Scripting News

Lakoff hits it out of the park

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:59:24 GMT

I thought today would be a great day to interview UC-Berkeley professor George Lakoff on the Democratic campaign, who should have done what, and how his candidate (and mine) Barack Obama should proceed in the race with Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

Here's the 25-minute interview in an MP3.

http://sundaygang.com/lakoff/lakoff050308.mp3

I think he hit it out of the park and I hope this makes its way into the Obama campaign. It's got so much more substance than the typical talking head stuff on CNN and MSNBC.

Update: Cross-posted at Huffington.

Today's campaign conference calls

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:39:39 GMT

Listen to the Obama and Clinton campaigns spin results from yesterday's primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Sorry I don't have an RSS feed yet for all these podcasts. It's all rushing by so fast, it's the most I can do to get them online and downloadable.

Need some new tools, which I'll have asap.

Morning podcast

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:21:51 GMT

Another in a series of 20-minute interviews with smart people of all walks of life about the political issues of our day.

Today our guest is Scott Rosenberg, former Salon Managing Editor and book author.

http://sundaygang.com/misc/scottRosenberg.mp3

This podcast was recorded at 10AM on March 5, 2008, the day after the Ohio and Texas primaries.

cinch.blogtalkradio.com improved

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:26:49 GMT

Okay the number one complaint about the wonderfully simple Cinch service from BlogTalkRadio was that your feed has your phone number in it.

So...

Now they've added a simple registration feature that allows you to give it a new name and hide your phone number.

I changed my feed to:

http://cinch.blogtalkradio.com/dave

You can listen to my first podcast under the new regime.

Enjoy!

Quote of the morning

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:55:55 GMT

Politico: "If she wants to make issues like ethics and disclosure and law firms and real estate deals and all that stuff issues, as I've said before I don't know why they'd want to go there, but I guess that's where they'll take the race.'' Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod.

Obama has to fight back and there's lots to discuss. Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, impeachment, disbarment.

IRC for Ohio/Texas returns

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:11:05 GMT

I started a chatroom for tonight's primaries.

irc://irc.freenode.net/#ohioTexas

5PM Pacific: Vermont declared for Obama, the rest are closed or too close to call.

Update: I'm predicting a sweep for Obama tonight. 4-for-4.

5:50PM: Clinton is calling an emergency conference call about "irregularities" in Texas. Okay, she didn't win Texas. Now comes the whining.

John W. McCain

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:40:05 GMT

McCain loves him some baggage.

Technopeasant News

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:11:05 GMT

Things you would have learned if you followed me on Twitter.

Apparently, I am, according to Andrew Keen, a hippie, academic and peasant. Pretty accurate. I'm a technopeasant.

Andrew Keen once said I should get a Pulitzer.

m.pownce.com is very nice. If you've been overwhelmed by all the michegas in Pownce you might try this UI.

Me, I'm here for the politics and the raw unadulterated sex. :-)

Twitter doesn't have to implement what Pownce has, as long as Pownce is there. I'm no longer ~~telling~~ asking them to implement payloads.

Hillary is falling.

I have 579 friends on Pownce. (Update: 639.)

I'm not a Democrat. I don't believe that "we" have to win. I'm not part of that "we."

"Hope" is the right thing to be focused on, because normally, we are "hope-less."

Update: Francine Hardaway follows me on Twitter and confirms something a lot of people suspect. She's only seen half of these twits. She thinks Twitter eats these gems. If so that's very bad!

Jay Rosen interview

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:43:48 GMT

A 15-minute Skype interview with NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen about politics, journalism and blogging on "Telltale Tuesday."

Jay's PressThink weblog.

Comparing Twitter and Pownce for payloads

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:48:09 GMT

New development, now when I post a picture to Twitter from my iPhone, it also goes to Pownce.

A screen shot of the Pownce version.

A screen shot of the Twitter version.

We now can see, visually, the difference betw a messaging service that supports payloads and one that doesn't. Not saying one is better than the other, because this is still very much an exploration. But there are definite advantages to each approach. Please consider that before you beg anyone not to listen to anyone else.

