Scripting News for July 2024 (restored)

July 2024
July 31
People who get a sense of self-esteem from having procreated place a heavy burden on their children. What if the child doesn't live up to their expectations? Creating a new human is not an accomplishment. Treating that new life as a full person starting at birth, and through their whole life, <i>that's</i> an accomplishment. For a man to father a child just means they have a functioning reproductive system. It's not anything to be proud or to expect to be rewarded or respected for.<a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-28-2024">Heather Cox Richardson</a>: "When President Joe Biden announced just a week ago that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. He passed it to us."The blogroll on <a href="http://scripting.com/">scripting.com</a> has more features today. <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/31/blogrollScreenShot.png">Screen shot</a>. A note to anyone making a twitter-like system. If you supported outbound RSS, I could use your system as a note-taking tool. I know Bluesky does, and I should use it that way, but these days I'm more drawn to Threads, even though I know it's really Facebook under the covers. The NYT is weird
Someone in charge at the NYT needs to take a step back and view events, and the NYT role in those events, from the point of view of an ordinary non-NYT-employed citizen, bewildered at the enormous risks journalists are taking with the system of government of the United States. In the context of who we are as a country, and what the Repubs do and say about the country, "weird" is pretty mild. What word would you prefer the Democrats use? Imagine <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Safire">William Safire</a> were here, the great linguist columnist of the NYT, writing that column. (Safire was a <a href="https://chatgpt.com/share/ab14f5b9-2b55-406f-9b78-057313c03d63">Republican</a> btw.)And to the Democrats, no matter what the NYT says, keep using the term. This is where you get to speak out about what they're doing over there, and how it's not journalism. One of the rare things we agree with Trump on. Podcast: <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/31/theNYTIsWeird.m4a">3 minutes</a>.PS: Safire went to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_High_School_of_Science">Bronx Science</a>! I did not know that. (So did I.) I love the idea of writers who aren't scared of tech stuff. PPS: Even Richard Nixon would think today's so-called Republicans were weird.
July 30
I said on <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/25.html">Thursday</a> that Biden's speech last Wednesday had the potential to be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address">Gettysburg</a> address, if it the United States turns back toward democracy and government of the people, by the people and for the people. Biden has the potential of being as great a president as Lincoln. Let that settle in for a moment. I get goosebumps when I think about it. If he hadn't taken that stand, he could have become known as the US equivalent of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II#Life_in_exile">Kaiser Wilhelm</a>.The "Podcast0" project is teaching me how to read the archive of my own blog. Until now I had not carefully read the story I tell on my blog more than a few days after it happened. Here's I'm learning to reconstruct the summer of 2004, one of the most creative periods of my life, at least that's viewable in such a public and preserved way. Am I the first to do this for any blog? If you know of an example of historic research done using the archive of a blog, please send me a note. I'd love to learn about what you learned! Also because of its longevity and continuity, I offer <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/25.html">this blog</a> as some kind of record of what happened in the last 30 years or so. I see it as a complete work of writing, a kind of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresco">fresco</a> writing. Like 193K others I tuned into <a href="https://apnews.com/article/harris-supporters-by-ethnic-background-white-dudes-b474af62f6b225c71cde16be7e9eb077">White Dudes For Harris</a> last night. Please, let that be the last time we do that. I felt like it might as well have been <i>Slave Owners for Harris</i> or <i>Reformed Republicans for Harris.</i> I don't have anything against people of my gender and approximate race, but I also am a child of Holocaust survivors, and I happen to be one of the elites the Repubs claim to hate, and also am one of at least two castes that Democrats tend to blame for all our problems (other than White Dudes). I think we've done enough segregation for one campaign, now please please I beg you, let's <i>work together,</i> regardless of labels, to save the country we all love. I have a philosophy, I don't care how you got to the party, if you took a subway, walked, rode a bike, or came by Uber or a Cadillac limousine. We all got here, and have a common purpose, so lets all love each other and party our way to victory. Regardless of race, creed, color or whatever. Childless vs childful
Notes accumulated during the day -- not in any particular order. :smile:I keep a solid line between my personal life and blogging, learned the hard way. When I started blogging in 1994, I didn't have such a solid line, and found that I couldn't have a personal life if I made it public. But now I want to reveal something. I am "childless" which is a term I find pretty insulting, as if being child<i>ful</i> is the only normal state of being. I find, in general childful people are not great friends or family members. They want special privileges and they often get them. If childful vs childless is going to be an issue in this campaign, I say -- bring it on. We should have this discussion. I'm often tempted to offer advice to the parents, but I won't offer it unless asked, except this. If you have children, there's a good chance one or more of them will not have children, and you should love them the same, and provide models of acceptance while they're growing up, by bringing childless people into your home, so the kids know that this is one of the legitimate choices in life, offering proof that you won't love them any less if they go down that path. And here's the hard part, imho, for people with children -- <i>keep that promise. </i>BTW, people say it's seflish to not have children, but I don't agree, in fact I think it's the opposite. There was a point in human evolution where the struggle to survive for our species was fed by procreation, but some time in the last hundred years we crossed a line, where increasing human population worked against species survival. Our understanding of the meaning of procreating, like so much else about our civilization, has not yet caught up with the current reality.
July 29
Like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol">cholesterol</a>, there's "good weird" and "bad weird." I <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C-AoGfspfFB">think</a> we all know which kind of <a href="https://www.salon.com/2024/07/29/old-and-quite-weird-democrats-finally-discover-new-effective--and-hate-it/">weird</a> the Repubs are. Here's a <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/29/twowaysofsupport.png">perfect illustration</a> how ChatGPT can improve customer relations. I bought an iPhone that I now don't need, and it's arriving today via FedEx. I wanted to know whether I should just refuse delivery, or accept it and then return it. Obviously it's easier for me to refuse. I asked ChatGPT and it gave me a detailed reply. Apple's chatbot saw it as a "technical" question and wasn't prepared to help. Sales support is one of those applications where cost is totally justified. A human helper would cost a lot more I imagine than a LLM chat system. I tried calling 1-800-CALL-APPLE and talked to a human who was very nice, but couldn't find anything in her manual about refusing delivery. Is there anyone here <a href="https://x.com/davewiner/status/1817913179789218236">within earshot</a> who is involved in doing the web stuff for the Harris campaign?
July 28
Before Twitter broke the API, it was a quick way for me to channel items from my blog to almost all the people who follow me on the social web. Now it isn't even one of the services I use that I can post to with my writing tool (those are Bluesky, Mastodon, WordPress). None of them are anything like the aggregator of people that Twitter was, and I can't even reach it from my writing tool. I really want to solve this problem, but I absolutely can't do this on my own. No time, patience, and it's not my job to do all that coding. As observed the other day, my time should be spent on writing tools for the web and directly related products. This is the kind of project that should be handled as an open source thing. When technology moves backwards
I don't when technology moves backwards.I'm always trying to push it the other way.It's like being a ball player wanting to win a game.Or a musician wanting to record a hit.A VC wanting a 10x return.A diplomat achieving growth and peace.
