Scripting News

FriendFeed API announced

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:07:42 GMT

I've been talking with the folks at FriendFeed about APIs and such, and boy do they move fast. I got the first draft of the API spec on Friday, and today it's out there.

http://code.google.com/p/friendfeed-api/wiki/ApiDocumentation

Here's the blog post announcing the API.

Glue for the OPML Editor will ship soon, delayed a bit by tomorrow's press event at Mozilla in Mountain View.

FriendFeed will be supported in my software in all the places Pownce is.

There's a lot of movement in the TwitterSphere these days. I was hoping that the FriendFeed API would be a clone of the Twitter API. It's not. But it is workable and exposes features, including Payloads that are not implemented by Twitter.

Next question is how scalable FriendFeed is.

I'm going to visit with them in Mountain View tomorrow.

Exciting times!

Can't you see?

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:28:07 GMT

iPhone maintenence time

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:28:02 GMT

Let's see -- I've had my iPhone since June 29, so that's...

number (clock.now () - date ("6/29/2007")) / (60*60*24)

270 days. In that time apparently it's been downloading all my non-spam mail from Gmail, and now periodically interrupts me to say my mailbox is 92 percent full, would I please delete some of my mail.

I finally had a minute, on the BART the other day, to look into deleting mail, and it appears to be an onerous process to do for thousands of messages. First you tap the mail message, then tap the red minus sign, then tap the Delete button. They want to be sure you're sure (no Undo).

Problem is -- I only use the Mail app to send pictures to Flickr. On the rare occasion that I want to check email on my iPhone, I just use the excellent mobile version of Gmail. So I never want the email from the Mail app.

So I guess I have two questions:

1. How to mass-delete all the mail that's filling up 92 percent of the allocated space.

2. How to tell the mail app that I don't want it to fetch mail. (This is probably something I'm paying a fair amount for, btw.)

Any suggestions would be most welcome. (And I suspect the iPhone Nazis out there will use this as an example of my ineptitude for years to come. Have fun!)

Bonus: The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld.

PS: I've tried deleting the account and adding it back. No luck. The mail is still there.

PPS: Apparently mass-delete is new with iPhone 2.0.

FriendFeed moves into TwitterSpace

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:38:47 GMT

We said a couple of weeks ago that FriendFeed is gaining a lot of traction. Since then we've started a background conversation and have been giving them a bit of friendly advice (heh, sorry). Today they added a feature that brings it closer to Twitter, and in some ways takes it to a place Twitter hasn't reached yet.

FriendFeed, in addition to being an aggregator also allows you to post directly to other FriendFeed users who are following you, and it has a threaded comment system that allows you to post a response to anything that FF has discovered. But how do you read those responses elsewhere, and how do you know to go see if FF has anything you might be interested in? They have ways to deal with this, but none are as neat as the one they introduced today, if you use Twitter.

The feature: You can optionally route comments from FriendFeed to Twitter (if the original message came from Twitter) as a reply.

Nothing more to say than yes, this is the right thing to do, and yes it is neat, and also it's nice to see Twitter get some competition. We know that products that have competition get better, and ones that don't generally have no incentive to. Considering that it would be good, imho, if Twitter were a little more active in adding features (I know others feel differently) it's good that FF is applying a little friendly (arrrgh) pressure.

And to people who thought Scripting News had become 100 percent politics all the time, here's proof that it's not. '

PS: Just tested the new feature. It works.

TwitterGram functionality baked into FlickrFan

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:18:31 GMT

I've been meaning to do this for some time...

Just released a new feature in FlickrFan that allows it to do for pictures what TwitterGram does.

You can set it up to check for new pics in your Flickr account and when it spots one, automatically post it to Twitter.

You can set the interval, so it can check every minute if you like, for virtually instant publishing. I like to use this to take pics on my walks and share them with my Twitter friends while I'm still out and about. GIves me a sense that the Twittersphere is on the walk with me.

Yes, I know I need to make this work with Pownce too. And other instant social networks like Jaiku and others.