Update: I quickly added fields to the flickrToTwitter page to flow pictures to Pownce in addition to Twitter. Screen shot.

Pownce API 2.0, day 2

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:15:36 GMT

I've made good progress wiring up the OPML Editor to Pownce, but I got stuck when it came to posting a media file.

The docs don't say how to encode the data of the file. I guessed that it would be base64-encoded, but it didn't work. If anyone has gotten this working, or knows how to do the encoding, please post a note here. Thanks.

BTW, this is the file I was testing with. It's nowhere near the stated file size limit.

Update: FIle-sharing in Pownce, explained.

Update #2: It works. Here's a file that I uploaded, you have to be a logged on and a friend of mine to see it. The key was using a multipart/form-data POST. Highly recommend that the API docs be updated to say just that. It's enough of a clue so that an experienced developer will be able to get it to work with no extra help. Okay I'm happy about this now, I've got payloads working from both ends, under program control. Next thing I'm going to push up to the cloud is a campaign conference call MP3. Good news, we have a partner, a huge media company that decided to work with the bloggers.

Update #3: Here are Pownce entries for today's Obama conference call and the Clinton call. You need to be signed into Pownce to listen in, and be a friend of mine. Just for this experiment. We'll have other ways to download conference calls soon (for example, an RSS 2.0 feed with enclosures).

Inquiring minds want to know!

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:42:57 GMT

Cryptically MikeA teases about something new from Om Malik. What is it my brother? We need to know. Now!

Update: It's a new blog about the business of open source.

Valleywag got a legit story, Mike

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:15:16 GMT

I posted a comment on a post on TechCrunch by Mike Arrington, re a Valleywag story about Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia.

Mike, I don't like Valleywag, but I think you're wrong in this case. They got a good story because Wikipedia, the publication that Wales runs, has rules that prevent people from editing stories they have an interest in. Wales was trading edits to Rachel Marsden's profile for sex. They got him, and had they left out the parts you don't like, it wouldn't have been clear that they did.

This is not only a good story, but it's an important one. Wikipedia, unlike Valleywag, is widely thought to be authoritative. Those of us it covers who are not friends with Wales know that it is far from authoritative. Both Valleywag and Wikipedia are pretty sleazy, imho, but Valleywag disclaims it, and Wikipedia pretends not to be.

Think about it this way, if we had the guts to challenge Wikipedia, if a glaring mistake was considered a problem in the tech industry, one of two things might happen: 1. They might clean up their act or 2. Entrepreneurs might launch competitive sites that fix its integrity issues.

Interesting comments on this topic on Silicon Alley Insider.

Yesterday: "Wikis are not enough."

The Sunday Gang

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:41:08 GMT

I've been a regular watcher of the Sunday morning political talk shows, and I've always in my heart wanted my own show. Then I started talking about it, people kept telling me just do it. So today I did.

http://sundaygang.com/001.mp3

My guests are Nicco Mele and Morra Aarons, a married couple, they live in Medford MA. Morra is a frequent guest on CNN and writes at BlogHer. I met Nicco when he was working on the Internet for the Howard Dean campaign in 2004. Nicco was famous for switching to McCain a couple of years ago, but now he appears to have regained his senses. He still likes McCain and explains why in this 33 minute conversation which was cut short by the battery on my phone running out.

The next Sunday Gang show may actually come on Tuesday night, after the returns are in from Texas and Ohio. Hope you enjoy!

PS: I haven't got the RSS feed ready yet, I'll post a link here as soon as it is.

Update: Cross-posted at Huffington.

How many blogging platforms are there?

