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 - 2024-05-17T21:07:34Z

- 2024-05-17T16:29:04Z
Today's song: That's the way god planned it.

- 2024-05-17T21:07:34Z
Here's something that matters. Somehow ChatGPT gets the story right about my various contributions. You'll see all kinds of BS in Wikipedia and other various highly rated sites. Somehow ChatGPT sees through the bullshit, and usually gets the story right. So when people say that human reporting is better than machine reporting, I think this may be one of those cases where conventional wisdom is wrong. The human record is relatively easy to manipulate if the researchers are lazy and/or dishonest.

- 2024-05-17T16:42:17Z
People get all moral about AI, but I for one would never go back.

- 2024-05-17T16:45:45Z
Wouldn't it be great if there was a social web toolkit with the basic building blocks so we could experiment with different UI and behaviors. Why, after so many years are we still so controlled. When and why did we give up?

- 2024-05-17T16:19:50Z
On MSNBC yesterday I saw a discussion where two black panelists were asked to comment on Trump's idea that black people go for him because they can relate to his awful prison mug shot. How incredibly insulting. It's just like what Trump says about Jewish Americans being loyal to Israel. Such an un-American idea. We all got here different ways. Some for a better life, some for life at all, others as slaves. But the United States is a big-hearted idea -- the United States. It's unfortunate that such a small-minded disunited person is so powerful now. We still have a long way to go.

Google and The Innovator's Dilemma in 2024 - 2024-05-17T13:10:08Z

It's overwhelming how much ground Google has to cover to get AI into all their products, but that's what they think they have to do, and I more or less agree. They feel they have to because their main product, search, is threatened by ChatGPT.

Clayton Christensen called this The Innovator's Dilemma in a book published in 1997. It's why Netscape was able to undermine Microsoft when the web came out. Microsoft had a huge beast they had to move, Windows, and all its apps, and while they had a hardcore, scrappy and rich culture, they couldn't overcome the inertia that comes from being dug in, with their cannons pointed at the already-vanquished IBM, not the upstarts that came from the VCs in Silicon Valley.

Microsoft and the rest of the PC industry had written off Unix, but there it was, again -- ugly as ever, but with networking that really worked and was easy, and the users wanted networking even though Microsoft wanted them to want Office.

Google did the same with AI. As did Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. They had AI projects, and used AI in limited areas, as did Microsoft with Unix in the early 90s. But they couldn't bet everyting on it like a startup can. Now they have to. But the they don't have the tools needed to fight the new war. That's the dilemma.

This is the toughest corner any tech company has to turn, but there is an approach that could work for Google. Their strength is distribution. They have all the users. They can take a product that's ready for the world to market in a day. But they can't develop it. You can't snap your fingers and have a good new UI for every one of their products, ready in a year, although they will try as MS tried to adapt Office to the web. They don't have the right people or corporate culture to do that. Instead you have to hope you can find a great bootstrapping startup outside to work with, and use their strength as a distributor to help them. This is what I recommended for Microsoft in the 1990s, and I think I was vindicated, it would have imho worked a lot better than the path they chose.

But now, their third time around this loop, Microsoft has learned! With their OpenAI partnership they've done exactly what I recommended in the 90s. They still have to convert all the old software and their user interfaces around the new capabilities, but at least they also own a share of a bootstrap that's now booming.

PS: I am blessed to have lived long enough now to have been part of now six different rearrangements like this. I love that we have now gotten there again. There's absolutely no doubt now, imho. The six rearrangements -- minis, PCs, GUIs, web, Napster, and now AI.

PPS: This is all my opinion, and from the polls I did yesterday, it's obvious that many of the people within earshot don't agree or have seen the light yet.

The Knicks and the Epic Fart - 2024-05-17T13:42:01Z

Dave to ChatGPT: I just read a news story that the Knicks won the last game in the playoffs because of an epic fart in the locker room. Can you draw a light-hearted illustration of that event?

Then I asked for a serious and dramatic illustration.

I imagine you can bet on who the farter was.

My guess would be Hartenstein.

- 2024-05-16T20:06:47Z
Poll 1 on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads: "If you're a developer, how much has ChatGPT or its equivalents affected the way you develop?"

- 2024-05-16T21:26:31Z
Poll 2 on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads: "Has ChatGPT replaced Google (or other search engine) when you look up something for a development project, environment, etc.?