If you want to try it out and have FlickrFan running, follow the instructions here. There's also a place to comment and ask questions.

Status on campaign conference call MP3s

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:49:45 GMT

We begin this week where we began the last. Thanks to McClatchy, we're getting almost half of the conference call MP3s. But that's not half as good as getting them all, not close.

Imagine getting a trial transcript with more than 1/2 the testimony missing. Some days you get the words used by the defense, other days, the prosecution. Never both.

Our pleas openly stated in public and expressed privately, have gone mostly for naught. Occasionally there's a nibble, but never any followup.

I have excellent contacts in the Internet parts of the Obama campaign, but emails on this subject have gone unanswered. The Clinton campaign was worse, they thought I was signing up to support the candidate and suggested I give money, stuff envelopes, etc.

I've been in touch with numerous professional news organizations, with reporters, editors, and technical people. I don't want to say who because I don't want to embarass anyone.

Dan Gillmor, in a private exchange, a former tech journalist at the SJ Merc-News, volunteered a perspective that's common-sense and refreshing. This is their job, at the news organizations, to provide readers with information, not to control the flow of news and spin it for us, rather pass it through transparently, so we can make up our own minds.

I consume lots of professional journalism, and it's sad and angering that so much of what they report as the mood of the people is really their mood, based on no actual information. Because no one can expose them, they get sloppy, it builds over the years.

It's outrageous to me, listening to them talk about the Wright tapes, they're getting it wrong. I have actually watched the videos. Have they? Either they have or they haven't. If not, it's grossly irresponsible. If they have, it's criminal, the way they deliver incorrect conclusions and show misleading evidence. When all the networks do the same thing, it's collusion, anti-trust, conspiracy.

Sometimes, rarely, a little truth leaks out.

So no, I don't trust them, and as journalists like to say, if your mother says she loves you, check it out. They need fact-checking to keep them honest, that's why we need the source material.

I had the image yesterday, listening to the Meet The Press podcast, of irresponsible children throwing around lit sticks of dynamite in the middle of a sacred library. Our democracy is at its most vulnerable right now, and they're behaving as if it was a sporting event. Because I listen to the actual words the candidates and their representatives use, I know when they're lying. Of course this is the real reason they don't want to help us get the MP3s. They may not be conscious of it, but it's the reason.

However, I'm sure that eventually we'll get them.

Now that you mention it...

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:32:40 GMT

I was reading Newsweek's story on why Barack Obama asked people to stop calling him Barry and use his more formal name, and I remembered that I had a grandmother who was different in the same way Obama did.

My mixed heritage isn't so obvious as his because all my grandparents are white, but the difference may be even more dramatic than his because of the time I grew up.

My maternal grandmother was pure German, blonde hair, blue eyes. She married a Jew, my grandfather, in Europe, before the war. I loved my grandmother, but she could say the most hurtful things, even as a child I knew there was a good chance she knew what she was doing. I never fully understood the issues of Jews and Germans, but they were all right there in her house in Rockaway Beach.

So when I wrote the story on Saturday wondering what it would be like now if I had grown up in Germany instead of the U.S., I was unconsciously writing a story that actually happened.

I have to think about this.

One thing's for sure, the last week has been an incredible week of growth for me, largely due to the conversation we're having here at a national, even international level (a lot of the response to the piece was from Europeans).

Also, the quality of the discourse, as always, is very high. Keep up the good work everybody!

Sunday Gang #4 podcast

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:28:46 GMT

Today's guest is Matt Stoller.

http://sundaygang.com/004.mp3

"I'm a DC-based political activist and consultant, and I blog at the new strategy site OpenLeft.com. I work on telecom politics, progressive movement building, Democratic primary challengers, and analyzing internet-enabled coalition politics. I'm the President of Blogpac, a political action committee that funds progressive blogs and candidates."

Links mentioned in today's show:

http://www.theopenhouseproject.com/

http://www.mysociety.org/projects

http://responsibleplan.com/

What if I lived in Germany

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:41:52 GMT

Michael Markman sent a pointer to another Wright sermon video, which I watched. The one that ends with God Damn America.

