Scripting News

Our standard April Fool party

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:22:49 GMT

Watch out for the lunacy tomorrow as April Fools is celebrated on blogs and other websites far and wide. I imagine it's already started since it must be April 1 in New Zealand or Australia by now.

Here on Scripting News we celebrate something else... Our birthday! You see it was on April 1, 1997 that a blog-like website first appeared at www.scripting.com. Last year it was our 10th birthday, which implies that tomorrow is the 11th.

To celebrate, I've cobbled together a humble page that calculates the age of Scripting News with 10 digits of precision.

http://age.scripting.com/

So at midnight tonight, it should flip over. If you like such things you may stay up to see it flip.

Hey it's a geeky site. What else would you suggest?

So enjoy the other sites, and keep coming back through the years, Murphy-willing of course, as we all grow old together.

I love Battlestar Galactica

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:06:15 GMT

Working my way through Season 3, in prep for Season 4, which starts this week.

Mixing tech industry politics with U.S. politics

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:30:24 GMT

Something I didn't know, but now that I do, it makes sense.

One of the reasons I'm not so popular in the tech industry is that I'm an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama, and I look forward to the day, coming soon, when the Republicans leave the White House and we can get on with fixing the problems they created, and then getting on track solving some long-term problems that we've been ignoring.

Now of course, I understand that there are Clinton supporters in the tech industry, and there are even Republicans who like Bush, and to them my enthusiastic support sometimes goes a little too far. I understand, totally. If for example, I were following a Bush supporter, like Tony Perkins, on Twitter, I would have unfollowed him long ago. I don't need that level of annoyance. He and I are never going to agree on politics, not even how to discuss politics, so I would just tune him out. Knowing Tony, I don't think he'd hold it against me, as I wouldn't hold it against any Republican tech person who unfollowed me.

What I can't support are personal attacks and name-calling just because we disagree. General attacks are okay with me. In other words if you think all Obama supporters are idiots, go ahead and say it (I'll probably unfollow, but BFD). But if you say I'm a jerk just because I support someone you don't, then I have a problem with that (esp if you don't make it clear that's why you're saying it). You're getting confused between personal issues and political ones, and I think you're going to even lose the support of people who agree with you politically, and imho you should.

After all is said and done, when we elect the next President, we're still going to be Americans (with apologies to readers who aren't). That's been the problem in the last few elections, we forgot, after the election was over, to find the common ground that we agree on. And as a result the Constitution is in trouble, and our economy is a mess (even Bush agrees), and our reputation overseas isn't good and it's getting worse. I think this is because we forgot to bind our wounds after the election, and our elected leadership didn't lead.

So this is what I learned. I think some people hide their political differences behind personal attacks. This is what none of us should support. We should be able to have a discussion and keep our self-respect and dignity. That US politics gets masked as tech industry politics is very confusing and should not be tolerated.

BTW, as a constructive step toward fixing this problem, I think all tech industry bloggers should let us know their politics. If you're American, which of the Presidential candidates do you support. I wouldn't have thought this was necessary just 48 hours ago, but now I'm sure it is.

Where did you have your great idea?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:31:56 GMT

Wired has a fascinating photo-essay with narratives from famous innovators explaining where they were when they had their biggest idea.

For example, Reed Hastings got the idea for Netflix in a movie rental place in La Honda, CA (a fairly remote place between Palo Alto and the Pacific Ocean).

Now that we have digital cameras and know people from far away through our blogs, Twitter and Flickr, it seems we could tell stories like this about the places we live and more mundane but still important events in our lives. They could become quick collaborative documents like the Wired photo-essay.

Examples:

1. A photo-essay of opening days at all major league ballparks in the US.

2. Church services in every major city on a given weekend (different religions have services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday).

3. Following a candidate for the Senate or House as they campaign for one day. (The major news outlets don't cover local races very well anymore.)

Projects like this are important warmups and proofs-of-concept for amateur newsgathering, and perhaps new politics. It's not just for Democrats or Republicans, maybe this is how we bootstrap new parties, or maybe it's just for fun. Who knows. Learning doesn't have to stop when you leave school. I like stories, esp short ones, along with pictures of places and people that are different or strangely familiar. This is part of what I meant in yesterday's post. Let's reset the dial back to the beginning, start small, and stay small. Now we have some new tools that we didn't have last time amateur public writing started up (or whatever it's called).