July 27
<a href="https://x.com/palafo/status/1817197223437889816">Patrick LaForge</a> who just left the NYT after <a href="https://x.com/palafo/status/1816950582223208871">27</a> years: "RSS news readers let me track breaking news and competition back in my blogging days and I still used them as a corrective to see beyond what social media algorithms were showing me. You see the stories long before home page play or tweets. Gave me an edge. To print-focused journalists who knew little about computers in a certain era it seemed like magic."I reluctantly signed up for <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfv8CbvFVggb-D6bQ1-oPUNULwk6f1qzkjufYGIWFiCQ0Z8RA/viewform">White Dudes for Harris</a>. Would have enthusiastically joined Men for Harris group. Tech for Harris. New York for Harris. Voters for Harris. Americans for Harris. And why just Americans. <i>People</i> for Harris dammit. <a href="http://scripting.com/2004/07/27.html">On this day in 2004</a>, I did podcast interviews with <a href="https://shownotes.scripting.com/podcast0/2024/07/27/interviewWithDonMeans.html">Don Means of Meetup</a> and <a href="https://shownotes.scripting.com/podcast0/2024/07/27/interviewWithPattyWetterling.html">Patty Wetterling of Minnesota</a> at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. For both, I did the interview with Natasha Celine of the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040804051308/http://pacificviews.org/">Pacific Views blog</a>. The next 2004 podcast won't be until <a href="http://scripting.com/2004/08/15.html">August 15</a>. Banter with Adam Curry and Steve Gillmor probably about the podcasting bootstrap which at this point appears to be underway. Not sure if anyone as ever gone down this path in the last 20 years because, when I do the searches to find links to sites and people, I don't see any mention of this stuff in the current day, although now there will be (here in my blog archive). Here's <a href="http://scripting.com/podcast0/rss.xml">the feed</a> of ancient podcast review. You can find the reverse chronologic list of the whole series on <a href="https://morningcoffeenotes.com/">morningcoffeenotes.com</a>.Referrer logs and webmentions may be about to become obsolete with the advent of SearchGPT, and presumably Google's AI and search facilities are also about to merge. Here's the deal. When I write a blog post and want to know if anyone has mentioned it, I will simply be able to ask ChatGPT, "Have any sites mentioned, with or without links, the story I wrote yesterday entitled "Unix-like things" and if so please provide a title, synopsis and link, if available, so I can read the full text." I'm sure that will be appropriately shortened, or perhaps turned into something like the referrer lists of today. Something the network can do for us automatically. <a href="https://battellemedia.com/archives/2024/07/whats-searchgpt-really-about-moving-past-the-training-data-dilemma">John Batelle</a> had an interesting observation about this yesterday, that SearchGPT is a clever way to get news orgs to think about ChatGPT in a different, less threatening way. They want to be in a search engine index (that's called SEO) where they want to be paid to be part of a chatbot. There really isn't a line there, in fact. That's what SearchGPT makes obvious. I for one, want all my stuff in their index so I can find out wtf I've been writing about here for almost 30 freaking years! :smile:
July 26
<a href="http://scripting.com/2004/07/26.html">On this day in 2004</a> I was in Boston to blog the Democratic National Convention, esp with my newfangled <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/dave/coffeeNotesJuly26.mp3">audio blog post</a> thing. Somewhere in this timeframe Adam Curry began <a href="https://archive.org/details/pcs_Adam_Curry_Daily_Source_Code">Daily Source Code</a> which is still running to this day, almost 20 years later.Has anyone ever seen Trump laugh?The NYT pulled another one
Somehow it's up to the Harris campaign to get the Trumps to have a normal American presidential campaign, not a prelude to a second attempted coup, which is what the Trumps are doing. I can see the op-ed they run in September saying that it's Harris's fault that the Trumps are fascist. I <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/06.html#a135642">reinstated</a> my subscription because I need to actually read their words, not because they cover news, but because they <i>are</i> news. The news is that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate">fourth estate</a> in the US is gone. They have lost their minds. They aren't even trying. Their op-eds don't reflect facts, such as Trump will never be a serious candidate in the sense that the NYT thinks a candidate should be serious. The Democrats still will. But there's no need as far as I'm concerned, for a legitimate candidate to respond to their taunts. They completely lost many of us in their extended campaign to force Biden to step aside. I knew they wouldn't stop there, because abusers never stop when you give in to them. They are the tragedy of America now, even more than Trump. We must replace them. The real question is who's going to step up to help restore journalism to our country. Thanks for listening.PS: I am not pointing to their piece out of respect for people who have cancelled their subscriptions. NYT editorial writers, this is what we’re running against.
Google Recorder is what I wanted
I lost my iPhone a few days ago. I think all the data is safe. First time I ever lost a phone. I ordered a new iPhone 15 Pro with 256GB, it will arrive on Monday hopefully. In the meantime I've needed to use my Android phone to record voice memos. Google's product is called <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.recorder&hl=en_US">Recorder</a>. It's just what I wanted. It has a <a href="https://recorder.google.com/">website</a>, so you don't have to export your recording to get it where you need it to be, and it automatically does a transcript. There's an editor on the website, which again is exactly where I want it. A 2-minute <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/scripting.com/2024/07/26/iTriedTheGoogleRecorderApp.m4a">voice memo/podcast</a> I recorded with the app.BTW, I think the files are smaller?Here's a <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/26/googleRecorderApp.png">screen shot</a>.
Unix-like things
I sent a <a href="https://x.com/davewiner/status/1816831709351977372">tweet</a> to Eric Raymond today, lightly edited here, following up on a thread that started in <a href="http://scripting.com/2001/02/20.html">2001</a>. What Raymond <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070517142407/http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$1265">said</a> in 2001.
XML-RPC, in particular, is very much in the Unix spirit. It's deliberately minimalist but nevertheless quite powerful, offering a way for the vast majority of RPC applications that can get by on passing around boolean/integer/float/string datatypes to do their thing in a way that is lightweight and easy to to understand and monitor. This simple type ontology acts as a valuable check on interface complexity.
It's very true, my design goal for my whole 50+ year career has been to factor my code so well so it was as clean as Unix is, from top to bottomThe virtue of relentless factoring is you can build higher if each layer of the stack lets through the functionality that's needed, and no more. Ideally there should be one way of doing something. and it should work pretty well. I realized that the web, RSS and podcasting are also a Unix-like things. Because they can be made to do anything, but are simple, not a lot to understand.But -- there's been this huge proliferation of languages and frameworks, and incredibly complex and underspecified formats. Meanwhile core functions like storage combined with identity for end users, has not been implemented, because of course if the users had their own networked data independent of any platform vendor there would be no lockin. that's 2024 version of the cathedral, to follow your analogy.Anyway, seeing you here made me think of this, I've wanted to say this to you for a long to you and now I have. ;-)PS: The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070517142407/http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$1265">2001 email</a> from Eric Raymond.
July 25
Biden's speech might turn out to be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address">Gettysburg</a> type speech. I hope it does. We're at a huge fork in the road. One fork -- goodbye USA, the other way, we're stronger than ever. We're in a good spot because Trump's tank is empty. He's old, tired, fat, addled, fetid, rotten. You have to work really hard not to see that. If it works, Biden will have stabilized the country, and Harris will erect the guardrails that make sure no one follows in Trump's path, and the Supreme Court gets back into its proper place. They've been overthrowing our society, economy and political system. That all has to be reversed before it does too much damage, and prevented in the future. I want to know why the court can't be expanded, and if Harris will put that in her platform. I almost used <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ascripting.com+enshitification">enshitification</a> in a post yesterday. It's weird that JD Vance goes out with the insults before most people have any idea who he is. Instead of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpe3pz2pz8no">childless cat ladies</a> sticking to Kamala, it's sticking to him, which I'm pretty sure wasn't his intent. Pretty remarkable how abusive the bots on Twitter have become. Makes discourse there seem pretty silly. Might as well turn it into a one-way medium, for all practical purposes that's what it is.I want a Masto-clone that does not do replies. You can't insert anything under my idea, but you can if you like include my idea, as a link, in yours. This model works. I think by now we know the other way does not work. BTW I use the term Masto-clone interchangeably with Twitter-like. Let's spread the love around. Software-wise I realized recently that everything that takes me away from creating really nice writing and publishing tools is a waste. I have to get off track because there are huge holes in the web as a runtime platform. And every year it gets worse as new incompatible languages are added, new incompatible stacks built. As a result we have to re-do everything all the time, and never get a chance to create new user experience. The market fragments, which is exactly what the tech companies want. It keeps their products from becoming commodities. And like it or not, the politicians and corporations don't want us writing too much, they just want us working, donating to their campaigns, paying taxes, buying their crap, and not getting all agitated about things they don't care about. Optimisim
I am optimistic that Trump is headed for the graveyard of history, shortly. First time I've felt like this in a long time. When (if) that happens, we can use Cory Doctorow's excellent concept "enshitification" to describe what he did to the American political system.He also stress tested it, and we would be the greatest fools imaginable if we didn't add some seriously enforceable guardrails to prevent this kind of attack happening in the future. Might work out well to have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris">lawyer</a> in the White House.
JD Crank goes to Mardi Gras
JD goes as a childless cat lady in the Cretins of Trumpland <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krewe">krewe</a>.Hey Mister throw me a kitten!
July 24
Is Reddit now <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41057033">only available</a> on Google search? Fantastic <a href="https://apnews.com/live/harris-biden-trump-election-campaign-updates">speech</a> by President Biden. It's good we'll have both a president and a campaign and that they'll be separate thing. I look forward to reading it slowly. And he put a cap on the awful communication of the last month, he took control of the story from the snobs and shit throwers in the press. How <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91158989/chatgpt-ai-appreciation-day">Harry McCracken discovered</a> that ChatGPT is a deeply and broadly knowledgable, infinitely patient, always available, inexpensive, programming partner. I've been <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ascripting.com+chatgpt">using it that way</a> for a year, and it has enabled me to take on much more ambitious and complete projects. It could evolve into something much more powerful, but where it is now is already amazing. The criticisms for ChatGPT have mostly missed the point of what it's useful for.
