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Dave Winer - Scripting.com

Scripting News - 2024-12-03T19:02:02Z

- 2024-12-03T17:29:21Z
Today's song: Where is the love?

- 2024-12-03T16:42:14Z
I frequently have trouble remembering the names of things I want to use in my writing. I've come to rely on ChatGPT for help. So I wrote to ChatGPT: "I'm trying to remember the name of the stone that has the key to understanding a language." To which it replied: "You're likely thinking of the Rosetta Stone. It was crucial in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs because it featured the same text written in three scripts: Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphic. The Greek text provided the key to understanding the other two scripts."

- 2024-12-03T12:48:43Z
President Biden pardoned his son. I have no problem with that, because his son was accused as a proxy for his father. If there is any legitimate use of presidential pardons, this is it. Perhaps relatives of the president should also be immune from prosecution. Does anyone really think Hunter Biden would have been tried for such petty crimes if he weren't Biden's son? The journalists, as always, have equated two very different things. They're playing their own game, trying to self-pardon in a way, to avoid being a target for the incoming administration, which we're all scared of, and I guess that's the point, to scare us.

- 2024-12-03T12:58:09Z
BTW, another thing journalism is getting wrong, the FBI is not the squeaky clean organization they present it as.

- 2024-12-03T13:21:36Z
We're looking for a Busy Developer's Guide to Bluesky's feed format.

We need a BDG for Bluesky - 2024-12-03T16:27:08Z

I was very happy to see this post on Bluesky this morning from a friend, Matthias Pfefferle, who works at Automattic on the connection between WordPress and ActivityPub.

In his post he asks if there is a BDG for creating a PDS for Bluesky.

A BDG is a Busy Developer's Guide, something we did first for SOAP in 2001 when we were trying to figure out how to map XML-RPC onto it. Since then there have been lots of BDGs for all kinds of things. It's a useful concept because developers are often overly busy, so we need to get right to the problem before understanding all the theory behind it. We need an example that works, and we'll just do what it does. That also guarantees interop, which is the point of course.

Now we have a similar problem. Bluesky stores a user's writing in a PDS. If we can generate a PDS for our blogs, theoretically Bluesky should be able to see them and use them as if they were created inside Bluesky. If it were easy to understand we could get busy converting everything so it works there. We can do that because we're using popular simple formats like JSON (see below) to organize our work.

For example this is how I use JSON for my blog, the one you're reading right now.

• Here's a folder in a repository on GitHub. Broken down into years, months, days, and posts.
• Each post is a JSON file, like this. It has three bits of data, the text of the post, when it was created (which also serves as a unique ID, no two posts have the same creation date) and type. This item has a type of outline, because it can have structure, though this post does not.
• Here's another post that does have structure. In Bluesky it would be represented as a thread.

Here's the question. What's the absolutely simplest way to have that structure of posts represented in a Bluesky PDS?

PS: I had a conversation with ChatGPT to scope this out.

All the people on Patel's list - 2024-12-03T19:02:02Z

In Government Gangsters, Kash Patel identifies 60 individuals he alleges are part of a Deep State undermining the US government.