- 2024-05-16T13:56:37Z
The thing that Casey Newton predicts for Google and news has already happened for the huge base of reference info and know-how for software development. We no longer go to the sources, don't need to, the ChatGPT version is an order of magnitude better. What we do need is people to keep asking and answering questions for each other, so the knowledge can be added into the AI database. We're going somewhere here. It's worth going there, imho, having experienced the before, and only starting to glimpse the now and near-future. But it's as big a step as the move to PCs, then GUIs, the web, mobile.

- 2024-05-16T13:04:19Z
Something I'd like from ChatGPT or a plug-in. I'd like to create a notebook of info I'd like it to have available for people who inquire about a product I'm developing. As I'm working on the code, I develop features that sometimes don't make it into the docs. But when I'm working on the feature, I take lots of notes in my work outline. I'd like to give that outline to a LLM and let it figure out which product I'm talking about by the context it appears in. Maybe all I have to do is publish the notes when the product comes out, and eventually, like a search engine, my favorite AI will crawl it. I wonder if it makes sense to somehow pre-digest it. I wish I had a panel of experts about this stuff, but I guess they'd have to be human, at least at this point in time. If this makes sense to you and you know how to get started, post a note here.

- 2024-05-15T20:43:59Z
My AI bot is a library, a librarian, a programming partner, tutor and executive assistant. And we're just getting started working together.

- 2024-05-15T15:57:30Z
AI is not over-hyped, imho. I'm discovering new significance for it every day. An example. I had to go back to some very complex code I wrote a week ago. I wanted to give it new flexibility, that would be simple from the user's point of view, and in order for it to work technically it has to maintain that simplicity internally. It's a tall order to go back to something complex a week after writing it, and rip it apart and put it back together and have it retain the simplicity it had before. But I had an advantage this time that I had never had before, a programming partner with a perfect memory. I had written the original code with ChatGPT. So I went back and asked it to review my plan, and then worked with it step by step as I had before. It had perfect recall, right, of course where my recall is pretty sketchy. It took two sessions to get it done, but it works now, and I'm confident I've covered all the bases. How do you put that story in a press release? If you want to understand a new technology, don't talk to the CEO of the tech company that made the product, their lives are whirlwinds, they don't have time or the capacity to understand how big the idea is, they just know that it is big. If you want to understand you have to use it and you have to talk with other users.

- 2024-05-15T13:26:30Z
Martha My Dear is the essential Paul McCartney love song.

- 2024-05-15T13:18:28Z
This is a typical dialog you see when you visit a site with an ad blocker installed. They say that turning off the ad blocker will "support" them. No, I don't think it actually will do anything for them. It might expose me to malware or having my interests shared with businesses who will use that info for who-knows-what. Much better would be to let me click a button to give them $0.50 to read the freaking article that's behind that idiotic dialog, and btw, the payment would have to be anonymous or I'm clicking the Back button. I really did want to know what happens if Trump is found guilty and sentenced to prison. I still do. But I don't think I'm going to turn off my ad blocker. I'll think about it. In the meantime if they had let me pay them $0.50 to read the freaking article, I might have linkblogged it to people who follow me via RSS or email, or on Bluesky or Mastodon, thus giving them a chance to sell others on paying $0.50 to read the freaking article. Not promising I'd do that, but if they really answer the question, if I really learn something I certainly would pass it along. Come on USA Today, get conscious. We'll happily support you for giving us info we wanted, just let us actually help you in a meaningful way, not by penalizing us for having the audacity to use an ad blocker.

- 2024-05-16T00:45:48Z
I wonder if anyone named their dog Alexa, and if any hilarity ensued.

The Knicks won last night - 2024-05-15T16:06:38Z

They needed fresh blood, and they got it.

Knicks won in a blowout.

I had no idea that was coming.

Next game on Friday.

- 2024-05-14T13:10:39Z
Yesterday's OpenAI big press event was a nothing burger. I thought they already had all of that stuff, they certainly had been at least telegraphing it. Also there never will be another Steve Jobs, it's too bad everyone is using his template for product announcements. It only works if you're Steve Jobs.

- 2024-05-14T13:12:34Z
BTW, I've been to three Stevenotes, the first one, the rollout of the Mac in 1984, then the rollout of NeXT in 1988, and a random press event in 1997 announcing they were going with Unix server products instead of the homegrown much easier to use Mac server products. We could have had both of course, but Jobs never really wanted developers imho, truth be told. We were inside in 1984 because Mike Boich and Guy Kawasaki were doing the evangelism.