July 23
<a href="https://shownotes.scripting.com/scripting/2024/07/23/podcastStartsWithLinkblogging.html">Show notes</a> for today's Scripting podcast.I was able to follow <a href="https://x.com/kamalahq">kamalhq</a> on twitter. This <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-lover-elon-musk-already-145940678.html">report</a> says that Musk is rate-limiting followers on that account. Of course we <a href="http://scripting.com/2017/01/14/whatIfTwtrIsBoughtByARepub.html">warned</a> what could happen if a Republican bought twitter, but I didn't honestly contemplate that a fascist would. These days our greatest fears aren't scary enough. People laugh that Musk paid too much for twitter, but if the US ends up as an autocracy, the oligarch that owns the entire news distribution system for the world will probably have the last laugh. BTW, if you want to know why we're so thrilled to have Harris as the candidate, even though we didn't want Joe to give in, it's because no informed and sane person wants to live in a new Trump term. We tried that if you recall. The hope you hear now is much greater than the hope we had when Obama was selling that (though hope was a good word for it). Today it's the hope that we won't be deported or worse.All the reporters know the Repubs refused to fund border stuff so they could use it to tag the Dems in the election. So the first thing the Repubs do is tag VP Harris with the border. The reporter asks a Dem what they have to say about that. But the reporter <i>knows</i> what the Repubs did. So why do they even ask the freaking question? They just play the script the Repubs wrote for them. They are so savvy, but we heard all that too, so we know how corrupt they are. They don't care if we know.I want future President Harris to stay happy no matter what the bastards do or say. We should have a crisis line for her to call to get some quick love. 1-800-LUV-KAMALA. Podcast starts with linkblogging
A 20-minute morning coffee notes rambler <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/scripting.com/2024/07/23/randomMorningCoffeeNotes.m4a">podcast</a>, started with a narration of how we do linkblogging these days, mostly by hand, and how Bluesky is being hurt by not having a large-enough character limit. Another plea for textcasting, some standards for what we put on the wire over the social web.Also talked about twitter-like systems, and idea borrowed from algol-like and lisp-like. I talk about what made Unix so great. Eric Raymond once told me that <a href="https://xmlrpc.com/">XML-RPC</a> was very much like Unix, and I said oh yeah, and so is <a href="http://reallysimple.org/">RSS</a> and the rest. Huge compliment because the simplicity of Unix is what I strive for, put huge time into. Journos once said Apple is dead, but that was ridiculous because they had built a product that was just starting to grow and they had planted the seeds of huge growth in the 80s when they focused on selling to education, which made sure that kids when they grew up would have good feelings about Apple, and it totally worked. When the reporters were calling them dead, they were actually just about to boom in a whole new way, on the web, which the Mac was perfect for, given the built in simple networking. And then boom again when Jobs came back. And again with the iPod and then again with the iPhone. See how reporters miss the big picture. We shouldn't give them so much power, they pretend they know, but they are usually pretty clueless. This podcast is also a demo of how my mind works. I flit around all over the place but also have learned over the years that if I want to get anything done I have to focus on one thing for at least a few hours every day, and string those days together. I want to document this stuff for the benefit of young programmers. I learned a lot from reading the code of Unix, I always want to pay that back, the message is to strive for simplicity, keep technical debt to a minimum, and factor, factor and factor again to reduce technical debt. Those are the hardest projects, I'm doing one of those right now, but in the end it's worth it, because with simplicity you get to build higher.
July 22
<a href="https://shownotes.scripting.com/podcast0/2024/07/22/1amPredncPodcastRamble.html">Show notes</a> for 2004 pre-DNC podcast, part of the "podcast0" series. For the DNC in 2004, we had a site called <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040805042053/https://www.conventionbloggers.com/">Convention Bloggers</a>. It was a river of news feed reader, clearly done with Frontier, of blogs run by people who were at the convention.I'm doing something new. Trying to initiate topics on the social web. We almost totally respond to external stuff, I wonder how different it would be if we engaged on a more individual level. I've been doing this for a while, but only now am able to explain it. Looking forward to the NYT deeply analyzing Trump‘s 78 year old mind and body and his Hannibal Lecter stories.I'm from Queens too
I grew up in the same part of Queens as Trump, about ten years after he did. His family was in Jamaica, mine in Flushing. Here's a <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/dir/2931+170th+Street,+Queens,+NY/85-15+Wareham+Pl,+Jamaica,+NY+11432/@40.74413,-73.7982607,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c28a8078136589:0xcdf1c8651455269a!2m2!1d-73.7948958!2d40.7696471!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c2611ad4d2c6a5:0xfe60c1b9262c3e04!2m2!1d-73.7858048!2d40.7170409!3e0?entry=ttu">map</a> that shows you where the two houses are. 4.0 miles apart if you take <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_Parkway">Utopia Parkway</a>. A great name for a street, but it's not a parkway and it's nice but definitely not a utopia.People who aren't from huge cities like New York don't know that Trump what our losers look like. They probably have their own loser types. I think that's where 99% of the confusion is. They really don't believe he's so bad. Don't hold that against them, that's nowhere near as bad as knowing what he is and being okay with that. He's a mean bully type. The name-calling is a big clue. Distracts from <i>his</i> weaknesses, which are very obvious. I don't believe in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_shaming">body shaming</a>, because I care about other people's feelings. If I criticize his appearance it might reflect poorly on nice people who have his body type who may not be mean bully losers like Trump. He's also a really good comedian if you don't think he wants to have the power to kill millions of people and control many more people. Last time he was our president just through incompetence, without trying, he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the Covid disaster. He also wanted the army shoot protestors, that's the mean part of our former president. Luckily the people who worked for him told him to fuck off. They saved us from going into a very deep hole that would have been hard to escape from.I watched the coverage of the aftermath of the assassination attempt, and listened to the Americans they interviewed, not the actors they put behind him on stage, to make him look like a badass I guess, these were just normal people who mostly like Trump, but seem pretty likeable themselves. The one thing you heard over and over was how If you don't like a candidate vote against them don't shoot them. That's American and it's not fascist at all. I don't think they know that he wants to make big changes in how our politics work. People think if he's bad they can just vote him out next time. He tells them this will be the last election if he wins, he actually says that, but somehow it doesn't seem to register. Do Trump supporters understand what they support?Of course the journalists are distorting who Trump supporters are. Trump is deplorable if you take him at his word. Some of Trump's followers are deplorable too, like the ones who rioted at our Capitol and January 6 and the people who are lined up to work in his next administration if he wins. They are awful people who want to control all of us. They're already doing it via the Supreme Court. It's going to get a lot worse if we go the wrong way. We shouldn't accept that we're horribly divided. The powerful media people want us to be divided, I don't know why and I don't care, I just know they do, based on their actions. Anyway I know we're at a high moment, we're excited, and I'm going to enjoy the feeling. We all seem to be pulling the same way, at least on "our side" but I hold out hope that being an American still means something, that we can be friends, and fellow countrymen, and work together. I think that's still our greatest challange and our greatest opportunity. Yeah I am woke, that means I care about all of us. I think most of us do no matter who you vote for.
Thank you billionaires
Or, less politely..
July 21
<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/bidens-exit-puts-the-spotlight-on-the-dnc-delegates">The earth shook today</a>. I'm watching the news like everyone else after President Biden withdrew. There really is a lot happening very quickly, and the Dems all sound like they got their story straight, for once the Dems sound like a party. How did that happen. NakedJen says we need a miracle. I said that's her department. :heart:Today's other stuff
BTW, there is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">totally legit and legal way</a> to deal with the issue people are grappling with, w/o any fancy new extra-legal ways of nominating a president that resolves it in a minute, if the Cabinet goes along with the idea that the current president isn't able to do the job, and if being re-elected is a legitimate part of doing the job. Pretty sure most people don't get that being president is a job, not a role someone plays in a TV sitcom. Great wealth is poison, that's what's playing out in the NYT-orchestrated overthrow of the American government. They're driving us into the arms of the Nazis. Who knows why, or even if there is a reason, other than their drive to find meaning in their great wealth. Their problem, and ours, is that it has no meaning, no human can use the money they've accumulated. These are not human-size fortunes, playing a game of make-believe, what if we really were as smart as we think our money says we are. Well you ain't that smart.
NYT just stop podcast
A two-minute <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/21/nytSayYourSorryAndGetBackToNews.m4a">podcast</a> where I dictate an op-ed the NYT should run in its own name, apologizing for trying to take over the US government, and promising to return to being a news organization. I am so fed up with it. Today they ran an op-ed written by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sorkin">Aaron Sorkin</a> giving advice to Democrats based on his experience writing scripts for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing">fictional White House</a> <i>television show</i> in the late 90s and early 00s. Yeah the NYT has lost its way. I hope some people down there think they're way out on a limb and it's time to get back to what they do. They are not qualified or entitled to do what they are doing.
July 20
I trust that President Biden will do what's best for the country.<a href="https://www.salon.com/2024/07/20/its-not-that-complicated-pete-buttigieg-on-why-a-gay-billionaire-is-backing-jd-vance/">Pete Buttigieg</a> should be the Democrats' official blogger. Every day a new insight into what makes people do what they do and why the Dems have all the right ideas. He's a perfect spokesperson in that role. A daily Pete. He should do it.Like it or not, <a href="https://x.com/davewiner/status/1814648631258980788">Twitter is still the social web of record</a>. This is something we need to fix. It's going to take a long time, but it has to start. Isn't it surprising, with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_age">old age</a> such an important topic, that we aren't learning more about it? I'm there now, myself -- immersed in it, can't escape it. I guess I didn't want to know about it until I had to. It's a real perspective-shift. Why ChatGPT is simply better
One great use for ChatGPT, simple recipes.If you try looking for a recipe on Google they take forever to get to the point, and pop up all kinds of offers when all you wanted was a checklist of ingredients and steps. For example, <a href="https://chatgpt.com/share/c9b39a6b-ad4b-4931-9f7e-93c6c7685c03">how to make hard-boiled eggs</a>.Try doing the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+make+hard+boiled+eggs">same thing</a> on Google to see what I mean.
Dreaming of the super-Democrat
Some coffee notes for a Saturday morning.