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:49:25 GMT

My post yesterday about my excitement over innovation in the Pownce API, led to what, in retrospect, was a predictable backlash from users who don't want:

1. Twitter to get more complicated.

2. To switch to a service with less users.

3. To switch to another service.

And who do want:

1. Twitter to get more reliable.

I feel largely the same way, even so, I'm still going to:

1. Fill out the connective glue between my development environment and Pownce.

2. Revise my Flickr and podcasting tools to post to Pownce in addition to Twitter.

3. Possibly develop new services that can only work with Pownce because of their (new) API advantage over Twitter.

Now, what does this mean for the market? Hard to know for sure, but here's what it could mean:

1. Twitter might be inspired to match the features in the Pownce API, thus blunting the new edge Pownce has.

2. Pownce could become more popular and may prove to have the same or worse scaling problems than Twitter.

3. Pownce could retain its edge, allowing different kinds of apps to be built that run on their network, and both continue to grow and deal with scaling in their own ways.

4. Something else.

I'm pretty sure what won't happen is:

1. Pownce kills Twitter.

In blogging there are many platforms and related technologies. They all work differently and appeal to different groups of people. I suspect that's what's going to happen here.

Ouch

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:01:50 GMT

I looked up blogging to find the names of some more obscure ones, the first hit was the Wikipedia page, and out of curiosity I searched the page for my name. It's not there. All kinds of people get credit for building blogging as a practice and tools for blogging, but apparently, according to Wikipedia, I had nothing to do with it, nor did Scripting News or UserLand.

Anticipating some of the lectures I'm likely to get, no I can't fix it, for two reasons: 1. It would be like editing my own bio page (which I haven't looked at in ages, and don't want to). 2. It would certainly get reverted in seconds.

Of course it's likely this will be changed within minutes of my posting this. Check back later to see how it is after this has scrolled off. And that's why, btw, we need blogs, wikis are not enough. Otherwise we'd all have to accept the mass view of history, as filtered through trolls. Blogging lets you object to the democratic view, and may result in a more accurate story. I say may, and not will, because it seems people are willing to accept Wikipedia as authoritative.

Oh well. Sighh.

The verdict is in: The Pownce API kicks Twitter's ass

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:45:25 GMT

Sorry Ev and Biz and Jack, but they got your number over there at Pownce.

I've been asking Twitter to support payloads for months now, and now I have what I was asking for, but it came from Pownce, and it's beautifully implemented, far more than what I was asking Twitter for.

Let me state the problem.

I was at the Apple store in Palo Alto today, and I snap a picture on my iPhone and shoot it up to Flickr. I have an agent running on my server that watches for new pictures on Flickr. When it detects one, it posts a link to the picture on Twitter. Here's what that looks like.

http://twitter.com/davewiner/statuses/765476227

It's great because it works, not because it's pretty because it's not pretty. See the URL there. I'd much rather have it be an icon. That was the plan for the Payloads feature.

Earlier today I heard that Pownce has version 2 of their API that includes posting new messages. A message can have a link. So I wrote a script to test that out. After three tries it worked. Here's the equivalent to the Twitter post above, in Pownce.

http://pownce.com/davew/notes/1442724/

Look at how beautiful it is. Exceeded my wildest dreams. Oh man. It looks better than it does on Flickr!

Twitter was my first love, but now I'm seriously considering a fling with Pownce.

PS: If you can't read the Pownce post, here's a screen shot.

Fear bombs of 2008

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:30:31 GMT

The first time this year I heard Lakoff talk I asked how the Republics would attack Obama. Without hesitation he said three words: Barack Hussein Obama.

From his confidence I gathered that this was like asking if the 49ers would use a passing offense when Joe Montana was the quarterback. Or that the Oakland A's with Canseco and McGwire would depend on home run hitting. There's a certain logic to the Republic machine, Lakoff understands it.

In 2004, when they ran the Swift Boat ads, claiming that John Kerry, a war hero, lacked integrity and courage and was disloyal (ads run on behalf of a draft dodger and recovering drug addict), the candidate and his campaign said they hated the ads too, and the loophole in campaign finance laws that allowed them should be closed. But they did nothing to stop the ads or counteract them (they could have run opposing ads, for example, saying they want a campaign on real character issues, not lies). Of course they didn't do that because the Swift Boat ads were central to their strategy for winning.