- 2024-05-14T12:38:37Z
It's a crazy world, so crazy that RFK, Jr could be elected president via a third-party. He's a better speaker than either of the other candidates. If he didn't a speech impediment I'd say he was basically a sure thing. I don't know how crazy he actually is, but he cleans up nicely, having seen him interviewed on MSNBC a few days ago. He had good PR training somewhere, it's probably not just from the genes, he is a freaking Kennedy, his mother was a wife of a Kennedy, and clearly raised him well. I'm voting for Biden of course. I'm not that crazy. But people are tired of Biden, I understand why -- and they want a president they can look up to, not one that reminds them of their 80-something grandfather. And people are also understandably fed up with Trump. Before it's over we will come to think of him not as a spoiler but as a possible future president, where "future" is less than a year away.

- 2024-05-14T13:08:19Z
Someday I'll make a list of people who I wish would read this blog.

- 2024-05-14T12:34:04Z
If a baker may not be forced to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding on the basis of religious freedom, surely a woman can’t be forced to give birth to an unwanted child.

Brunson as bad man or decoy - 2024-05-14T12:59:08Z

In this picture he either looks dangerous or defeated, or both. I wouldn't want to have to play against him tonight.

Here's my two cents. If Brunson has heavy legs tonight, as he clearly did in the last two games, he should be used as a decoy, to draw a double team, to free up one of the Knicks' assassins. Or maybe he'll be more effective with just one Pacer guarding him, instead of two or three.

And for crying out loud, start one of the excellent bench players, McBride or Sims or Burks, or all of them, and make sure the heroes of games 1 and 2 get plenty of rest.

- 2024-05-13T20:41:38Z
I've been trying the new 4o version of ChatGPT. It's much faster. It certainly is a search engine. And it covers news. I asked it about Michael Cohen's testimony today in the Trump trial, and it gave me a summary. I asked for the weather forecast in Kingston NY. It wouldn't give me the lyrics to Martha My Dear by the Beatles. I asked it to draw a weather map of the mid-Atlantic states, but it drew the usual garbage for technical images.

- 2024-05-13T19:15:44Z
I can’t wait for the UIs of settings on systems like Mac or Android to go through the AIs. No more hunting through menus to not find the setting where you’re sure it should be.

- 2024-05-13T13:04:09Z
Here's where we're headed now that we have AI programming partners. Creating software will be possible the way popular music is created. Watch Get Back to get an idea. George Martin was the Beatles sherpa, the same way my AI partner is my guide through unknown programming lands. It now doesn't matter if I have less experience building MySQL apps than others. I have the collective experience of all of them here to help. My George Martin. What got me thinking about this is John Naughton's piece about AI and programming.

- 2024-05-13T13:06:51Z
The way MSNBC has contributors, I want contributors for my blog. One of the first people I'd invite is John Naughton. See next item.

- 2024-05-13T13:11:45Z
BTW, that's what my blogroll is turning into. My contributors. The people I keep an eye on through my work day. Where I get new ways of looking at the same world we're all looking at. We used to call this "watching them watch us watch them watching us etc."

- 2024-05-13T12:13:16Z
The canonical Knicks fan, a video.

- 2024-05-13T12:03:59Z
I feel like crap today, the Knicks were blown out by the Indiana team, the series is tied 2-2 but it feels much worse. The headline in the Daily News reads "Pacers blow depleted, dead-legged Knicks out of the water in Game 4, tie series 2-2." Yeah. I don't know how we recover from this loss. In a way I imagine the Knicks issuing a resignation. "It's been a great season, but we're tired. We're headed to the beach, we'll see you in October Knicks fans. Thanks for your support." I would nod my head and say "Yeah that makes sense." Whatever. I may spend today sleeping it off. Next game is tomorrow night. Yes, they will play, for sure, and yes, I will watch.

- 2024-05-13T12:09:49Z
I absolutely abhor news sites that make you turn off your ad blocker only to reveal their paywall.

- 2024-05-14T01:53:49Z
Imagine a social web without, by default, the right to drop turds where ever you like.

- 2024-05-14T01:57:47Z
FSD gets confused and does some incredibly stupid things. With ChatGPT it's amusing but with FSD it's your ass on the line.

Weather map - 2024-05-13T20:51:22Z

I asked ChatGPT to draw a weather map of the mid-Atlantic states, but it drew the usual garbage for technical images.

- 2024-05-12T15:11:49Z
Today's one sentence provocation: Imagine a social web without the default right to drop turds where ever you like.

- 2024-05-12T23:02:38Z
Every social web should offer the two same author-level moderation controls that Facebook does. 1. The author can delete comments. 2. The author can say who can respond. Here are screen shots of the menu and dialog. We assume each site already has the ability to block users. No more spammer trolls.

