Yesterday I wrote a post counseling the NY Times to find a plane, get on board, and when it reached cruising altitude, jump out. No parachute.  

I had just spent the last two weeks rebuilding the software for Scripting News from top to bottom. When I started, I was adapting code I already had, stuff that dated back to the last century (seriously!). But somewhere in the middle I saw how it could become much simpler, yet do more. I went for it. 

After writing the piece, I took my own advice re parachutes.  

I could have been more careful about the transition, and it might have taken a week or two more. Or I could save the time and just flip the switch and trust that I would be able to pick up the pieces quickly enough so that readers of the site would hardly notice a glitch. I opted for the latter approach. It seems to have worked. (Caveat: It'll still be a couple of weeks before all the pieces are put back together, it takes longer than you might think.) 

I'm editing this post entirely in the new system. When I hit Save it will flow to the server, be published through its templates. When you load the page, your browser will get my style sheet and render (I hope) without too many glitches. When you click on the little plus signs in the right margin, I hope you emit a little gasp, as I did when I first used it. Then a stream of expletives came out of my mouth, mostly beginning with the letter F, like the famous McNulty and Bunk scene in The Wire where they're investigating a murder in a Baltimore apartment. Click on the link if you don't know what I'm talking about (or if you do) but be advised it is very NSFW. "> 

Later today I'm moderating what I expect will be a fantastic panel with Rachel, Fred and Nick. What incredible power will be on that stage. Such intelligence, and one thing I admire about all these people is that they seem to like nothing more than free-fall without a parachute. There's really nothing like it, assuming you can find a way to glide safely to earth. "> 

PS: Doing these massive risky rewrites makes me smarter. Not kidding.