1. Michael Atkinson: Former Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.
2. Lloyd Austin: Defense Secretary under President Joe Biden.
3. Brian Auten: Supervisory Intelligence Analyst, FBI.
4. James Baker: Former General Counsel for the FBI and former Deputy General Counsel at Twitter.
5. Bill Barr: Former Attorney General under Trump.
6. John Bolton: Former National Security Adviser under Trump.
7. Stephen Boyd: Former Chief of Legislative Affairs, FBI.
8. Joe Biden: President of the United States.
9. John Brennan: Former CIA Director under President Barack Obama.
10. John Carlin: Acting Deputy Attorney General, previously led DOJ’s National Security Division under Trump.
11. Eric Ciaramella: Former National Security Council staffer during the Obama and Trump administrations.
12. Pat Cipollone: Former White House Counsel under Trump.
13. James Clapper: Former Director of National Intelligence under Obama.
14. Hillary Clinton: Former Secretary of State and presidential candidate.
15. James Comey: Former FBI Director.
16. Elizabeth Dibble: Former Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy, London.
17. Mark Esper: Former Secretary of Defense under Trump.
18. Alyssa Farah: Former Director of Strategic Communications under Trump.
19. Evelyn Farkas: Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia under Obama.
20. Sarah Isgur Flores: Former DOJ Head of Communications under Trump.
21. Merrick Garland: Attorney General under Biden.
22. Stephanie Grisham: Former Press Secretary under Trump.
23. Kamala Harris: Vice President under Biden; former presidential candidate.
24. Gina Haspel: CIA Director under Trump.
25. Fiona Hill: Former staffer on the National Security Council.
26. Curtis Heide: FBI Agent.
27. Eric Holder: Former Attorney General under Obama.
28. Robert Hur: Special Counsel who investigated Biden over mishandling of classified documents.
29. Cassidy Hutchinson: Aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
30. Nina Jankowicz: Former Executive Director, Disinformation Governance Board under Biden.
31. Lois Lerner: Former IRS Director under Obama.
32. Loretta Lynch: Former Attorney General under Obama.
33. Charles Kupperman: Former Deputy National Security Adviser under Trump.
34. General Kenneth McKenzie, Ret.: Former Commander of United States Central Command.
35. Andrew McCabe: Former FBI Deputy Director under Trump.
36. Ryan McCarthy: Former Secretary of the Army under Trump.
37. Mary McCord: Former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security under Obama.
38. Denis McDonough: Former Chief of Staff for Obama, Secretary of Veterans Affairs under Biden.
39. General Mark Milley, Ret.: Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
40. Lisa Monaco: Deputy Attorney General under Biden.
41. Sally Moyer: Former Supervisory Attorney, FBI.
42. Robert Mueller: Former FBI Director, Special Counsel for Russiagate.
43. Bruce Ohr: Former Associate Deputy Attorney General under Obama and Trump.
44. Nellie Ohr: Wife of Bruce Ohr and former CIA employee.
45. Lisa Page: Former Legal Counsel for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe at FBI; exchanged texts about Trump with Peter Strzok.
46. Pat Philbin: Former Deputy White House Counsel under Trump.
47. John Podesta: Former Counselor to Obama; Senior Adviser to Biden on Climate Policy.
48. Samantha Power: Former Ambassador to the United Nations under Obama, Administrator of USAID under Biden.
49. Bill Priestap: Former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, FBI under Obama.
50. Susan Rice: Former National Security Adviser under Obama, Director of the Domestic Policy Council under Biden.
51. Rod Rosenstein: Former Deputy Attorney General under Trump.
52. Peter Strzok: Former Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, FBI; exchanged texts about Trump with Lisa Page.
53. Jake Sullivan: National Security Adviser under President Joe Biden.
54. Michael Sussmann: Former Legal Representative, Democratic National Committee.
55. Miles Taylor: Former DHS Official under Trump; penned New York Times op-ed critical of Trump under the byline “Anonymous.”
56. Timothy Thibault: Former Assistant Special Agent, FBI.
57. Andrew Weissmann: Mueller’s Deputy in Russiagate probe.
58. Alexander Vindman: Former National Security Council Director for European Affairs.
59. Christopher Wray: FBI Director under Trump and Biden.
60. Sally Yates: Former Deputy Attorney General under Obama and, briefly, Acting Attorney General under Trump.

- 2024-12-02T14:09:46Z
WordLand is the easy editor that writers using WordPress always deserved. I updated the docs this morning to include very basic getting started stuff, and it now includes a link to a form where you can apply to be a tester. At this time it's limited to people who know how to write a bug report, how to find and read the JavaScript console in a web browser, and take a screen shot that shows clearly what went wrong. This the hardest part of getting a product fit for general use, and I'm too old to try to wrangle workable bug reports from well-intentioned users who basically aren't scientists. This time I'm determined to do this the right way without excess wear and tear on me. 😄

- 2024-12-01T20:16:20Z
The Big Interview with Dan Rather podcast is gold. Just listened to his interview with Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band and the Sopranos. There are nine seasons of this podcast between 2013 and 2021. Going to keep me busy for a while. The RSS feed works.

- 2024-12-01T20:40:28Z
One way to help RSS-based podcasts is to promote individual episodes from the past. Sometimes shows are done, but the archive contains good stuff. Not everything is based on current events. Music, art, history for example. Also bring the feed out from hiding. At least the nerdy people should understand how this stuff works. One of the big crimes was when the browser makers tried to hide the feeds. I like to be able to lift the hood even if I don't understand what I'm looking at.