There is no A-list, just people with ideas.

The difference is people doing it for fun, versus people doing it to either get rich or earn a living. Yes, there really is a difference in approach.

PS: In case this turns out to be a great idea, I had it in my kitchen.

Why would Google Web Services cost $0?

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:57:33 GMT

Google Web Services, or GWS, is the hypothetical competitor to Amazon Web Services that I wrote about yesterday.

The first question that comes up is how can they afford to give it away? That came up in yesterday's comments and the answer is important enough to deserve its own blog post.

So here goes...

Google has always challenged conventional wisdom that way, as Netscape did before. Remember when they let people download the browser for free, how foreign that seemed.

Google's search engine cost nothing to use and had no ads for the first few years, and look at how well that turned out.

Flipped around, I don't see why Amazon charges me to use AWS. I think I produce as much value for them as I use just by writing about it, but they haven't been willing to bend (not that I've asked them to). If there was no cost to it, I'd use their services for new things that I'm not willing to try as long as I have to pay. I know that because there are projects I've not attempted because the cost was prohibitive.

Perhaps Google is thinking about acquisitions. How much would it be worth to buy companies without having to transition their technology to their platform? There would be no retraining either, all the programmers in the companies they acquire would know how to work in the environment. Further, can you imagine that they'd charge universities to teach comp sci using their cloud?

Given the cost of acquisitons, recruiting and training they can afford to blow a lot of money on free bandwidth, storage and CPU to make the buying and hiring process more efficient and increase the hit rate (the percentage of programmers who work out).

If they're smart they won't get involved in deciding which projects can use the service, as Apple has taken an interest in who can develop for the iPhone. How can a bureaucracy decide what projects will have merit in the market? Better to let a thousand flowers bloom knowing that the best ones will be available to you first because their software is perfectly compatible with yours.

My guess is that's why Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo, which is built entirely on open source system software. Microsoft will be in much better position to acquire companies after Yahoo than before.

Of course Google is doing this, how could they not be. What's hard to believe is how much of a running start Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google have been willing to let Amazon have.

Proof that the end is near

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:29:27 GMT

Over on Twitter I am unceremoniously blocking all tech industry superdelegates.

Let me explain.

Imagine if the tech industry was the Democratic Party, then the insider's insiders would be the superdelegates. The people who talk about people talking about people talking about people talking about tech.

Somewhere at the end of the chain there are products and users, forgotten in all the drama.

I'm sick of it.

I pulled out of the tech industry and started blogging in 1994 or 1997 depending on what you count as the start so I could get away from the crap. Now Mike Arrington is talking about turning TechCrunch into CNET. That's a sure sell signal. Get me the fuck outta here. Beam me up Scotty. This isn't Kansas anymore Auntie Em.

I announced this on Twitter, and people asked me to explain.

I struggled, then I bounced over to TechMeme and found the perfect explanation. Click on the image below for the punchline.

I'll tell you the answer. Most people wouldn't recognize an original thought if it bit them in the ass.

What we used to call blogging is now just bullshit about recycled bullshit about recycled bullshit and on and on. Who bit who in the ass, never mind anything new or hard to comprehend, cause that's not what we do. We aggregate eyeballs and clickthroughs and CPMs and god knows what else.

Back in the old days before any of you were blogging, we (the olde skool bloggers) used to write about them watching us watching them watch us watch them.

It's happening again...

Nothing wrong with it, it's human nature.

But it's time to decentralize again.

Head for the hills.

If I could only remember where they are!

PS: Google is doing something itneresting. So much for finding all the juicy bits on TechMeme!

PPS: Tech industry people dis Marc Canter, they're idiots. Marc always knows what's going on long before they do. It sounds strange when he says it cause new stuff is strange.

PPPS: Further proof that the end is near. This idiotic meta-meta-post made it on TechMeme. Oh the humanity.

