Pondering Dave Winer's early Jan 2016 posts

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 - 2024-05-02T21:39:12Z

- 2024-05-02T21:39:12Z
I asked ChatGPT and Meta.ai to draw a typical residential street in north Queens.

First browser-based blogging tool - 2024-05-02T15:29:21Z

In February 1999, playing with blog writing in the browser. This was a new idea at that point. Full-size screen shot.

Two podcast episodes - 2024-05-02T15:13:38Z

If you want a new perspective on the election, two recommendations.

• Greg Sargent interviewed political consultant Joe Trippi, who explains why third parties could make all the difference in the election.
• Chris Lydon interviewed Richard Slotkin about the four major stories of American politics.

Both very illuminating and immediately influenced my thinking.

What became of 1999.io - 2024-05-02T14:09:41Z

TL;DR: It's gone -- you can't get there. Because it uses Twitter for identity. It and bingeworthy.io are the two apps I miss the most.

1999 was a rewrite of blogging software from the point of view of both 1999 and 2016. Both timeframes. I had learned a lot inbetween, and the art of online interaction had moved forward a lot. I had become a user of Facebook, and was impressed with how their software worked. I was imploring them to turn it into a blogging system, it was achingly close. When I realized they weren't going to do it, I set out to do it myself, how I imagined Facebook would do a blogging system. Of course I didn't have their source code, so I built it from scratch.

Because 1999 used Twitter for identity, I couldn't use it. I also couldn't use Radio, because it ran on Windows and a now-obsolete version of the Mac OS. It's made me think that maybe in a few years or even months you might not be able to use FeedLand or Drummer. Then I thought about how I can better future-safe them for users. And that led me to adding a simple feature to FeedLand that will help if a FeedLand server you depend on should go off the air. See the next post, below.

Protecting your FeedLand subscription lists - 2024-05-02T13:56:43Z

First and foremost, you should keep a current backup copy of your subscription list. It's very easy to do.

• In FeedLand, choose My feed list in the first menu.
• Click on the white-on-orange XML icon, in the upper right corner of the page.
• That will open a standard OPML version of your subscription list. This is the format that all feed reading software understands.
• In your browser, choose the Save Page As command in the File menu (or something like that, there are lots of browsers) and save it along with your other backups.
• You can also automate it if you can run a script that gets stuff over the internet. Once a night would be fine, not a huge burden on the server.

I added another way to preserve your feed list, using localStorage.

• Every time you sign in FeedLand now saves a copy of your subscription list in localStorage.
• And if the FeedLand server you're using should happen to disappear, if you have not taken a backup in a while, if you have a tab open, you'll at least have a copy in localStorage.
• If you want to see it -- visit feedland.org or feedland.com, wherever you have an account, and do a hard reload. Then open the JavaScript console, and enter this line:
• console.log (localStorage.savedUserSubs)
• If you have questions, here's a thread.

If not now, when? - 2024-05-02T19:38:26Z

- 2024-05-01T18:41:41Z
There's a FeedLand Blogroll Toolkit if you want to adapt it to work in your blogging environment. We already have a WordPress plugin.

- 2024-05-01T18:25:14Z
F. Murray Abraham, pictured to the right, played the part of the bad guy in a fantastic movie about the Inquisition. We're headed that way in the US. A man very much like Bernardo Gui will be advising women and their doctors on what is permitted in women's health care.

- 2024-05-01T13:00:58Z
If you're a blogger, here's something to think about. Whose writing influenced the way you write? Here's my list: Kurt Vonnegut, My uncle Ken (not his writing, rather his way of telling stories), my father, Russell Baker, Robert Hunter (lyricist for the Dead), Douglas Coupland (specifically MicroSerfs), the Suck.com guys, everyone who was writing at Hotwired in 1995. I'll think of others, but those are the ones who come to mind. I have been a constant reader since I was a little kid, so there's a mix of writing styles from authors I don't immediately remember. I should also do one of these lists for who inspired my software.

- 2024-05-01T14:31:01Z
My father taught me how to organize my thinking when I was trying to figure out how something works. And that's basically what I've spent my life on, figuring out how things work. The most interesting and gratifying was understanding things that didn't exist until I pieced their story together.

