Dave Winer posts in early January 2016

My current bookmarks page of sites that I visit or feeds that I consume includes a link to DW's feed near the top of the list. I access his feed multiple times per day to see what new insights he has posted. I'm mainly interested in his thoughts and projects regarding web publishing.

I agree and disagree with his tech posts. I don't care about the other topics. I don't access his Facebook or Twitter pages, except in extremely rare occasions. I read the RSS feed from his blog.

Here is how I read Dave Winer's writings: feed page.

I use my custom "feed" command that is included within my Junco code that powers this site. The feed command also exists in the Parula code that powers my message board at ToledoTalk.com.

Here's how it works. The feed= is surrounded by two curly braces at each end. The line must begin at the start of a new line in order for it to work.

Scripting News - 2025-01-05T18:25:33Z

- 2025-01-05T18:25:33Z
Update: Bluesky images work again and thus the Great Art on Bluesky channel is back. If you're on Bluesky please subscribe.

- 2025-01-05T15:28:29Z
The crazy thing about Bluesky's API is they took already standardized things like links and enclosures, and after 20+ years came up with new definitions. Makes our apps more expensive to maintain, and we waste time and human wear and tear on stupid bullshit make-work. Developers are people, and our work is already horribly overly complex, we're working at the edge of comprehension, and what the fukc let's throw some more unnecessary complication into the mix. Arrogance, narcissism, whatever the source is, it's not a good way to introduce yourself. And, even better, after you go through the maze they break it, with an error message about legacy blob bullshit. They've already done this, and they're just getting started. It's why I say they should just adapt to RSS instead of trying to force us to adapt to them. I'll do it one more time, and then that's it. They can fix my code next time they break it.

- 2025-01-05T15:46:58Z
BTW, in defense of Matt Mullenweg and the culture of the developer community he built over the last 20 years, for better or worse, they don't do what Bluesky did. They look for prior art and implement it and they don't deprecate. They're still running the APIs we invented for blogging before WordPress even existed. The philosophy is "Let's not argue about decisions made a long time ago, because we want interop." People have all kinds of harsh things to say about their leadership, but unless you're a developer you don't understand that the reason it works is that they have a different code for their code, the only way we get interop is by not re-inventing. There are two competing ways to do things in tech. The blogging world has been taken over by the re-inventors, like the Bluesky people. They make a nice product, but honestly they don't reallllly want us to work with them, or we wouldn't be having this friction. Their API is bullshit. Plain and simple. They even thought of using RSS constructs and decided to reinvent the whole thing. There are places to innovate, like new freedom for users and developers, or there are ways to create hamster cages where everyone gets to run around in a very tightly defined space, that's fun. That's what Twitter was about, and that's what Bluesky is doing too. At some point we're really going to break free of this mess, but this isn't that time, yet.

- 2025-01-04T22:36:32Z
Just taking it easy. Thinking about stuff. Will resume blogging soon. 😄

- 2025-01-04T22:37:17Z
BTW, as promised, last night's Knicks game was great. Up until the end, when the other guys took over and sadly the Knicks lost. We need a stronger bench. The starting five are great but they're not totally super-human.

- 2025-01-04T01:00:24Z
Knicks on Friday night: A big offline day here in the mountains, the show will resume tomorrow bright and early, Murphy-willing. Enjoy tonight's Knicks game in OKC. Should be a great game. 😄

Gambling, sports, kids - 2025-01-04T01:45:48Z

Krugman writes about social media is poisoning children's minds.

I like that Krugman has resumed his blogging.

This means that sometimes I agree or disagree, or have mixed opinions, but I always learn something. That's what makes a blogger good imho.

I don't know if I agree that children's minds are being poisoned. But I am pretty sure when people like Krugman and myself reach a certain age, and we are the same age, we start looking at new media that way. Maybe our minds are poisoned. My father called television the "idiot box." But it eventually became the literature of my generation, often very good. But maybe laws can help.

One thing I am sure of is that sports is being ruined by gambling. I can't imagine that a parent in 2025 would let their kids watch the NBA on TV, because it makes gambling appear to be a normal part of being a fan. Yet the NBA, which has a reputation of being socially forward-thinking, has swallowed the pill, and gambling is an integral part of coverage of the NBA now.