I was born here, I love this country, it gave sanctuary to my parents and grandparents. I am a product of Jewish Europe, transplanted in, welcomed by, the United States of America. I owe my existence to this country, and never forget it.

So God Damn America, to me, is bad. What a thing for a man of religion to say. A man who believes in god, to whom damnation is real.

On the other hand...

The rest of the sermon, the part leading up to that conclusion, is reasonable, and makes the ending understandable, even if I don't support it.

Then I wondered, what if I had been born in Germany instead of the U.S. The country that treated my ancestors the same way Wright's ancestors were treated by the U.S.

How would I have made the adjustment?

What if my country's flag had a swastika on it?

What if my country hadn't fully expressed its shame over burning my ancestors in ovens. Treating them like animals. Implementing a "final solution" on my race that somehow left me living. What if they expected me to love that country the same way the ancestors of the people who destroyed my ancestors do?

In the privacy of a cultural gathering of Jews living in a German city under a Nazi government in the 21st Century, might we say God Damn Germany for what it did to my people?

I don't know. Probably. It's something to think about.

PS: How long before an idiot invokes Godwin's Law.

What's wrong with Wikipedia, day 2

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:12:46 GMT

Anonymous people writing with supposed authority about living people. Too easily (and often) gamed.

I was at Dean HQ, the night they did him in

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 10:29:44 GMT

I was in Burlington, VT at the headquarters of Dean For America, the night of The Scream Speech. I knew, therefore, that the campaign had video that showed clearly that the press was actively trying to kill his candidacy. They had a website, and they had enough money to pay for the bandwidth to run it. They knew what the press was trying to do. They could have fought it. But they didn't.

If it happened today would a campaign fight it? And if the campaign wouldn't, or felt it couldn't, or felt it wasn't wise, would we have the will to fight it? Or are we still just the audience. Is it our place to expose the corruption of the press, when we've caught them, or leave it to the press to do it? (If Dean is a guide, they will, half-heartedly, when it's too late, after the candidacy is dead.)

We have a library of video of Wright sermons. We could divide them up, watch them, look for evidence that the press was right to make fear of Wright the topic for a week's worth of news cycles. If it turns out they were right, and the Reverend is someone whose ideas are dangerous to the U.S., we don't have to do anything more, because the concerns have already been raised. But if it turns out otherwise, that we were manipulated, don't you think we should know for sure?

BTW, in 2004, I was not a Dean supporter. I had not chosen a candidate, as I had not chosen a candidate at the time of the Iowa caucus this year.

Give Rev Wright a chance to convince you

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:00:11 GMT

Melroy Hodge, from Queens, NY, a contact on Twitter, sent a pointer to a YouTube video of a longer excerpt of Jeremiah Wright's post-911 sermon, one of the speeches that soundbites were shown repeatedly on cable news this week. I guess it's not surprising that the cable news excerpts gave a very misleading impression. (Next time this happens we must do an immediate fact-check.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

This is a must-watch video. Stop what you're doing, right now, and watch it.

I found myself captivated by Wright's ideas and the way he expresses them.

I agree with everything he said.

I would have been willing to cut him some slack, because this was less than a week after the attack, and those were crazy days, who knew what was coming next. But he was right, we have done what they did to us, and we're doing it again in Iraq.

The US was led by despotic people and we followed; we wanted to punish someone, anyone, and it didn't matter if they had anything to do with what happened to us. And we did.

Lots of people don't want to acknowledge this, esp the cable news networks who led the charge to war, but if you compare what Wright said to what they were saying, and why shouldn't we, I think we'll find that Wright was a rational and calming alternative to the lunacy that was dominating discourse in the US in the years following 911. And this video was taken mere days after the attacks.

The news networks don't have standing to criticize Wright for his post-911 speech. Let's dig up some of their oratory from that timeframe and see if we want them involved in our political process in the future.

As Wright says, the chickens. Have come. Home. To roost.