This election is a total mess.Trump is extremely beatable.Biden is extremely beatable too. We've all had a chance to live in an America with Trump as president, and Biden. I know which one was better for all of us. (Evidence: our response to Covid, S&P 500 price.)Biden's health is not good and it of course will get worse in the coming four years.Trump's health isn't good either and it also will get worse. He doesn't care for himself. He's 77. He's near the end of the decade most <a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-to-live-longer-for-men-2223908#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20the%20average,%2D19%20infection%2C%20and%20stroke.">people die</a>.The Dems can run the show without Biden.The Repubs plan to run the show without Trump, he's just a figurehead, I hope you know that. An actor they put on stage to distract you from the nasty shit they are already doing (evidence, the Supreme Court). When he says Project 2025 isn't his, he's telling the truth. He has no idea what's in it and doesn't care. All he wants is to stand up at rallies and vent, and have his own Rick's Cafe in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)">Casablanca</a> and be Rick. It's the quieter, less showy folk that use him that you should be scared of. Even if Biden wanted to step aside, and he clearly doesn't, the mess that would follow can't be unraveled before the election, so if you push Biden out we lose, pretty sure of that. This is why I think Nate Silver lost his way, he's a sports fan, as am I. What's your next move after taking out the pitcher. You better have a good reliever warmed up in the bullpen, right? We don't even have a freaking bullpen Nate (hope he reads this). But it's fun to dream of the super-Democrat, the candidate who would totally clean Trump's clock, win in a landslide, and when they take office would clear out the junk on the Supreme Court, bring back Roe v Wade, slam the brakes on climate change, and then kick Putin's ass and restore America to greatness for real, and also prepare us to survive the next pandemic. But it's just a dream. It can't happen. Any good candidate will stay out of the mess that will follow a Biden step-aside. No one would want their future tied up in the mess-to-come. Remember, your vote is a chess move not a love letter.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)#Plot">Rick Blaine</a> owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca.
Respect yourself podcast
A 25-minute <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/20/respectYourself.m4a">ramble</a> with the themes of the <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/20/124109.html">Dreaming</a> piece I wrote earlier today. Spoiler alert: I reveal the ending of the movie <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)">Casablanca</a>. Respecting yourself means sticking to problems we can and need to solve, and work together. We can't make anything to happen until we start listening to and working with each other. There is no perfect super-Democrat. Our candidate is Joe Biden. Any real candidate is going to suck.It's like <a href="http://scripting.com/davenet/1995/09/03/wemakeshittysoftware.html">We Make Shitty Software</a>, all candidates suck. But we do a great job. The Democratic song this year, and always, should be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C58ttB2-Qg">With a little help from my friends</a>. Read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff">George Lakoff</a>, a great linguist who figured out how American politics work. Check out <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Spiers">Elizabeth Spiers</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/opinion/democrats-west-wing.html">piece</a> about how it's time to get over the West Wing ideal. Martin Sheen never was and never will be president. And remember your vote is a chess move, not a love letter.
July 19
An eye-opening <a href="https://www.wnyc.org/story/leader-jeffries-talks-biden-politics/">segment</a> on Brian Lehrer's <a href="https://feedland.com/?river=https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.simplecast.com%2FC8a1jmw4">show</a> today. The first half is an interview with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakeem_Jeffries">Hakeem Jeffries</a>, you can skip that part, pretty standard stuff. It gets interesting at 17:50 when they take calls from listeners. A lot of different points of view from people of all ages, they're incredibly passionate, well thought-out, coherent. This is way better than the punditry you hear on news. The real crime here is that the insiders of the Democratic Party are taking control, after they were manipulated by the press. A total insider's route-around of the democratic process, it's just as bad imho as what the Repubs are planning around Election Day. The press did the same thing to NY governor Andrew Cuomo, who was elected by the people, and forced out without any legal process, and certainly not a vote. That experience argues in favor of when you're in doubt, do the thing the voters said to do. Anything else is very very questionable. Why are you taking control? Where are you authorized to do that? I think perhaps some of the Dems forget how huge an issue this was in the 2016 process. Historically it's unjustifiable. The NYT et al are grievously wrong, and that should be reflected on their op-ed pages. We've been here before, this is as much a hack as Hillary's Emails. Maybe you can't see it now, but win or lose, people are going to look at this period when we all lost our minds.I posted the above piece around the social web, I like the way it looks <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C9njHDMJyo8">on Threads</a> the best. <a href="https://ma.tt/2024/07/6-6/">Matt says</a> some interesting new stuff is coming from Automattic now that <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/07/dorsey/">WordPress 6.6</a> is out. Something for writers? Perhaps something that moves WordPress into a space adjacent to twitter-like systems? They just added support for <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew">Threads</a> to WordPress, so now you can <a href="https://jetpack.com/social/">crosspost</a> from a blog to a thread. Haven't tried it yet. They also have a new <a href="https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/06/03/profiles-as-a-service/">identity system</a> built around Gravatar, announced in early June. It'll be interesting to see what they come out with. I wonder if there is a developer ecosystem building on this, and if they have an evangelism program. I have my own vision of how these things should work. Now that <a href="https://slate.com/business/2024/07/elon-musk-donald-trump-donation-republican-twitter-troll-meme-posts.html">Elon Musk</a> is giving so generously, dollars and <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/19/ohTheBullshit.png">flow</a>, to the fascists, he's encouraging more of us to use Zuckerberg's twitter-like system, aka <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew">Threads</a>. But Zuck isn't making it go down easy. There's a piece in <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-19/mark-zuckerberg-calls-donald-trump-badass-without-endorsing-for-president">Bloomberg</a> (paywall) that says Trump is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/jul/19/trump-biden-rnc-democrats-election-updates">badass</a> but isn't supporting either candidate. What could possibly go wrong? Wordle Kitty partied hearty
She had to sleep it off. Still very cute!
July 18
<a href="https://www.threads.net/@nancywicklundgonzalez/post/C9kHz4POkP7">Nancy Wicklund Gonzalez</a>: "I’ve had to switch to watching the BBC. American news is unwatchable. Between the lionization of a sociopath and the denigration of a decent man, I just can’t even." I'm avoiding the actual RNC, the speakers are just actors. Trump looks like the Queens kid he is. People from Queens don't feel like we really belong, except with other Queens people. We expect to be thought of as the kid from Queens. I know this so well. So the "boss" slumps around not sure what to do or say. He's not gregarious. Not in charge of anything. If the world doesn't know you did something you might as well not have done it. This is what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart">Doug Engelbart</a> learned, and what we learned in his aftermath. He is known for inventing the mouse, because that's the one thing he invented everyone knows about. He also developed software that pioneered using a computer to <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Engelbart/Engelbart_AugmentIntellect.html">organize your ideas</a>. For the most part people don't know about that because (I guess) most people don't organize their work?
July 17
Today's song: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY">It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)</a>. The Repubs can win by throwing the election into the House. They can probably get it by the courts in enough places, just a couple of swing states, and they win even if they lose by normal vote-counting methods. The whole bit about Biden's age is meant to distract us from the fact it probably doesn't matter how old the Democratic candidate is.Hello from 2024
A <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/17/helloFrom2024.m4a">podcast</a> about listening to the podcasts from 2004. This is a short episode about what I learned, and what's coming up.Humbling experience.
Nana Kitty played Shoreline
Wordle Kitty's great grandma plays with the Dead at Shoreline in the 80s.
July 16
Highly recommend this <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81614129">Netflix series</a> -- esp the last three episodes. I found it enlightening, even though I lived through most of this history, I never saw it all put together in a series of events over decades. I came out of it with a much clearer perspective of where we are in the Cold War. It never was over. "The end of history" was too good to be true. Also glad I read so much about slavery a few years ago. If you put both these together, you get the USA, and the deep and lasting wounds we keep re-opening. <a href="https://shownotes.scripting.com/podcast0/2024/07/16/interstate25DietCokeWhileDrivingNotes.html">Shownotes</a> for the "Podcast0" from July 16, 2004. The problem with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Vance">JD Vance</a> is that he's empty inside, he'll be whatever he needs to be to get more power, and he's young. He's as empty as Trump, and much younger, so we can't hope to outwait him. Now we have a real problem, because Trump has a successor. I imagine Trump's sons probably aren't happy about this. Had he picked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Rubio">Little Marco</a>, no one would mistake him as an heir, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Burgum">Doug Burgum</a> who is a bit too old to be an heir (same age as I am). We <i>do</i> have a problem with Biden, he hasn't prepared for this moment. Old or not, they had 3.5 years to get ready, and they didn't. As I wrote <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/15.html#a124845">yesterday</a>, the biggest most important thing is that we <b>organize ourselves.</b> That's the best defense all around. Every attempt to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_(enclosure)">corral</a> the insurrection has been either non-existent or overwhelmingly inadequate. Trump should be out of the picture, and for a while it seemed as if he was getting there, but now he's back, and probably a bigger threat than ever. I don't think replacing Biden is anywhere near enough. We need leadership. Not wait to be led. We've waited too long. People who appear ready to step up -- AOC, Bernie Sanders. Who else? I wouldn't put Obama on that list, he tried to welcome Trump, even let him have his Supreme Court pick, just to be a nice guy. We are not going to prevail by being nice, unfortunately. We're also not going to prevail by each of us taking care of Number One. We have to work together. Organize and work together. Those ought to be our mantras until we achieve them.And btw, don't panic. You can't accomplish anything that way.<a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2288764287997630&set=a.113966572144090&type=3&comment_id=1236133897373396&notif_id=1721130567941861&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif">Today's adventure</a>: "The great and cute Wordle Kitty was surprisingly chosen to be the running mate of the most popular presidential candidate in the history of the United States, who happens to also be very very old so that’s why they nominated the cute little cat to be the vice president because she is so young and so incredibly cute."
