I considered my Blogger of the Year award for 2025 very carefully, and yesterday did a podcast about my choice, David Frum, who is doing an outstanding job of adapting his work to the podcast medium, as it was intended to work. What finally made my decision easy was his last episode of the year, where along with fellow Atlantic staff writer, Charlie Warzel, they considered how podcasting works, and what if anything they should do to conform. The answer is -- don't conform. It isn't up to any single contributor to turn the tide, instead their only job is to be true to themselves, and learn from others and share what they've learned. Be a human-size blogger. I thought perhaps this represented my opportunity to speak to them, and help understand that there are tech people who want to work with them and enhance their freedom, rather than consume it. But we need their help to do it. They've settled on Substack, without realizing they're just hooking up with the same people who screwed them before (ie Twitter, then all the techies who have dinner with Trump). As they say -- doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome is not particularly smart, and Frum is smart. I don't care if he roots for the Red Sox (I'm a Mets fan), right now we're on the same side. We love the United States, and what it has done for us, and for the world, and we are falling apart. It's not time to stay within our communities, it's time to do whatever we can to save the country we love so much, working together. #

Put another way, I don't think they know that there are hippie-type developers who believe in you and your free speech, and build accordingly. The web is the home page for that movement, and it's still there and ready to do the job it was built to do, and not feed your soul into the slurry-making machines. #

BTW, I was right about our respective ages. I am five years older, so we are of the same generation, but have taken different paths, but have arrived at basically the same place. And for what it's worth I voted for George W. Bush against Al Gore in 2000, but voted and worked for John Kerry in 2004.#

Another btw, in the early blogosphere we had a motto -- watching them watch us watch them, etc. You aren't blogging if you aren't always considering what you're doing. #

Must-watch narrated bodycam video from Jan 6 Capitol riot. Maybe the saddest moment in American history, so far. #

Problem with ChatGPT is that it thinks you always want to know everything about all the options, no matter how convoluted they are, based on incorrect assumptions about what you're doing. You ask a simple question with a simple answer and they write you a four page briefing on everything. At least they do seem to give you the correct answer up front. They ought to work on making these things manageable, and btw for these reasons I believe they must write the most shitty code when they're left to write the whole thing. If they have a different better mode, please let me talk to that one! :-)#