dorsey, stop pretending you have invented the next web. No one knows if what you have invented, if you actually have invented anything, will be any good. It certainly doesn't deserve the name of the one technology that got us past all the greed and arrogance of previous generations of tech gods. Back off. I'll help you find a great name for what you're doing, and maybe we can even help each other create more useful tech. Maybe you can start listening more and stop looking inside yourself for all the answers. #
Last update: Saturday June 11, 2022; 6:46 PM EDT.
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)