Richardson endorsement MP3

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:17:13 GMT

New Mexico governor Bill RIchardson endorsed Barack Obama in a rally today in Portland, OR. Here's an approx 15 minute MP3 of his speech.

richardsonEndorsement.mp3

Video of the Richardson speech.

Today's Clinton conf call MP3

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:56:05 GMT

I've only listened to the first few minutes but it begins with some really provocative statements about Obama's campaign. Can't wait to hear the rest.

"It is no secret that the Obama campaign is in political hot water... and is basically desperate to change the subject."

http://sundaygang.com/clinton/2008/03/21/call1.mp3

I also here there was a pretty sizzling Obama conf call, don't have the MP3 of that. Yet.

Richardson to Endorse Obama

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:00:22 GMT

NY Times: "Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who sought to become the nation's first Hispanic president this year, plans to endorse Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination on Friday at a campaign event in Oregon."

Incredible discussion on race

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:01:44 GMT

Yesterday's piece about race drew some of the most loving, fun and heartfelt comments ever. And some serious discussion about what counts as racism.

When one person says "that's racist" but it doesn't seem that way to you, the best way to tell is to flip it around. Change black to white. Or vice versa.

For example...

"Maybe you think it's unfair that this anger sometimes gets generalized to include you, when you yourself have never detained a black driver or used a choke hold to subdue someone you were arresting."

I think it's pretty obvious when you do the flip, the statement, even though if you parse it literally, is not demeaning to whites, an equivalent statement made about blacks, using black stereotypes, would certainly be considered offensive.

When someone says something like this in my presence I feel a twinge of pain in my stomach. I know what it's like to be driving in an area where the cops probably aren't friendly, or where a mugging could take place even while you're in a car. (It actually happened to me in Montego Bay, Jamaica. I was mugged at knifepoint after I got lost driving a rental car.)

I don't split hairs about what is racism or isn't. This is a period of amnesty, no one knows how to talk about this stuff. Yesterday candidate Obama, who I admire more every day, said his grandmother is a "typical white person." There were attempts to use this for political advantage, but I think by the end of this campaign we'll laugh at how awkward this period was and how common this kind of thing is. So what. Are there typical white people? Maybe, maybe not. But in the end, what's the big deal.

The only way to make progress is to go through it. I know that black people say really racist things about white people, and no one called them on it because white people couldn't hear. Same thing's true the other way. The difference is now we can hear. Great. You wanted change, right? This is what change is like. It ain't easy and not always pretty, but when you're stuck in a rut, it's the only way to go.

My name is Dave and I'm a racist

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:20:59 GMT

Hello!

I wrote a comment on a post on Phil Windley's blog earlier today which I ended saying perhaps we should all just disclaim up front that we're racists, and then go ahead and say what we have to say about race.

It should save a lot of time, and get a lot of formerly private and hush-hush stuff out in the open.

Ironically, it's possible because we got, through Rev Wright's at-first shocking sermons out and in the discussion. So much for black people not being racists. He could attend our nation's 12-step meeting and introduce himself as I did.

Hello, my name is Jeremiah Wright and I'm a racist.

Hello Jeremiah!

In his speech on Tuesday morning, Obama said the same thing.

It's like what Jerry said about his life.

It's even worse than it appears.

Fact, if you've lived in the United States as long as I have, 52 years, you have opinions about race, and to some that makes you a racist. The problem -- only our closest friends and family know our opinions about race. There may be blacks who first heard that there is white resentment from Geraldine Ferraro, or from Barack Obama. But it's no secret to me.

We may eventually get rid of racism, but it isn't going to happen by keeping it hidden.

On Tuesday before Obama's speech I saw a panel on race, on CNN, moderated by a black newsman, with two blacks as panelists. No whites. That's the old style pre-Obama panel on race. The new modern way is to balance it, and let whites speak about race too. Let us make generalizations about blacks and whites the way blacks always have. For a change, let the blacks listen, and appreciate that we have opinions too, show us that you get that we're not silly, naive, trivial.