July 15
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton">Al Sharpton</a> should write the defining op-ed in the NYT, not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Clooney">George Clooney</a>, who is very pretty, and a great choice to cast in movies like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_in_the_Air_(2009_film)">Up In The Air</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Clayton">Michael Clayton</a>, but we don't know <i>anything</i> about his political judgement. He hasn't done anything to tell us who he is in that dimension. To the extent that we do know anything about him: 1. He's a <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/george-clooney-reveals-hilarious-pranks-hes-pulled-while-pretending-to-be-brad-pitt-and-bill-clinton-063025071.html">prankster</a>. 2. He has a brilliant and beautiful <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amal_Clooney">wife</a>. 3. He has a huge <a href="https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/entertainment/a45302334/george-clooney-not-selling-lake-como-villa/">mansion</a> in Italy which he keeps very private. 4. He's <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a44752794/george-clooney-net-worth/">rich</a>. We have nothing in common. He should run for office and get in the mix. The fact that the NYT chose him, that says something about them, they don't care what people think, or they think we're really shallow and will fall for bullshit like George Clooney. He loves Biden. We didn't even know he knew Joe Biden! Why should Clooney have more of a say in this than I do? Tell me what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Pelosi">Nancy Pelosi</a> thinks, or Al Sharpton. Or give <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moore">Michael Moore</a> a shot. He has a lot more skin in the game than Clooney. I'd love to read an op-ed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Frum">David Frum</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Cheney">Liz Cheney</a>. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ascripting.com+%22elie+mystal%22">Elie Mystal</a>.<i>We. Need. To. Organize.</i> Democrats should roll out new initiatives with the same skill as Apple rolls out new products. Not the same as <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ascripting.com+%22Steve+Jobs%22">Steve Jobs</a>, that's asking too much. But with focus and showmanship, and a livestream, and fanbois and Al Sharpton in place of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gruber">John Gruber</a>. Focus our attention on each product (ie climate change, social security, Ukraine, etc), so the ideas don't get missed, and we can network in support of the initiative. This is all part of the idea of having a <i>democratic.party</i> website that we call call home for our political organizing. None of this pissing in the wind we do on twitter-like systems. Form buddy groups of people we organize with, based on locality or common interests. Organize the people as well as the billionaires are organized. This is what political parties should be in 2024 for crying out loud. We're missing the point of the mess in our politics. It's all a mess because it needs to be organized and it's not. Maybe I should take everything else off my blog now so I can use what little attention I have been able to gather here to focus on this idea. <a href="https://x.com/davewiner/status/1812838887900823875">NYT</a> -- put one of your readers on the op-ed page, so we can talk to your readers about you. It would be the bravest and smartest thing you ever did.<a href="https://shownotes.scripting.com/podcast0/2024/07/15/quantumLightBreathMeditationTape.html">Shownotes</a> for today's "podcast0" episode.<a href="http://scripting.com/2004/07/15.html#When:11:22:43AM">On this blog 20 years ago</a>: "Our mission when covering the DNC is to figure out what goes on at a DNC. On the other hand, some portion of the 15,000 reporters at the DNC will be trying to figure out what we, the bloggers, are doing at the DNC. I suspect most of them will conclude that we don't belong there, in the same way most of the early articles about weblogs concluded we are not going to kill professional journalism." This turned out to be true. <a href="https://www.threads.net/@technologizer/post/C9as4g9yzl0">TWiT studio</a> in <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/1351+Redwood+Way,+Petaluma,+CA+94954/@38.2763137,-122.6673642,19z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x8085b4e3809b3ac9:0x585dbecccedf4666!8m2!3d38.2764294!4d-122.666947!16s%2Fg%2F11c2228xqp?entry=ttu">Petaluma</a> is shutting down. A lot of great stuff came out of this place. Please take a video of the studio before it closes down for good. I've learned this over and over, having shut down a few offices where great stuff was created and forgetting to do this. In today's Kitty Komix <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2288099451397447&set=a.113966572144090">episode</a>: "The very cute but also very courageous Wordle Kitty is learning how to be a surgeon. They brought a mysterious leader into the operating room and asked the Kitty to please operate on the leader and save his life so Wordle Kitty got out the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Surgery-Beginners-Operations-Minors/dp/0590031872">textbook</a> and read up on brain surgery, even though the patient only had a nick on his ear, which was admittedly very bloody, she operated on the patient’s brain and unfortunately the patient died. So we are looking at the scene where the dead body of the patient is on the operating table and Wordle Kitty is smoking a cigarette, relaxing and reflecting on what she learned. She’s still very cute of course."Stay sane even though the news is trying to make us crazy
We should hire an intern at some J-school to keep track of all of my tweets, write them down, then translate each into a rule for what a news organization should do instead of not do. Flip the sense of the rule in other words.Then we feed those rules to an AI.Then we flow in the news stories of the day from various sites through the same AI for translation. Yes I know they'd complain <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/vociferous">vociferously</a>, but which ones you use don't matter because the AI algorithm will translate whatever they are to Dave Winer tense.Then of course publish them to another site called The News That Helps Us All Stay Sane.
July 14
This blog <a href="http://scripting.com/2004/07/14.html#When:2:15:26PM">20 years ago</a> today.The <a href="http://scripting.com/publicfolder/shownotes/podcast0/2024/07/14/anInterviewInAPodcast.html">shownotes</a> for today's "Podcast0" episode. The shownotes pages now have a player. Still have a little more work to do on it. I like this because it's a lightweight project, which is something I need while the world is boiling over. Morning coffee notes
BTW, I'm intermittently locked out of my <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C9Z5Tc5JZOa">Threads</a> account. <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/14/threadsMessage.png">They say</a> it has to do with automated stuff they don't explain. I don't have any apps that do anything with Instagram or Threads. I tried changing the password. Anyway, I was just starting to like the network, it has its own feel, and have made some friends there, but I have no energy to fight it, at least not right now. If you don't see me over there, this is why.How I found out about Trump's assassination. By accident, I was watching CNN when they switched over to his rally. I listened to the first few minutes, ugly lies, the usual disgusting stuff, so I switched over to season 6 of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Duty">Line of Duty</a>, which isn't very great. I couldn't focus on the show. I got my iPad and checked out Bluesky and saw a message from someone regretting that <i>he</i> hadn't been killed, and somehow I knew that "he" was Trump, so I switched back to the news, and saw the live events, Trump asking for his shoes, and then doing that disgusting thing with his fist, looking right into the camera. He's 100 percent television actor. Either the whole thing was staged, or he just thinks that way, it didn't cross his mind that a bullet aimed at his brain had barely missed killing him. He's thinking of his business model. Now I must confess my first thought was just like the person on Bluesky. Now Trump who lies about being a victim, really is a victim, and we'll never hear the end of it. And it didn't take long before a random Republican asshole was saying this was Biden's fault for saying Trump would end democracy, which he has said he will, promised to do, and <i>we saw him try to do it</i> on Jan 6. And the CNN reporter went along with it, saying the temperature has to be lowered on both sides. There it was. Both sides. It didn't take any time for the Republican talking points to dominate. This was Biden's fault they all agree. Occam's Razor says this is over. We aren't going to vote in November. The deal is done because the journos, who really control who is elected, have made their choice. I've yet to hear another explanation from them.If someone from Russia or Ukraine were to read the previous paragraph, they'd nod their heads and say the US is now Russia. That's how our journalism and politics work. The oligarchs have sold out to the dictator. This is what it's like after that happened. People inside big companies look the other way all the time, and try to compartmentalize. Now their malaise becomes ours. BTW, if Biden steps aside don't expect the Repubs won't sue saying it's illegal, so guess what -- not only don't you get Biden, you don't even get a replacement. The election will be like a Russian election, with just one actual candidate on the ballot and a few total losers for appearances. A great card to hold in your pocket. I bet they have the arguments already written.