Same with the NFL, MLB and tennis.

And is this why they can now afford to sign players to $765 million contracts?

They're all getting hugely rich, but I believe that they are certainly doing great harm to the new sports fans growing up now.

I am a no apologist for being a sports fan. I love the Mets and the Knicks, have flirted with the Niners, and have a place in my heart for the Cubs and Red Sox, and I know that gambling spoils what's fun about sports, can turn it into an awful addiction. I manage to be a fan without ever having bet on a game, even just a bet between friends. I don't see it as part of sports. It wasn't the way my family enjoyed sports.

I was a math major and a 50+ year programmer, and I know that if you gamble enough you lose all your money. And as an addiction no gambler ever gets up from the table to enjoy their winnings when they win.

PS: I wrote this post in WordLand on New Years Day, saving it for a good moment on Scripting.

Little Feed Reader on Bluesky - 2025-01-02T14:31:49Z

My little feed reader on Bluesky is ready for you to follow.

Technically, this is how the pieces fit together.

1. I'm using the OPML file for my blogroll category on feedland.social to determine what's posted on Bluesky. When I add or remove feeds from the category, the OPML adjusts dynamically.
2. I'm running a new Node app that has a websocket connection to feedland.social. It receives all the new items as they are found from all feeds over the socket. It's feedland.social's firehose. Since I'm currently the only user of that server, it's getting news from the all feeds I follow, not just the ones in the blogroll category.
3. The Node app checks each new item to see if it's in one of the feeds in the OPML list. If so, it reformats it to fit in a Bluesky post and sends it to the feediverse account.
4. If you're subscribed you should see the item, with a link, in your Bluesky timeline.

Notes.

1. The Node app re-loads the OPML subscription list every minute so any change is quickly reflected.
2. It's the same blogroll you see on my blog's home page.
3. The biggest problem in getting this running was rate-limiting. I have dealt with this on Twitter and other services, but Bluesky was not, for a while, letting anything through with the error message that we were over the limit. It was suggested that we should cache the accessToken rather get a new one for every message. I did that and cautiously turned the server on again at first with a 5 message per hour self-imposed limit, then gradually increased it to 10 per hour. The latest version only requires that there be at least five minutes between posts, so that means no more than 12 per hour.
4. Thanks to Mark Cuban for the initial idea and his support. He saw a river of news from FeedLand and asked if it could work in Bluesky. That was the idea. I have always wanted a tight coupling between Bluesky and RSS but didn't know how to do it. We may have just skipped a step.
5. We realllly could use some more formating features in Bluesky messages. This is a really strong use-case imho for the textcasting idea.
6. The coolest thing from my point of view is that I already had all the pieces, fully developed, the only thing that remained was to hook them together.
7. Finally, there's a this.how page for Little Feed Reader. It's purposely brief, but I have put a link to this post on that page.

- 2025-01-01T15:59:12Z
I wrote a few blog posts in WordLand this morning because it was convenient. It's good the same way I like to use a twitter-like app to write first drafts, when all I have to type into is my iPad. I've also started using it on my desktop for short things, but I just wrote and edited a complete blog post, a response to something Krugman wrote, about how gambling is destroying sports. And what for? It's like what Marge said at the end of Fargo. "There's more to life than a little money, you know." It feels like they're feeding the NBA into a wood chipper. What comes out the other side won't imho be recognizable as sport. And here you are, and it's a beautiful day.

- 2025-01-01T15:55:20Z
Welcome to a brand new year. The best one ever. 😄

- 2025-01-01T15:55:54Z
I've archived December in the GitHub repo, in OPML, as usual.

- 2025-01-01T15:57:09Z
I've got so much new stuff stacked up, on its way out. Hold onto your hats.

I'd like to excerpt from and comment about three DW posts that he made over the past couple days.

• Jan 4, 2016 - Leave nothing but footprints
• Jan 4, 2016 - Why tech insiders must be on Facebook
• Jan 5, 2016 - Re Twitter easing the 140-char limit

Dave claims that he likes the open web, and he often rails against silos, such as Twitter and Facebook. A couple years ago when I discoveredI heard the #indieweb use the word silo to describe social media sites