PPPPS: Thsi stupid piece is now the #2 item on TechMeme. Proof that the more stupid a post is, the higher it rises in what passes for the tech blogosphere. Update: It's now #1.

PPPPPS: This won't be complete until Mathew Ingram tags on his two cents. Update: It's now complete. Good night Chet. Good night Daivd.

How the Democratic process will likely conclude

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:48:46 GMT

Like everyone else (or so it seems) I have been following the Democratic nominating process, even though we're in hiatus now between the early March primaries and the Pennsylvania primary in mid-late April.

I'm an Obama supporter, so I like the way the conversation has turned back to "Why Doesn't Hillary Quit?" instead of the soul-sickening stuff we were talking about for the last couple of weeks. (Even though there was a lot of growth there.)

This morning Josh Marshall at Talking Point Memo circles around all the possibilities.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/186346.php

But it seems obvious to me this is how it will end:

1. On or before June 3, enough superdelegates declare for Obama and he wins enough delegates in the remaining 10 primaries to give him more than the 2025 delegates he needs to get the nomination. The key is that the superdelegates don't have to sit by and do nothing. Winning favor from Obama who is pretty likely the next President is going to be worth more than hedging against the chance that HRC prevails. The Clinton's currency is already heavily devalued, and it's likely to keep going down.

2. Then HRC is free to bring whatever fight she wants to the convention, it won't matter, because Obama will have the nomination, and will (correct me if I'm wrong) also control the Credentials process, so she'll have to do what he wants in the end wrt Michigan and Florida. (A more than fair resolution of Michigan and Florida, already offered, would be to split the delegates 50-50. This slightly favors HRC and dilutes BHO because he currently has a delegate lead, and that would go down after a 50-50 split. A minor point.)

3. Then all that's left in question is HRC's self-respect. If she wants to keep some of it, she'll bow out gracefully and tell her supporters to make it unanimous in Denver, or she won't and will probably retain her Senate seat as long as she wants but will always be a Democratic Party outsider. It probably won't bode well for her husband as an elder statesman, and there goes Chelsea's chance to run for President in 2024.

Pigs

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:35:59 GMT

A little pig came up to me while I was waiting at a stop light in Walnut Creek.

He squealed "Pssst down here." I looked down. The pig looked up at me and asked: "Can you keep a secret?"

I don't know, I said. It depends.

"Oh hell," said the pig. "I'll tell you anyway."

"You know how Amazon has all those great web services."

Yes, I said, I use them and they're great.

"Well how would you like to get all those services and more, and get to run software in Google's cloud, just like all the people at Google do?"

Yes, I would, I said, wondering how much this would cost.

"How much would it cost?" I asked.

"That's the best part," said the little pig. "For a guy like you, a blogger, with modest needs, it would be free."

I bent down and gave the pig a kiss on the cheek and said "You're a very nice little pig."

The light changed and I crossed the street. I noticed the pig was stopping the next person and asked if he could keep a secret.

A digital camera designed for bloggers?

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:41:49 GMT

I really like the way my iPhone works for publishing pictures.

I have it wired up so that I can send an email to Flickr. And then I have a script watching my Flickr feed that routes new pictures to Twitter where 6000-plus people follow my feed.

The only problem is that the iPhone is a shitty camera. It's great for pictures where quality isn't the most important thing, but timeliness and convenience are.

So what if I wanted to buy a new camera, in 2008, surely one must have the ability to send a picture to Flickr the way my iPhone does? Without thinking about it too much it seems like it must be possible, but then there aren't an camers that are also phones (there are of course other phones that are cameras). But I want the quality of a Nikon or Canon with the communication ability of an iPhone or Nokia.

I'm sure nothing like this exists, but I thought I should ask.

PS: I'd settle for really clean simple wifi access. I'm tired of the mess of tethering via USB. And I'm looking for a camera that costs no more than $250 on Amazon.

PPS: Instantly I'm overwhelmed with pointers to http://eye.fi/ -- yes of course I've heard of them, and even been told by a friend who has one that it works great. My mind forgot about it until now. Of course now the flood will not abate.

