This is where the new Substack mail list lives. It'll be faster and more immediate than the nightly email. No guarantee it'll work forever. Expect a mix of new features, interop with other products, stylesheets and plugins, great new applications of the tech, and lots of writing, because friends, that's what it's about. Writing is so important it deserves its own web. #
This is what a blog post looks like in Markdown, and the HTML version which Google objects to. Every post has one of these. 16K+ posts since May 2017. That's all, just wanted to show you the A-B. You can also see what we're being influenced by in the front matter department. Having Claude helping with this I can get good insight into the defacto standards already established. Gives us a chance for more interop. #
BTW if you open that Markdown file in BonBon you get the rendering not the source. I have to get used to that, there are two webs, one for Markdown and one for HTML. I think some people are offering Markdown versions of HTML files. We're going to this too, and have a website that'll be a perfect test case -- this.how. What's good about it is that it is a rendering of OPML files, so we don't have to work with the HTML at all, we can and will create and OPML to Markdown converter. And then when we want to put it on a domain for BonBon's use, just add ?format=markdown to the URL. It doesn't work yet but it will. #
- I just had one of those ideas. #
- Key fact: Last time I looked Substack didn't have an API for posting a message. They seem to want you to use their editor, or at least copy/paste the text from another source. I am not here at midnight to copy the text of Scripting News and paste it into a dialog. So I wrote my own newsletter software, not a great use of my time then and I have to keep it running, etc. #
- But now I need a special mail list, there's so much software coming out of the Scripting pipe, we're going to try something new. #
- Here's the idea -- I bet Claude Code can do it for me. It already reads my RSS 2.0 feed, and if somehow I mark a post as needing to go out immediately (tbd how) their agent could post it to Substack on my behalf, automatically. #
- So this is a test. I already have a Substack list. 52 souls are signed up, in vain until today -- I never planned to actually use it, but here we are. This could be the first actual post to that list. #
- Update: It worked. Love it. Still a bit more work to do. #
- The speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House. I was thinking Pete Buttigieg would be excellent. Really smart, very good presenter and advocate, and has been in the exec branch himself for four years so might better understand where the pressure points are. #
- And Repubs like him. They like him on Fox (actually they seem to like all the 2026-minted Dems in Congress). #
- Buttigieg probably wouldn't be a great vote counter, but the Speaker has a dual role, basically the highest ranking Democrat in government. They always overlook this and go for the guy who is the best whip and money raiser (which means PACs btw). The better they communicate through the media, the more leverage we'll have in overriding and avoiding vetos. #
- And if you want to get corporate money out of politics, then you have to move the two current leaders aside, they can't unwind the corporate finance system while basically repping the donors in Congress. #
- Also one of the big lessons of this election is the money doesn't matter that much. #
- People ask who was the biggest loser in the election and I say it's Citizens United (which is such an awful name, it's more Citizen Lockin).#
- We're trying to get things nice and clean so we can rep the features of the product, but I have to say I am quite confused myself. It's okay, I like the feeling. #
- I know this is a productive direction and that the 35 year old web is waiting to be unlocked from the horrors Netscape, Microsoft and Google inflicted on it. #
- It's getting so safe, but then remember life itself isn't safe. Falling in love is definitely not safe but how could you deny it when it comes. Think of BonBon as being like that, like love. And basically trust that text with simple features, is safe enough to use with confidence. #
- The test -- do inline images render properly in BonBon. #
- Screen shot of this page in BonBon, and the Markdown source it's rendered from. #