- 2024-05-01T12:28:11Z
I have to admit I like Tyrese Maxey of the Sixers, who spoiled a Knicks victory last night that would have closed out the first round of the playoffs. It felt like the Knicks had won the game when Maxie single-handedly pulled the Sixers back into contention. Now the Knicks are up 3-2 with the next game in Philadelphia tomorrow night. But! I didn't flip out this time like I did for the last game, and I think it was because I was able to watch it on local TV with the familiar play by play guy, Mike Breen, and the best color guy for any sport, Walt Clyde Frazier. If he wasn't flipping out why should I. One of the things I love about his narration is that he uses words incorrectly, kind of like Archie Bunker. I keep wanting to say "I do not think it means what you think it means," but then I realized, last night, for the first time, it's freaking poetry! A lot of it even rhymes. And it's a poem that will go on as long as the Knicks do. Unfortunately I don't think the MSG crew is going to be doing the next game. And btw, they do a much better job of camera work than ESPN. Maybe it's because the TV people have been able to iterate the camera setup the same way I iterate the UI of a piece of software. The same company owns the TV network as owns the arena as owns the team. It's all totally horizontally integrated. At dinner the other night a friend asked, if the owner of the Knicks wasn't a putz. I said of course, he's the worst but, the Knicks now are being well managed. So maybe he's mellowed out a bit?

- 2024-05-01T14:21:54Z
When I log on to meta.ai, these are the suggestions. None of them relate to things I'm thinking about. I haven't been a student or interviewed for a job in decades. But I've been on Facebook for many years, and I had to connect this to my Facebook account to use it, so presumably it knows all that Facebook knows about me, about me. How long before this is customized?

- 2024-05-01T12:33:47Z
I'm looking for a quick and easy and ideally free way to upload an MP3 of a podcast and get back a transcript. I have a feeling that a podcast I recorded yesterday will work better as a written document, but I don't have the patience to transcribe it myself. I asked on Twitter, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, ChatGPT, Meta.ai.

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. In the summer of 2013, I discovered the #indieweb group via a poster mentioning the https://indiewebcamp.com in a comment to one of DW's posts. Maybe the word "silo" has been used for a long time to describe social media sites, but the term got popularized in my conscience by the Indieweb site.

I added #webmention support to my Junco code because of the Indieweb group. The Indieweb people "use" social media sites differently. They own their own domain names. They post articles and notes to their own blog sites. But rather than manually cross-posting their info their many social media presences, they use software that makes it appear that the Indieweb users are using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. just like everyone else, but that's not the true.

Indieweb users may never log into their social media sites, but their content gets posted to those sites, and the comments, likes, shares, etc. at those other sites come back to their personal sites. It's interesting.

Since I don't "use" Twitter and Facebook, having my info posted automatically at those other sites is unnecessary. I use Instagram but mainly as a notetaking app and a place to store photos. But lately, I rely more on Flickr. Again. I've been using Flickr for many years. I don't use Flickr to network with others. I use it to store photos that I then embed into my own web publishing apps and sites.

This past summer, I created my Waxwing app to be a simple image uploader that speeds up the process of using images within my web publishing apps. But I still use Flickr too.

I'm not interested in networking with people beyond my own message board ToledoTalk.com that I started in January 2003.

I could be considered anti-social because I don't use the hot social media/social networking sites, and that's okay by me. I'm fine with being labeled and called names. I won't get offended.

I like message boards, wikis, and blogs. If that's old school or archaic, then that's okay too because I subscribe to the theory that every human being is unique. Why would zealot fans of social media sites assume that everyone should enjoy using those sites/apps? And why do these zealot fans get irritated that some people have the nerve not to use those sites?

I don't care if these social media sites exist. More amateur content gets created. That's a good thing. They all have pros and cons. But I'm simply not interested in them. And I'm not alone with this thinking.

I'm not going to get upset because people use Facebook, and I won't waste my time trying to convince people to stop using Facebook. I don't care if people use Facebook.

I enjoy building and using my own websites. That probably puts me into a minority of a minority. Many Indieweb users also build or install their own software to manage their personal sites. Different breed. What's wrong with diversity?

What's odd is when the zealot social media fans try to convince us that we need Facebook and we must post to Facebook, etc. I don't know why they seem to be upset when people decide to delete their Facebook accounts.

Again, what's wrong with diversity?

I have many interests. I post to my niche sites. I read the web in my own way. And I have been doing these activities for 15 years or more. I don't need help nor guidance from anyone in this area.

I wonder if the zealot fans of social media are creating a new form of acceptable intolerance that's directed at people who don't share their fandom of
the hot social media sites.

Excerpts from DW's post titled "Leave nothing but footprints":

The universe just laughs at your ambition. Hah! You're a mere speck of dust, says the universe, a speck that exists for an infinitesimally short period of time.