- 2024-05-12T14:31:42Z
ChatGPT is like a worldwide encyclopedia that comes with a free librarian, 24 hours a day, who never gets tired and thinks all your questions are super insightful. I suppose everyone projects their ideal best friend on this thing. You just learned something about me. Heh. But the cool thing is it's not a yes-person, if they think you're wrong they say so. Which I really like. One more thing I'm really glad I got to be alive when this stuff came online. I feel much smarter and better organized and it's harder for me to get lost in the weeds, as I do sometimes. I guess what want next is a librarian who also is a great executive assistant. Takes notes on what I'm doing and figures out what I need to be reminded of and roughly when.

- 2024-05-12T11:58:36Z
Sometimes I just put one idea on my blog for a day and leave it at that because I think the idea is important enough on its own, and that any explanation would dilute it. Yesterday's one sentence comment was based on decades of reading the NYT, and the story told by their executive editor in a recent interview, who has imho completely lost his way. Using polls, which have proven not reliable, and are subject to manipulation by the NYT and other opinion leaders, to determine what they cover, that's marketing, not journalism. Journalism would tell us what to expect if we elect one candidate over another, if the differences are obvious, as they are in 2024. The NYT is not doing that, by its own admission, and based on observation. I ask my readers, some of whom are influential people themselves, do we accept this, and keep trying to get the NYT to understand and deliver on their responsibility, or take the problem on ourselves. I believe we have the tools and resources to do so, all we need is determination.

- 2024-05-11T22:57:51Z
The NYT is no more about news than the Repubs are about governing.

- 2024-05-11T01:57:54Z
Pretty sure I understand why Jack Dorsey is disappointed with Bluesky. The mistake they made at Twitter was taking responsibility for enforcing decorum, which is completely diseconomic. A fully decentralized system is very different. That was why he funded Bluesky, to make a social web that wouldn't have at its center a company responsible for content.

- 2024-05-10T15:30:45Z
This year's Knicks are as memorable as the 1970 team. Brunson, DiVincenzo, Hart, Anunoby and Hartenstein. They have totally distinct superpowers. Tonight's game will be played without Brunson and Anunoby, both injured. That means McBride and Atchiuwa start, probably. I kept wanting to tell friends about these guys, they're just as exciting as the starters. And don't forget there's another center and forward still on the bench who have done real starting minutes this year and two years ago. They are Knicks too.

- 2024-05-10T12:27:41Z
A useful thread, where people share answers to a request for "an extremely minimal, clean blogging site with practically no bells or whistles where I can just share things on my mind."

The NYT runs on freedom and apparently they don't know that - 2024-05-10T15:24:11Z

This is a hard idea to get across, but there's nothing wrong with a news organization favoring things they depend on to exist.

For example, a news org that covers San Jose, CA is entitled to favor San Jose. It's okay for them to do things that help San Jose in competition with other cities. They could sponsor a food drive for the neediest in their community. It wouldn't be a conflict of interest, because it's understood that they have an interest in the success of San Jose.

A columnist that covers the NY Mets can be happy when the Mets win the World Series, and sad when they don't. This is not an integrity issue, or something they need to disclose, unless it's not obvious that they cover the Mets.

In that sense, every news org in the United States depends on the First Amendment, so it can be assumed they're in favor of democracy, because without it they couldn't exist.

This is why the editor of the NYT's statement about not favoring democracy is so ridiculous. He can't be objective about that, because the existence of his organization depends on the continuation of democracy in the US.

Whether he knows it or not, he's against Trump and in favor of the Democrats in the upcoming election.

Sometimes it's hard to see what's totally obvious. Ask a fish about water and they'll say there is no such thing. Same with free speech and the NYT. They are a product of free speech, without it, it makes no sense, doesn't work. But that's been true forever, so it feels like a given, but it isn't.

- 2024-05-09T15:18:59Z
It's pretty easy to create a FeedLand news service for your friends or co-workers, and it'll plug into a lot of the stuff we're working on now for presenting news without requiring people to learn a feed reader. That's a bridge too far for many people. In other words, your understanding of feeds (RSS, Atom, etc) can be of service to others. And by collecting useful sources of news, maybe even insightful ones, we can help upgrade the quality of news we all get. The first step is to learn how to use FeedLand, and it's pretty easy, esp if you already understand feeds. And with categories and OPML subscription lists, you can organize your feed reading everywhere, not just in FeedLand.