In all my years, I've only heard two images of whites from blacks. 1. The man. We control everything. We're privileged. The oppressor. We coordinate to keep blacks out, to keep blacks down. 2. The silly do-good liberal. We look for approval. We want to be hip. But we're naive and shallow. There is no third view of whites in black folklore. And you wonder why we never connect.

Right now I'm not trying to be your friend. I never was your oppressor. I do believe in the fierce urgency of now, so what I want is to work together to get us some good government. I certainly don't mind, if along the way, the lot of black people improves. In fact I like that. And it doesn't make me silly or naive. I argue, and I think Obama agrees, that makes me an American, which I most certainly am.

Once we feel heard, then we might be better able to listen to what you have to say. Just a thought.

One more thing before I sit down. By disclaiming my racism, you can't get me by calling me a racist. Just admitting that one simple and obvious fact makes it possible for the air to start to clear on this formerly taboo subject.

I'll sit down now, having said my piece, for now.

Christmas comes early for President Obama

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:44:48 GMT

NY Times: "During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published."

What's wrong with Wikipedia

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:07:47 GMT

First, I point to Wikipedia pages often here on Scripting News and on Twitter. I also find it a useful personal resource. For example, I'm working my way through Battlestar Galactica and I find it helpful to read the summary of each episode after I've watched it. It's great that they have a common format. And they fill in blanks you might not have noticed but don't spoil the plot of upcoming episodes. I've been investing in ETFs lately, and Wikipedia has helped me learn how they work. So I don't question its value. It has value.

Wikipedia is therefore a puzzle to me. Because while it's helpful, it also hurts me, because my biography there is more of a vendetta, by anonymous people, who seem self-centered and immature, but it's impossible to tell what axes they have to grind, because they're largely anonymous.

Same is true for various activities I've participated in. You may argue that I didn't invent this or that, but surely I had something to do with RSS, blogging and podcasting? Yet depending on when you look, I'm often not mentioned on these pages. This makes it hard for me to claim my work in professional dealings because people consider Wikipedia authoritative. What it says is considered by many to be the truth. So this has hurt my career, and my ability to do creative work that builds on past work.

This is where Andrew Keen could have and should have, imho, written his book. This is where the Cult of the Amateur really does do damage, by usurping authority, and replacing it with anonymity and giving power to those who who tear down creativity, to remove the incentive to share, unless you're completely selfless and don't mind if others take credit for your accomplishments. That's not the nature of creativity, btw, creative people fiercely insist on credit, fight for it, imho, rightly.

Eventually, if it hasn't already happened, there will be consultants you can pay to make sure your point of view dominates a Wikipedia page. It has already come out that a gift to the Wikipedia Foundation will assure that your point of view dominates your profile page. How much of this can Wikipedia stand before it is reformed? It seems time to have this discussion, and not in the confines of Wikipedia where it can be controlled and gamed by insiders, but outside where everyone's opinion can be heard without being edited out and when it's clear who's saying what.

That said, here's how I think Wikipedia should evolve to fix this problem.

Based on the principle that one has the right to confront his accusers, Wikipedia pages on living people, or covering active creative areas, should be limited to pages of pointers of attributed accounts. Editors work to validate that the people are who they say they are. If they can't be validated, they either don't get linked, or get linked to from an area specially marked as not being validated. (I prefer the former.)

Further, in areas important enough to be controversial, meaning that people disagree on what happened, we should try to get as many people who were involved in the event or activity to write first-person narratives. In areas where they all agree, that should eventually be considered fact and presented as such, but the first-person narratives must stay linked. This would prevent the kinds of disasters that happen when people (for example) edit their own profile pages, meanwhile giving people the formal right to tell their own story, which clearly, many people covered by Wikipedia want.

I hope an interesting discussion ensues. Of course I expect to hear from the people who edit my profile pages to keep my name in the dirt, and I don't expect them to use their actual names. Can't speak for everyone else, but I'm much more interested, always, in hearing opinions from people who have the conviction and courage to put their personal authority behind their words, as I do.

Perfect purple

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:22:56 GMT