July 13
This blog <a href="http://scripting.com/2004/07/13.html#When:4:59:46AM">20 years ago</a> today.The <a href="http://scripting.com/publicfolder/shownotes/podcast0/2024/07/13/standardsAndSoftware.html">show notes</a> for today's "Podcast0" episode. Does the <a href="http://scripting.com/code/testing/marquee/">marquee element</a> in HTML work in your browser?<a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C9UjSQOp9yj">This post on Threads</a> has already gotten over 7K reads. That's a lot for me, on any platform, and I have far fewer followers there, and no blue checkmark. An open tweet to Keith Olbermann
<i>Adapted from a <a href="https://x.com/davewiner/status/1812139277418971640">tweet</a>.</i>Still thinking about your last episode and how you don't know what to tell anyone to do. i think that's great. because no one knows -- in the meantime here are a couple of ideas.
let's organize democratic voters. the better organized we are, the better we can get through the attacks from the nyt, cnn, msnbc, et al that are coming until the election. a web site for circles of friends, a buddy system that gets the word out. can use all social networks, email etc. encourage biden to take off the gloves, even more than he is. he should say the biggest problem is the supreme court. we have to fix it. make this a referendum on roe v wade and all the other stuff that's harder to explain.ask joe to have fun. he's good when he's saying god love you and shit like that. hand out ice cream when it's hot. level with people. biden isn't the best speech-maker and 81-year-olds can't run around like they're 50 (he's still figuring that out), but he's a really good president. think about how it was when trump turned things over. the country was in really bad shape. he totally blew covid. that mattered. one more thing -- trump attacked the freaking capitol on his way out. that man has a temper and is a loser. a sore loser biden has friends who help him. make the theme song for the election <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C58ttB2-Qg">help from my friends</a> by the beatles. put the young stars of the democrats out on the road and sell them as the future that we are working on. the product isn’t just Biden, it’s a freaking goverment and social security, and owning your own body, freedom of religion, all that good american stuff. It’s the governors of pennsylvania, michigan, arizona, the senators from georgia, it’s the whole freaking thing!like it or not the debate <i>did</i> start the campaign. Everyone is listening to Joe Jobs now, so say things! Dont waste the attention. Never waste a good crisis someone said.have you ever seen a campaign speech with <a href="https://this.how/whyVoteForBiden/">slides</a> like a Steve Jobs keynote. Some good ideas there. "One more thing."KO -- keep up the good work. and ad lib more. some of your writers are pretty lame. i can tell when you wrote the episode, but i like the ones where you ad lib even more.
July 12
The episode from <a href="http://scripting.com/2004/07/12.html#When:9:29:59AM">this day</a> in 2004 is now in the "Podcast0" feed. Here are the <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/12/123754.html">show notes</a> for this episode. Route around journalism
Why journalists don’t bother trying to take Trump down, but do with the Democrat.Simple. Trump has routed around journalism as we have begged the Dems to by going direct to the people.The journos have no power over Trump and they know it.They have total power over the Dems, and they know that too.If by some miracle the journos let us (voters) determine the president, we must <i>never</i> let them have this power again.
July 11
Today's song: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1pYKdqD1ls">Respect Yourself</a>. For all of us, but especially the people of the United States of America.I had a post here about the inevitability of Biden stepping aside, then I turned on the news and saw how the press was humiliating the President at a meeting with the president of Ukraine. We can't give into this. How dare they insult the president as he represents the US in NATO. I can't get behind this. We're in a bad bad place. If you listened to my audio blog posts in the summer of 2004, I recommend subscribing to the <a href="http://scripting.com/podcast0/rss.xml">new podcast0 feed</a>. I just listened to <a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/crimson1/coffeeNotesJuly11.mp3">the show</a> from this day 20 years ago. It was quite a throwback, lots of questions about what I was talking about, I've forgotten a lot of it. It took a full hour to prepare the feed. I can tell this is going to be quite a flashback experience. Maybe it'll get me in the mode to do some serious innovating, because we were on fire and didn't know it, in so many ways, back in the summer of 2004.
July 10
If we were organized we could handle anything. The only reason we're panicking about Biden's capability is that our news flow is owned by largely invisible media moguls. The only way out of this mess is to route around them.I agree with <a href="https://www.manton.org/2024/07/10/looking-at-my.html">Manton</a>. The way the twitter-alikes do discourse is not the only possible way, and imho, and, as I've said <a href="http://scripting.com/stories/2007/12/17/howSpamWillLikelyEnterTheT.html">before</a> (in 2007!), most of what passes for discourse on twitter is actually spam, and that goes for Masto, Threads, Bluesky and Facebook (aka FriendFeed). Nancy Pelosi
I kind of like what Nancy Pelosi is doing.She's got a unique role to play, as a master of Washington and national politics.She stepped down as Democratic leader in the House to let a new generation lead, yet maintained here position as sort of overseeing and giving her blessings to how they go forward.She also helped organize the Jan 6 committee, which in the end was the only real official judgement of Trump on the insurrection before the election. I don't know how she and Biden get along.It's much better to have her leading this discussion than the children who write the NYT these days. Playing with powerful tools/weapons they don't understand, at best, being manipulated by vicious fascists at worst.I trust Pelosi in this situation, we're lucky to have her.
Resuming the Podcast0 feed
A new episode for the <a href="https://this.how/podcast0/">Podcast0 feed</a>.After a break since June 20, we now resume my original "audio blog" from the summer of 2004, twenty years ago.I was just beginning to figure out how this new medium worked, and rather than record my own thoughts, as with the previous two episodes, I published audio from another source, my meditation teacher, Jeru Kabbal. Starting with the next episode, tomorrow, an interview with Steve Gillmor, one of the earliest podcast pioneers -- we'll have an original audio blog post. That's when the pulse really starts. A <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/10/upcomingEpisodes.png">screen shot</a> of upcoming episodes from <a href="http://morningcoffeenotes.com/">morningcoffeenotes</a>.Here's the <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/quantum-light-breath/id1752527298?i=1000661785816">Apple Podcasts</a> page for this episode. I've been making mistakes in 2024 on almost every episode. This time I got the title wrong, it's Sunrise of the Soul. Rather than change it, and take a chance of the episode showing up twice in some podcast clients, I'm just leaving it as-is. Trying to get a feel for how most of the clients work. Do they refresh posts, if the descriptions change (as this one is)? I don't know. Do the clients strip out the HTML or do they support some of it? I wonder if links make it through to most clients?The <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/06/17/152838.html">original post</a> for Podcast0.
She's got it all!
Imagine what kind of roller coaster you could build on the moon.
July 09
It bugs me that there’s all this focus on Biden, when what we really need is to organize as voters so we can be ready to deal with whatever happens. That’s the real problem. The press can point out a problem, and it is a problem, but no one has the ability to build a consensus among voters. I think it’s possible to put together an online version of the Democratic Party, something that never goes away, is available to rally the electorate at any moment. That’s the way to neutralize the power of the media moguls who have us wrapped around their fingers.<a href="https://x.com/davewiner/status/1810673176516452771">Suppose Biden abdicates</a>. What happens then? How does this not become a mess like Bernie and Hillary, or Nader and Gore, Perot and Clinton, Kennedy and Carter, McCarthy, RFK and Humphrey.Jon Stewart, yes you should STFU
<i>The problem is elites grabbing the wheel with no clue about what comes next.</i>Every Tuesday I look for Jon Stewart's opening for the Daily Show on YouTube. It's always funny, great comedy, whether or not you agree with what he says, and I usually do agree. But not when it comes to him pushing President Biden out, without any idea of what comes next, and how the people, even some people who love his show, feel about having no voice. If the voters organize, using the tools we have now, and stay organized after the election, we could elect anyone to be president. There's never been a more clear opportunity to win a landslide. It depends on organization, and elites not grabbing the steering wheel with no clue about what comes next, and driving us off a cliff. I've been close to elites at times, and I can tell you, they aren't any smarter than you, they just have more power. I think that's been the real problem. We have failed to stay a democracy as we've gotten the tools to really be a democracy in ways we never could have before. And now we're at the last moment before it's all flushed away and the NYT et al (including our hero Stewart) are making it more certain, not less. Be warned I get really angry at the end and raise my voice. I don't think I've ever done that in a podcast, and I'm not sure I like it. But the rage is real. <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/09/yesJonStewartPleaseSTFU.m4a">16 minute podcast</a>.