We Make Shitty Software, and other long tales

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:20:02 GMT

We're having a bit of rain this morning in the Bay Area. It's the best thing this time of year. All the plants, bushes and trees are in bloom, but they could all use (it seems to me) one more good soaking. One last rain before the final bloom, then we settle into a long period of beautiful sunny days that will last till late fall when it starts raining again.

In the news, violence is up in Iraq, and Bush is making speeches about it again. First thought that popped into my head -- I wonder who he's going to blame this time. It's never the people in Iraq or even the insurgents, certainly not the military, and absolutely not the DOD or god forbid, the President. It's almost always liberals, even though he doesn't use the word (possibly because it would seem so insane). It seems if we're not taxing and spending we're running away with our tails between our legs, on behalf of Bush and his team of super-heroes.

Is this really a question of guts and determination? How much determination does it take before you get the idea that it isn't working. Are the people who think this is a waste of two countries, ours and theirs, really weak people who won't rise to a challenge, cowards who want to cut and run. We've been hearing for a long time that nirvana is just around the corner, but it's a long road ahead. I heard a Republic spokesperson actually have the gall to say that again on Face The Nation last Sunday. A long road ahead. I think they misunderestimate our interest in long roads in Iraq. Like the last rain of last winter, one can only hope this kind of idiotic double-talk will soon be behind us.

One more thought. The Republic is a guy named Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina, one of two little guys often seen behind the little guy running for President, John McCain. The other is "Little Joe" Lieberman. I wondered what's inside Graham's head. He can't be stupid, I never believe people are stupid until there's no other explanation that fits the facts. So I wonder why he's so hell-bent on us staying in Iraq even though it's still a long road (though we're just about to turn the corner). What's his story? When they talk about it between themselves, the little guys -- Joe, John and Lindsey, I can't imagine they say the same bullshit they say on TV. What do they really think about this?

On to the next seemingly endless war...

As I've written here, a number of times, there was a pretty bad scene at Gnomedex last August, and foolishly, I got myself mixed up in it. I apologized for doing so, and I stick by that apology.

There were two versions of what happened, and I'm happy to say that Chris Pirillo, the organizer of the conference, finally spoke up and told his version of the story.

For the most part I agree with what Chris said. I think he should have spoken sooner, it would have saved me a lot of grief, for sure. Perhaps next time you hear another version of this story, you could tell the person telling the tale to give it up.

I've been told by lots of people that they like it when these blowups happen, they find it entertaining. I understand, but I don't like being part of these things. So much so that I don't go to many conferences. It's just not worth it.

The whole point of the blogosphere was that we flatten things out, that we're all just people. I'm a creative guy, in that I like to create things. I don't wake up every morning thinking who I can pick a fight with. I know other people do, and sometimes they try to engage me in those fights.

On the other hand, I also hate being lied to and I want to buy products that I admire, and expose products that are scams. That's another important function of blogs. Sometimes that means there's a fight coming, because people with dishonest proposals usually don't want to be exposed. I get that. And sometimes they respond to honest criticism with personal attacks, hoping to shred the critic so other people won't notice the defect in their pitch. That will lead to fights.

I used to admire Microsoft for their willingness to be criticized. It was really something. If you said their product sucked, they drew you closer to find out why you thought that. Every so often you see that culture in a company and you know you've found a winner. People who are willing to work with you to make your product better are like nuggets of gold, you just need a few of them to guide you to success.

I've long thought that newspapers should have the same approach. The NY Times public editor shouldn't be a journalist, he or she should be a member of the public, a user of their product. Point of view is everything. You'd think the editors of a great paper would understand that. They have long had disagreeable people on their op-ed page knowing that there's much to be learned from what they say, even if you don't agree with their conclusions (though I wonder wtf Bill Kristol is doing there).

I said recently to Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired, that they should have some bloggers on staff to critique their work from a reader's point of view. The thought went nowhere, he says they already have bloggers (I know many of them, and they're fine people). I wonder what they think a blog is? I imagine it has something to do with the tools. To me it's so much more.