Don't try to change the world. Instead, try to work with other people.

Observe. Think. Share your experience, but strive to not change a thing.

That emphasized part seems like an odd thing for DW to suggest. I vehemently disagree with it.

My wife and I will continue to help change a small part of Toledo for the better by volunteering with an organization that helps parents to educate their children before they start school.

It's why I created the website http://babyutoledo.com/ for the non-profit. I'm better with technical functions, and my wife is better at interacting with people directly.

The goal of Baby U is to end generational poverty. That's a lofty goal, but if successful, it would be a positive change for the Old South End area of Toledo. How can that be bad?

DW ended that piece with:

It's better to just be kind to each other. Your name may not ring down through the ages, but at least you will have lived a good life that you can be proud of.

That's all good, but why can't changing something for the better and being kind to each other exist together?

It seems that DW contradicts himself a little with his next post titled "Why tech insiders must be on Facebook." Some excerpts:

I know a fair number of people who don't use Facebook or don't understand Facebook, and I think these people are hurting themselves, if they want to be part of tech as it goes forward, and in some sense they are hurting the web, by trying to be part of a network that does not involve Facebook.

My head hurts when I read his opening, authoritative statements.

Again, DW rails against silos, and he claims to support the open web, but in this post he believes that a tech person will miss out on future tech and hurt the open web if they don't use Facebook. That seems senseless to me.

And what about his previous post:

It's better to just be kind to each other. Your name may not ring down through the ages, but at least you will have lived a good life that you can be proud of.

Maybe people who want to live a good life are too busy to use the hot social media sites, or maybe they don't want to be a part of the vitriol that can exist with Facebook and Twitter.

It's possible that I don't use Facebook and Twitter because I've been running a message board for 13 years. In the past, I enjoyed using my own playground for heated debates. I've toned down my rhetoric over the years, which means the site's overall tone has softened too.

I'm no longer interested in flame-throwing with other message board users, and really don't want that kind of activity to occur on a site that I fund. And that's why I will never permit traditional comments to occur on my publishing apps Junco, Grebe, Scaup, and Veery. At most, I'll accept Webmentions.

I still occasionally write about my disdain toward local politicians, but even this activity has decreased significantly in recent years because it's so boring. I guess that I care less about what local officials do because nothing changes. It's better to attempt change by getting involved with other orgs.

But why does DW care if people don't use Facebook? Just move on. Don't worry about it. He added:

This morning Scoble got on the case of Bijan Sabet, out of the blue, as he often does, with a rant about how Facebook is the best place to be.

Scoble is the king of the zealot supporters of Facebook. Wow. I hope that it's okay to call him names.

Scoble said:

Deleting Facebook is idiotic.

Anyone who deletes Facebook is anti social. Best video distribution system. Best conversations. Best content.

Best conversations? No way. Not better than ToledoTalk.com FOR ME.

And selfishly, I'm more concerned about ME and not what others think, regarding the benefits of Facebook. I know that Facebook provides benefits, especially regarding updates from favorite small businesses, non-profits, and other orgs. Baby University maintains a Facebook page. I don't maintain it.

I was planning to delete my Facebook account this week because I don't use it. After reading Scoble's intolerance, I'm convinced even more that I don't need a Facebook account.

I'll gladly be an idiot and anti-social by not having a Facebook account. I won't lose sleep. I won't miss anything because the World Wide Web is still huge without Facebook. I know how to surf the web. I won't feel cheated or handicapped. I won't feel anything because I rarely logged into my Facebook account anyway. I don't have the Facebook app on my phone.

We are the new cool, hip people :)

Bijan Sabet ‏added common sense:

I'm not using these products for business. I want to use products that I love. And I don't love FB.

Simple explanation. And I don't understand why Facebook fans object to someone else's way of thinking. Intolerance?

DW wrote in his blog post:

I differ with Scoble on why you should be on Facebook, but not that you should be there.

DW rambles on for a while about the music industry 50 years ago or something. I didn't understand the relation. He finally got back on point.

If you want to be current with tech as it goes forward, you must be in the loop on what's happening on Facebook, if only because every person you hope to sell technology to in the future is using it. They will judge everything in relation to what they have experienced on Facebook.

Ah, okay. Well, since I don't personally sell technology, then I assume that it's okay for me not to use Facebook.

I can read about Facebook tech and their innovations by what shows up on Hacker News or Techmeme. I don't need to use Facebook to be aware of what the company is doing. I stay current with the tech that interests me.