July 08
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20">Joni Mitchell</a>: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."If you've lived much at all you know what Joni says is true. I got there when my grandmother died in 1977, when I was 22, my first close relative that I lost, and I tried to come to grips with the idea that I'd never see her again and found it impossible, but it was true nonetheless. No way to escape it. When my mother died, in 2018, I only thought after we cleared her house to be sold, the house I grew up in, that I didn't even take pictures of it before it was emptied. I was so used to it being a constant, I forgot to realize until it was too late, that I was saying goodbye to everything I knew for my entire life. Forever. It's why we're playing such a dangerous game of chicken with Biden's presidency, because the stakes are so incredibly high. A mathematical approach to this problem says imho that everyone should shut the fuck up about Biden's flaws and get us organized so we can handle any eventuality. The problem isn't that Biden might die, the problem is that even if he were to win, we'll be right back here in another four years, and at that time we will have to grapple with an even more dire situation. Whatever happens this year, what's waiting for us is for most of us to wake up from the dream that there are any constants in our lives. It's all falling apart, in every way. The only thing that matters is we start working together, intelligently, or else it's over. I admit that after the debate and the interminable attacks from the press on our democratic process that I'm pretty depressed about the future. I was talking with a friend over the weekend, a fellow NYer who moved up to the mountains as I did, about the political situation, and I asked if he would be prepared to sign a loyalty oath to Trump. He said he'd never do it. If they tried to force him, he'd get a gun and shoot them. This isn't the first time I've heard that, and I called bullshit. You're never going to do that. I know this guy, I know myself. I won't do it either. And I think I probably will have to sign the loyalty oath and so will you. There are so many ways to turn your life off, legally -- and without recourse. Think about what happens when you lose access to a social media account. Or when a credit rating agency doesn't believe you are who you are. Or when someone hijacks your phone and you can't get back control of it (and try to use anything without a working phone number). I've been through all these miserable processes. And none of them were legal, or controlled by the US government. A president who demands loyalty of you will get it. And that is certainly exactly where we're headed, again. I find the <a href="https://blogroll.social/">blogroll</a> on the <a href="http://scripting.com/">home page</a> of my blog to be an incredible <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/08/blogrollScreenShot.png">way</a> to catch up on what people I follow are posting to their blogs and news sites. It's more like a feed reader than a blogroll because when a site updates it moves to the top of the list and when you click the wedge next to the title you get the five most recent posts with links to the full story. Maybe it was a mistake calling this a blogroll. I'm trying to come up with a better place to put it so more people would see it and use it and might think it would be nice to have a place like that for themselves. In any case I'm thinking about what to do next with FeedLand, which is what's behind the blogroll software. It hasn't lived up to my hopes, and I don't think it's likely to. I may be done writing software for others, I was writing only for myself for a few years, between 2017 and 2021, and I really liked that. The experiment of writing for others was not a success. So I'm thinking about how to wind down FeedLand, keep it available for the people who are already using it, but close it to new membership. Just thinking out loud here for a bit. It's that time, to consider what I want to do with the next few years, assuming, praise Murphy, I have them to play with. :smile:It's that time
This is the time, every four years, when we have to confront the corruption of American journalism. Most of the time we can turn our attention elsewhere, until we get a Bush or Trump in the White House, and then we have to own up to the fact that we let them, the journalists, get away with it again.We can't forget her emails, even though we never knew what it was about.
Wordle Kitty is EIC at NYT!
Wordle Kitty has become the Editor in Chief of the NY Times! That's pretty cool right. But she's still cute. And she's working late tonight, trying to come up with the perfect cover story. She figured it out! She put a picture of herself on the front page, with a huge headline saying "She's great!" In the picture she's smart and cute and really adorable, and she's smiling and wearing a button that says "Hi Mom!"Wordle Kitty on the front page.
July 07
I'm glad Biden is attacking journalists, he has a much bigger voice than I do. If I had his influence I'd be saying the same things, though I wouldn't be as kind. It's time to put the journalists back where they belong, covering news, not trying to run the country. I feel about twitter the same as I feel about the nytimes. As if we're not on speaking terms. Not that the nytimes ever listened, or really twitter, for that matter.Is Sulzberger another Musk. Inherited something of value, moving as quickly as possible to destroy that value.It's time to stop caring what journalists think.Dear journalism
You know how Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Ave and wouldn't lose any supporters. This is the same thing except with Biden.What you need to know:
We all knew this would happen.We all saw it happen, we don't need you to tell us.We're going with him anyway.
The plan is this:
If Biden gets disabled, or dies, before or after the election -- VP Harris steps up.Now everyone can relax.
Hot tip for journos: The Supreme Court <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/decloak">decloaked</a>, an even bigger story.BTW, am I imagining it or has journalism inadvertently admitted that they all want Trump to lose? It's logical that they would, but I thought they always said they were objective on this stuff. The famous <a href="https://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-questions-and-answers/">View From Nowhere</a>. Has that pretense accidentally been dropped?
Democratic superstars of 2024
On Mastodon, <a href="https://mastodon.social/@sarajw@front-end.social/112746718207413752">Sara Joy writes</a>: "Let Biden run. Let Kamala and lots of other younger Dems take on lots of events. Support him from underneath. If and when he falters, the party is there to prop him up, take up the slack, or step in."I had a similar idea.Make this the campaign of the cabinet, governors and congress.Let all the great next generation democrats shine. Big stadium events where a lot of them share the stage.Joe Biden dials in via satellite."Listen, I'm an old dude, so I need my rest but look at all these bright young people who help me do the business of the American people. Aren't they wonderful!"He puts on his robe and slippers, sits in a rocking chair with a dog at his feet and his grandchildren playing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee">yahtzee</a> and checkers...And one of the juniors is hanging out with him, making sure he doesn't spill his beer, so you know they have his back.Baseball cards are handed out at the events with each of the stars of the Democratic Party.Collect them all!You get 5 free cards with a $25 contribution.Some would be very rare.Also there would be Old Timers Day, where Bernie, Hillary, Barack, Michelle and Bill would have a concert. Hosted by Mayor Pete!Joe is at the top of the ticket, but we got him covered.Out comes VP Kamala and she sings the anthem along with Taylor Swift wearing a red white and blue sequined outfit. And Santa Claus, Uncle Sam, Betsy Ross, and the Founding Fathers. Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks and the freedom fighters. All the heroes of America, standing up for America. The Greatest Generation and Repubs like Ike, even Reagan and of course Lynne Cheney.We don't need no freaking monarch, they all sing.No we don't! shouts the people. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJBaIUZwmTs&t=43s">On video</a>, the Dead sing "I'm Uncle Sam, how do you do!"Shake the hand that shook the hand of PT Barnum and Charlie Chan.We all march together to victory.
July 06
We should try <a href="https://github.com/scripting/opml.org/issues/22#issuecomment-2211828371">this</a> someday: A twitter-like system built with feeds, with all their limits. People can link to my posts, but not attach themselves to my flow. Goodbye spam and the motive for abuse, attention. Something I'd like to try someday, but first you need people who are interested. It's a chicken and egg thing. I wonder if people remember what a divided Democratic party is like. Obama had Hillary. Hillary had Bernie. Gore had Nader. Bill Clinton had Perot. I guess Mondale and Dukakis unified the party? Before that, Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, that was something. open war. Probably we'll all be wishing for Joe Biden if you all succeed at getting him to resign. BTW he's just one person, there's a limit to how much <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/04/bullshit2.m4a">bullshit</a> one person can absorb.Journalists don't give the orders. That's what's out of whack. I cancelled my NYT subscription. They can't hear their readers. It's time for a new journalism, and we're going to have to do it without them. I haven't cancelled my Washington Post subscription yet, but I'm pretty sure that's coming soon enough.The SF newspaper strike of 1994
In this <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/06/theSanFranciscoNewspaperStrikeOf1994.m4a">podcast</a> I tell the story of the move from print to the web in 1994 when the San Francisco newspapers went on strike. I was part of that process, a step in the bootstrap that led to the social web. I'm thinking about that process as journalism system is losing its mind, like everything else, and we need to find a way to flow intelligent news to people who need it, so we can start to organize, and we need to do it <i>now. </i>The flow are out there, smart people who know stuff and have ideas, but they aren't getting heard amidst the mindlessness of the NYT, CNN, MSNBC et al. It's a long story, and it starts off crisp like most of my stories and then rambles out. 16 minutes.
July 05
You say you want Biden to step down. You've been heard. This is the President of the United States. If you don't respect the man at least respect the office. Congrats to Threads on a good first year. Looks like I <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew">signed in</a> on opening day, <a href="http://scripting.com/2023/07/05.html">July 5, 2023</a>. They have done a good job of slipping into the spot previously occupied exclusively by Twitter.Threads gives you a virtual <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/05/stub.png">ticket stub</a> for when you join, nice touch.<a href="https://www.threads.net/@davidhowardthornton/post/C9Du3-hyguy">Threads</a>: "The reason people are finally talking about Project 2025 is because an actress used her platform to bring attention to it when the media failed to."This year I'm thinking how we can boot up a source of news that has the balance we deserve. Now that the Supreme Court is no longer keeping up any pretense of respecting the Constitution, and journalism is either colluding, or preparing for their meeting with a military tribunal in March next year, followed by, if lucky, a re-education camp, we need help knowing what's real and what's <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/04/bullshit2.m4a">not</a>. I hear that cancelling a NYT subscription is wicked hard. That <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/04/bullshit2.m4a">alone</a> makes me feel like cancelling. I cancelled their morning email of things I need to know about. It's one thing for them to exclusively report on Biden's age in their space, but my mailbox is mine. Get the F out of my mailbox.
July 04
<a href="https://www.threads.net/@gmclean/post/C8_TWPPKKVH">Gordon McLean asks</a>: "If I was to move my blog away from WordPress, what platform is simplest?" I added a <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/04/aboutPageAdditionNotSecure.png">section</a> to this site's <a href="http://scripting.com/?tab=about">About page</a> re "Not secure."Truth be told one of the reasons I added it now was because I wanted a place to use the new <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/04/bullshit2.m4a">easter egg</a> Nakedjen recorded for me (and you).It could happen!