As we approach the 11th birthday of Scripting News, I had a little free time the other day and cobbled up a dynamic page that says how many years old the blog is, with 10 digits precision. http://age.scripting.com/

Looping back to my disclaimer of being a racist, a bunch of people said I'd catch hell for it, but I haven't, at least not yet. There's proof that change is possible. The other day Condoleeza Rice, our Secretary of State, a black woman, said that our country has a birth defect about race. Here's another first -- who ever thought it would be possible for me to express admiration for Ms. Rice, one of the most shameless liars and double-talkers of the Republic Party. She must be running for something.

Haven't done one of these morning rambles in a while. Thanks for listening. Now I have some work to do, fixing bugs, creating new ones, etc.

Update: Comments on an earlier version of this post.

Are you using Firefox 3?

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:21:19 GMT

If so, what do you think?

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

If not, will you? When?

Why can't we all just get along?

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:27:35 GMT

It was a friendly meeting today, but not without the usual competitive spirit between the Mozilla camp and the Microsoft camp.

Mozilla engineering VP, Mike Schroepfer explained that Microsoft tends to implement technology already approved by the standards working groups, in a different way, and then says their implementation is the standard. Sounds like something Hillary Clinton would do, until you realize that the Mozilla guys do it too. Basically everyone does it, when they feel the competitive technology is implemented by someone smaller or less significant than themselves. And since this is a very immature business, everyone feels that way about everyone else, so it's something of a miracle when interop happens.

It has always been thus.

When Netscape, the company that spawned Mozilla, wanted to implement a format for content syndication in 1999, they did it outside of the W3C because they were sick of the dirty politics bigger companies that felt more significant had been using against them. There was prior art, but they trampled it, because (you guessed) they felt more significant than those that came before.

The trick is to get over that feeling, and to adopt something specifically because it comes from someone you feel superior to.

Be the change you seek.

I pointed out to Mike that three real religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, religious causes that great wars have been fought over, for 2000-plus years, are just forks of the same religion and bible with emphasis placed on different characters, they are basically compatible. Isn't that amazing?

In tech, where wars are between nerds who drink Jolt and read Microserfs, and couldn't fight a real war if our lives depended on it, why can't we at least agree to use the same names for elements of our XML that do the same damned thing?

Something to think about!

End of editorial.

Almost 11 years old

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:03:17 GMT

Here's how old Scripting News is, in years.

double (clock.now () - date ("4/1/97")) / (60*60*24*365.25)

10.98654578

Pretty close to 11!

Hot dam.

Block-with-Timeout for Twitter

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:11:49 GMT

I need a new command in Twitter -- a temporary unfollow, or viewed another way, a block-with-timeout. Same idea.

I need it when someone is at a conference I don't care about, live-blogging every detail. After 30 or 40 updates, I gotta stop it, it's interfering with other posts. But I don't want to complain. I just want to go silently. But tomorrow when the event is over, I want to (silently) resume the follow.

Problem with normal unfollow, is that: 1. I have to remember to re-follow and 2. When I do, they'll get an email. This is confusing and can cause hurt feelings. Not my intention. I just don't want all the details of this conference (or someone live-blogging an event I'm watching live or on TV).

Live-blogging from Mozillla press meeting

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:27:35 GMT

If you have questions for the people at Mozilla, post a comment and I'll try to ask it.

About 1/2 hour into the meeting I don't really have any overall idea of what they're doing with Firefox 3. I know other people are using it, I'm still using v2. I tried v3 beta but found that it was too awkward a transition. (Wish I remember what it was that was so awkward.)

"Better faster safer" -- the slogan for Firefox 3.

They put up some screen shots and I recalled clearly what the problem was -- they moved the Home button.

They call the new address bar The Awesome Bar, which is very Steve Jobs-like in my humble opinion. Boom!

http://www.google.com/search?q=awesome+bar+mozilla

They're talking about Weave...

http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/12/introducing-weave/

I believe this is Asa Dotzler world-famous Mozilla blogger.

Why Clinton supporters might flock to McCain

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:50:34 GMT

According to a Gallup poll, 28 percent of Democrats who support Hillary Clinton say they will vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee.

Two reasons this might be so..

1. Clinton has been campaigning against Obama, and for McCain. It's working with some of her supporters.

2. So far no Democrats have been running against McCain, exploring his weakness. He still looks relatively good. That'll probably change.

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.