- 2024-05-09T14:06:44Z
StackExchange and OpenAI have made a deal. I used to use StackExchange all the time, now I never do, ChatGPT is much better. There's a lot of anxiety out there, it seems but this is like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. There was a time when StackExchange was a godsend for programmers. But that time has passed. Here's a demo. I was trying to figure out why some ancient code wasn't working. I never understood how it worked, and now I had to figure out what was going wrong. So I debugged it, carefully, step by step, with ChatGPT. It's as if I was working with another programmer who had read and fully understood every StackExchange message, and was willing to work with me for no pay to get to the bottom of the problem. This is what we call disruption. It's a whole new level of programming. Here's the transcript.

- 2024-05-09T15:24:44Z
I'm tired of people using the term "podcast" when I can't find it at the place where I get my podcasts.

- 2024-05-08T14:36:05Z
A free idea for Apple that might boost their stock price. I use the Voice Memo app to take notes while I'm programming. Sometimes I talk for as much as fifteen minutes, because I ramble a lot, but I figure stuff out this way. I'm sure at some point the Voice Memo app will do automatic transcripts, I wish it did now. When I finish a memo, a few minutes or seconds later, there's an email waiting for me with the text of the memo. Now here's how they boost the stock price. They also provide an edited version of the memo, without repetition and rambling, and sidebars (they can be treated as sidebars, and appear at the end). I understand that $AAPL is depressed because the lack of an AI story. Here's a use that every stock trader will understand immediately. Huge value. I'm sure others are doing it. But Apple has the high ground. All kinds of services could be attached. I could, in the middle of my ramble, order a product from Amazon. Or send an email to my doctor to schedule a new appointment. (Disclaimer: I've owned a bunch of Apple stock since the mid-90s, so I stand to profit if they do it and I'm right.)

- 2024-05-08T13:56:12Z
Now that I have my blogroll as a regular feature in my blog, I am able to keep current with more bloggers. It's actually much more than a blogroll, it's a feed reader. When a feed that I'm following updates, it moves to the top of the list. And if I want to see what's new, I just click on the wedge next to its name to reveal the most recent five posts. From there, I can get to the full post by clicking on the permalink. If you want to get a feel for it without taking the plunge yourself, you can leave my blog open in a browser tab. You'll get exactly what I get.

- 2024-05-07T11:51:59Z
I said this to a friend recently, in an email: “I noticed a change with the doctors, where earlier they would dismiss my fears of having this or that fatal disease, now they're always looking for the thing that's going to kill me.“ The friend, a retired English professor, said the sentence was very effective. Part of me would like to send the sentence and the review to my freshman English professor, I think she would be proud. Instead I decided to blog it.

- 2024-05-07T11:53:33Z
BTW, I was struck that famous editor and writer Ben Smith said he was ashamed at starting out as a blogger, on an MSNBC show hosted by a true hack. The quote was from Jeff Jarvis, who like me, cross-posts to a variety of social webs, presumably manually. Where did I put my comment? Hell if I know. Heh I found it. My comment: "I didn’t know he had been a blogger. So my respect for him went up dramatically in an instant, and in another instant, plummeted. What’s wrong with people?" Bad news for Ben, he's still is a blogger, btw, in his heart. I can tell. And true journalists and true bloggers share an ethos that the fakers like Morning Joe will never understand. So I guess when you're on with Joe you have to pander. Just remember Ben, we know who you are. Even if you have forgotten. 😄

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.

DW concluded with:

So someday, if you withdraw from Facebook, you will face a competitor who embraced it, and you will lose. That's why you should be there.

Idiotic, anti-social, a loser, that's all fine with me because I'll continue to try to be kind to others and live a good life that I can be proud of.

And I don't need any of the social media sites to complete those tasks.

I could understand a small business owner needing a Facebook page along with a custom domain name that hosts at least a blog site. It infuriates me that some small businesses only have a Facebook page, and they don't maintain a site on their own domain name.

But hey, different strokes. Whatever works. It's fine with me.

Excerpts from DW's post titled "Re Twitter easing the 140-char limit":

This feature is good because people don't click links. It also brings Twitter to parity with Facebook, which means it can compete in the news distribution business that it pioneered.

Facebook needs competition, and we need Facebook to have competition.

Maybe DW needs Facebook to have competition, but I don't.

And I'll use links. I need links. Since I truly believe in the open web, then linking will always be a part of my web DNA posting. I'm fine with going against the crowd and being in a small minority.

It sounds like DW is an open web poser.