My <a href="http://scripting.com/">blog</a> is also a <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/04/aPaneerOfLegitimacy.m4a">podcast</a>. I wonder if anyone else does that. The title of this episode is "A peneer of legitimacy," but what I really meant is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_veneer">veneer</a>. I describe a dream where the owner of the NY Times is, in March 2025, being tried by a military tribunal for not sufficiently helping Trump get re-elected as he was told to do. Sulzberger, in his own defense, points out that they covered <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Biden%27s+Age">Biden's Age</a>, the official new version of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Hillary%27s+Emails">Hillary's Emails</a>, while ignoring other possible issues. The tribunal returns with its verdict and hilarity ensues as the punishment, secret until revealed, is administered. The crowd goes crazy! "Too late! Not enough! Go to hell!" The host of the show is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Simpson">Bart Simpson</a>. It could happen.<i>3 minutes.</i>
July 03
<a href="https://omny.fm/shows/countdown-with-keith-olbermann/pelosi-suggests-biden-take-test-he-stumbles-anew-7">Olbermann</a> calls on Biden to resign, making Harris the incumbent.Somehow, even though I watched an hour of news on MSNBC last night, and was on all the social media all day, I didn't hear about Pelosi's comments, or the leaked poll data, until this morning. It wasn't until I looked at the synopsis of Olbermann's podcast that I learned that something had changed. For whatever reason, even though I have made a significant investment in time to stay informed, it isn't working. Fact. If something like this happens and you haven't seen it in my linkblog, or on my blog's home page, please post a link to my <a href="https://mastodon.social/@davew">Mastodon account</a>. I added links to my two new podcast feeds to the <a href="http://scripting.com/?tab=about">About page</a> on Scripting News. <a href="https://imgs.scripting.com/2024/07/03/aboutpagescreen.png">Screen shot</a>.
July 02
Listen to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dissent-biden-declares-war-on-supreme-court-trump-7-2-24/id1633301179?i=1000660868719">today's Countdown</a> podcast. I was cheering out loud during the first segment. When you read this <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C864lCsuwbK">post</a>, you'll see why. I tried listening to the NYT Daily podcast today, but it made me hate them all over again, starting with saying how great a week it has been for Trump. You can say that, imho, but you have to say right after that, that it was a terrible week for the rest of us. Because any good news for Trump is awful news for everyone else. And I do mean everyone, including the people who plan to vote for him again. <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/chief-justice-roberts-statement-nomination-process#:~:text=I%20will%20be%20open%20to,not%20to%20pitch%20or%20bat.">Chief Justice John Roberts</a>: “I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability, and I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.”They edited the Constitution the way board members of tech companies design software products, with no idea how it works.My favorite soft drink these days is <a href="https://preview.us.coca-cola.com/products/coca-cola-flavors/cherry-zero-sugar">Coke Cherry Zero</a>. It's got a really nice taste. Went to the store today, they only had one 12-pack, but they also had a 12-pack of <a href="https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/brands/coca-cola/products/coca-cola-spiced">Coke Spiced Zero</a>. I decided to give it a try. I had a can at lunch and it's weird but okay I guess, but the belches are strongly flavored and that's <i>realllly</i> weird. It took me a while to figure out where this <a href="https://www.prevention.com/health/a32925734/why-do-my-burps-smell/">belch-breath</a> was coming from. It tastes like I took some very strong medicine. The weirdest soft drink I've ever had. But it kind of grows on you. I'll try another one and let you know how it goes. I post stuff to "Facebook" that could get inundated with hateful comments. I have a pretty good idea upfront which ones those are. I go ahead and post them. At the first sign of flameage I turn comments off, with a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dave.winer.12/posts/pfbid0YQnqZuksa8nEHgCsEcvyJ5krLniGoFCrRRB2UHmjsDGosFycKorpskY9KuokgQkNl?comment_id=393461023707630">simple explanation</a>. "I turned off comments here. I didn't want to have a discussion about this, it's just an observation." I think this is totally legit and more people should do it. Really frees you up to say what you see. BTW, this is what the new podcast feed <a href="https://feeder.scripting.com/returnjson?feedurl=http://scripting.com/podcast.xml">looks like</a> viewed in feeder. A two-podcast Tuesday
<a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/02/twoPodcastTuesdayPodcastPart1.m4a">This</a> is the first of <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/02/193103.html">two</a> podcasts for today. It started out being one podcast, but I hit the wrong button after 14 minutes and ended up with two audio files instead of one.I don't like editing, so you get two for the price of one. :-)It's a rambler, starts out with me talking about <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Allow-Me-Retort-Black-Constitution/dp/1620976811">Elie Mystal</a> on abortion and slavery. The second podcast explains how we're in a war, and it's about time we recognized it as such. We need the Democrats to do what we elected them to do, save the freaking United States, which by the way after yesterday's decision by the Supreme Court, doesn't really exist any longer. We go into that in the second episode. It's not enough to win the election. We have to get the Supreme Court back to a semblance of what it was. They're behaving in a way that's inconsistent with the continued existence of the country they're supposed to be part of the government of. But we can have a laugh along the way. The world hasn't completely fallen apart, <i>yet.</i> :smile: 14 minutes.
Second podcast of two
<a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/02/twoPodcastTuesdayPodcastPart2.m4a">This</a> is the second of <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/02/192636.html">two</a> podcasts for a two-podcast Tuesday, today.Very likely there will be another tomorrow. So much going on! :smile:25 minutes.
Plan for Biden re Supreme Court
<i>This is a lightly edited version of a <a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C864lCsuwbK">post</a> on Threads. </i>I understand why the Dems don't want to be the first to use the new rule passed by the Supreme Court, but I think they should consider this plan:
Arrest the members of the Supreme Court who just voted for the new rule about presidential immunity.Nominate six replacements, sorry no Repubs this time.The Senate ratifies them.Once they're installed, they hold an emergency session to restore Roe v Wade, and to undo all the other crazy BS they did and then revoke the new rule, and re-assert the rule of law that <i>especially</i> applies to the president.And I don't know what they do with the ones they arrested but frankly I don't care. Leave them in jail until they figure it out.And it's about time Trump was arrested and held without bail, so he can't do any more damage to the US while awaiting trial.
<a href="https://www.threads.net/@palafo">Patrick LaForge</a>, a longtime friend who works at the NYT: "I think the distinction here is that the president can't be prosecuted for violations of law but they would still be acts unsupported by law that a court could block or an agency could refuse to carry out. But they sure have created a mess."<a href="https://www.threads.net/@davew/post/C87TO13pkO_">My response</a>: Maybe starting to do it is enough to get the courts to undo the mess asap.
July 01
Every day now feels like another January 6.Our challenge is to make sure the really interesting stuff happens on the open web, outside the silos. If that happens we can go on. Otherwise we go right back to where we were when Twitter and Facebook dominated. Not a good place. 17 years of stagnationA new version of <a href="https://browse.blogroll.social/">Blogroll Browser</a>. You can now go directly to the OPML version of a blogroll, and to the HTML page we discovered it in. I know all this must seem strange, hard to figure out what's going on. That's how I feel about it too. But I know there's interesting data here, how people are connected to people. I'm still trying to figure out how to make a browser that engages the mind in that. It can take a long time to figure these things out. I had the basic idea for a blog in 1994, but it wasn't until 1999 that we really had it figured out and implemented for non-techies. This may be like that, or the browser might be just around the corner. <a href="https://github.com/scripting/opml.org/issues/22#issuecomment-2200240920">More Blogroll Browser features</a>. Beginnings of a social graph.The buggy images of ChatGPT perfectly fit the blogger <i>come as you are</i> ethos. We called this <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dogma+2000+site%3Ascripting.com">Dogma 2000</a>, the site is gone now, and it's even gone in archive.org. Sad to realize some of the simplest most worthwhile ideas are gone now. When talking to ChatGPT think of it as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_(Star_Trek)">Commander Data</a> on Star Trek, who, in an interesting turnabout is a robot played by a human. Oh the humanity. Another month <a href="https://github.com/scripting/Scripting-News/blob/master/blog/opml/2024/06.opml">in the archive</a>. Time flies when you're having fun! Every day
Thanks to NakedJen for this beautiful illustration.
Jeff Jarvis and Dave in conversation
I just did an approx 40 minute <a href="http://scripting.com/2024/07/01/jeffJarvisDiscusses.m4a">podcast</a> interview and discussion with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Jarvis">Jeff Jarvis</a>. I know Jeff from the early days of blogging. He was one of the best discussion leaders at BloggerCon. And he's an accomplished author and educator. We talk about how to organize news for people who are information starved by whatever it is that our news sources are doing, which is really hard to figure out, but in the end (I argue) who cares why, we have a problem to solve, so let's get on with it.I talk about the blogging at the Dean campaign in 2004, that's how they got around journalism. I'm sure that's where we have to go, put together what we think would be the Biden blog if the campaign was being run by Joe and Nicco, and I'd be on board, so would Jeff, and we'd help Heather Cox Richardson, and amplify anyone who is making sense and supports democracy. It could be funded by the <a href="http://scripting.com/2016/07/01/1342.html">People's PAC</a>, or something like it. It wouldn't take very much money, it's just a blog. But it would have powerful ideas that cut through the bullshit, and great videos, and we'd organize marches where people show up to help people.And the campaign would never stop, we'd always be organizing.This is the discussion I wanted to start. Hope you enjoy! :-)PS: Jeff's mike is much better than mine. Gotta work on that.