2004 should have been a referendum on the war in Iraq, instead the focus was on the campaign itself. The swiftboat ads were run over and over, for free, on all the networks. They are so easily manipulated. You think this wasn't in a Republic Party plan from Day 1? If you said no, you need to go back to the school of hard knocks for a refresher course.

So now we have the H-bomb, Obama's middle name, and the Republics are starting early. Sure the candidate disavows it, even though the words were introduced at his campaign rally. No one interrupted the speaker. McCain waited to apologize until after the event was over and the audience had left (they might boo him, why take a chance). Karl Rove, meeting with Republic strategists cautions against using Obama's middle name. The national Republic Party slaps the wrist of the Tennesee Republic Party for using Obama's middle name in a press release. This is an exact replay of 2004.

Michelle Obama calls this the "obvious, ultimate fear bomb."

Josh Marshall says it's "channel conflict."

Like 2004, the Republics must be betting that the Democrats won't respond, because, as in 2004, their candidate is more vulnerable to this kind of mischief than Obama is. One could point out that there is a child from a Muslim country, Bangladesh, living in the McCain house, his adopted daughter. It's true isn't it? Obama himself would say he abhors this kind of politics, and no doubt he does. The child is Asian, but she's pretty dark-skinned. I wonder what that means? It's just a question. Can't we ask questions?

What I don't get is people who support Obama, old enough to remember swiftboating, and still willing to wait to "see what happens." There's no waiting. They're using exactly the same play that worked so well in 2004.

It is early, but it is almost too late to stop the escalation.

And it seems the power to stop the escalation belongs to McCain and him alone.

Look, he's the new leader of the Republic Party. Apologies don't cut it. Is that how he's going to deal with foreign leaders? Is he going to apologize at the first sign of trouble, or does he have the courage and will to solve the problem. Either he's the Republic's leader or he's a wimp. There's no inbetween. He is responsible for what his party does. No amount of double-talk will absolve him from that.

The correct answer, which he did not give, is threefold:

1. Apologize first to Obama and his family, at a personal level, for allowing his podium to be used to imply that he's anything but a patriotic and loyal son of America. You want some extra credit, say you're proud that he has a chance to be President, that it says to the world that the United States is diverse, and we practice our stated philosophy of being open and democratic. (There's nothing wrong with this. Do what the Dems have been doing, say no matter what the US is going to get an excellent leader this time around. It's time for Americans to unite as the Dems have united.)

2. Apologize to the American electorate, liberal and conservative, on behalf of some very nasty people who call themselves Republics, but don't come close to reflecting the values of the party of Lincoln. They are free to vote for whoever they want, but your campaign, which is an American campaign, will stick to the very real differences between the candidates, not lies or implicit lies, for example, that Obama is a Muslim (he's Christian).

3. The hardest part, but the one that really matters -- Take control of your party and commit to us that it won't happen again. Again, if you want extra credit, bring Obama on stage with you, and Hillary Clinton, and all three of you say that this isn't the America you want, and that swiftboating will not be part of this election.

It's rare that history presents one such an opportunity as the one being presented to McCain. He could be a rat and dishonest and might just win the election, but this way of winning is not winning at all. In the end he'll hate himself for what he has become. I believe that McCain is a good enough human being to understand this. He's at a crossroads now, and which way he goes has a lot to do with which way the country goes.

Update: Cross-posted on Huffington.

PS: A frequently asked question -- Why do you call McCain's party "The Republic Party?" It's my small way to remind members of his party that the correct name of their leading opposition is the Democratic Party. That so many Republicans trash the name of their opponent, esp ones like McCain who claim to be honorable people, says that well, they have no honor. I noticed that McCain started doing it shortly after he became the presumptive nominee. I think Democrats and their supporters (like myself) have to get used to balancing this out, even though it may be embarrassing to appear so illiterate.

PPS: For political news I read Memeorandum several times every day. It's great!

Spin

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:13:42 GMT

Links for 02/29/2008

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:00:45 GMT

RWW on XMPP as the foundation of collaboration.

Clinton aides threatened lawsuit over Texas caucuses, officials say.