A few followups to recent programming pieces. 

1. As a warmup project I added three new verbs to the OPML Editor glue script table for Flickr. Together they make it possible to easily download all the pictures in a Flickr group to a local disk. 

2. There's a new realtime-over-the-Internet manager in the OPML Editor based on long polling and XML-RPC. I believe it's the foundation for instant RSS-like apps, and a chance to revisit all that's klunky or ineffective about RSS (notably how awkward subscribing is). There's very little code in this package, a good omen! You work hard for a very long time to find these nuggets. It's designed to be easily cloned, and I hope to start an open source project in the fall, to clone, document and evangelize it.  

3. The realtime manager was developed for yet-another instance of the Instant Outliner. This one really is instantaneous, and should scale well. You'll find the code for it at builtins.io. (The code for the realtime manager is at builtins.realtime.) 

4. Chuck Shotton took the tin-can-and-string idea and ran with it, not only implementing but also specifying a federatable social messaging app. I've worked with Chuck on and off for 15 years (gulp) and respect the hell out of him. I'd look carefully. 

5. Had a fun, spirited phone talk yesterday with Blaine Cook, who works on realtime stuff for British Telecom and was one of the original guys at Twitter. I still think DNS is the right technology to manage identity, and can't support "activity streams" as long as it is Atom-only. Even so, there may be possibilities for connecting our work. 

6. Not really a programming thing, but on Saturday, New York City is opening Park Avenue to bikers, runners and walkers (as it was last Saturday, and will be next Saturday). There are lots of related special events. If you're in the city it's a great idea to get out and get some blood flowing. It'll make you smarter! And it looks like the heat wave has broken just in time.