- 2024-12-01T21:37:15Z
I'm using the term "RSS-based podcasts" in place of "podcasts" to make sure whoever reads it knows to ask the question of other "podcasts," are you RSS-based? The best answer is to encourage YouTube et al to just connect their "podcasts" to RSS and everyone's happy. Like "organic cheeseburgers." :-)

- 2024-12-01T15:48:38Z
For the record, Bluesky has completely taken over from Threads. Threads is basically at zero, needs something to shake it up. Obviously this could be different for everyone. And engagement on Twitter is pretty close to zero. I still check there periodically because despite what people say a lot of people I follow still post there. And I do too, since cross-posting costs me nothing. And it has been pointed out that deleting your Twitter account comes with a fairly huge risk. And if you do it, I wouldn't announce it, because anyone apparently can claim your account once it is completely deactivated. And that could create some problems for you. Probably better to hold the account indefinitely.

- 2024-12-01T15:22:23Z
I've exported the data from Bingeworthy 2 in JSON and uploaded to a new public repo. It can be used to seed the ratings table for the updated instance.

- 2024-12-01T14:09:18Z
Welcome to the last month of Scripting News in the year 2024. Each year goes by faster and faster. And as we move forward in time, there's less room in front of us on the runway of life, and more behind us. At some point in the next decade my plane will probably take off. I feel a sense of urgency about getting it done. Still a fair amount on my todo list, but I'm making progress. As someone once said many times: Still diggin!

- 2024-12-01T14:11:36Z
And welcome to the time of year you can't remember what the day of the week is. For what it's worth today is Sunday. Feels like Monday?

- 2024-12-01T14:10:59Z
And here, for the record, is the archive for November. A relatively lite month, only 87K worth of text. The norm is about 120K.

- 2024-11-30T16:02:55Z
Today's song: I guess the lord must be in New York City.

- 2024-11-30T16:13:38Z
I've been working on a reboot of Bingeworthy over the last few days.

- 2024-11-30T16:19:24Z
I wasn't clear enough yesterday. We're losing the word "podcast" very quickly. It's coming to mean video interviews on YouTube mostly. Our only hope is upgrading the open platform in a way that stimulates the imagination of creators, and there's no time to waste. If you make a podcast client, it's time to start collaborating with competitors and people who create RSS-based podcasts to take advantage of the open platforms, otherwise having a podcast will mean getting approved by Google, Apple, Spotify, Amazon etc. And they, as we know, are nuzzling up to the new government, who will want to impose severe limits. This isn't a casual request, it's urgent.

- 2024-11-30T14:01:19Z
Heres's where I'll post ideas to help podcasting stay open.

- 2024-11-29T13:36:19Z
I want to add an important feature to podcasting that can only work with RSS, it can’t work with Spotify, Google, Audible etc. The idea is subscribing to subscription lists, which the influencers are likely to really love because they can create networks of podcasts. And when they want to edit the list, if this is done right, the users will automatically be updated. The RSS-based podcast industry just hasn’t been moving and if we don’t add features, improve the tech with new features for creators and users, then we deserve what we get. More on the technology to come in subsequent blog posts. But this is the core idea, just to get started.

- 2024-11-29T19:57:07Z
Think about primarying Democratic candidates not from the right or left, but from courage, intellect, and power in communication. People who say what they think and know if the press excoriates you, you can survive it, and the users will love you for it.

- 2024-11-28T20:58:18Z
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate the holiday. What am I thankful for? Peloton for one. And living in the most beautiful part of the United States, except for all the other most beautiful parts. I know we're going to find our way out of this mess. My hope is we all start listening to each other more than we need to be heard. One way for sure to hear yourself is to listen to others. One of those paradoxes, true nonetheless. I'm very grateful for ChatGPT that has made me a much more proficient programmer. Amazing what an always-ready expert-in-everything programming partner is. It has a terrible memory for things I tell it to remember, but it remembers all the things it got from reading the web. I thank the friends who make the effort to stay in my life. And most important I thank you, dear blog reader. We got through 30 years of this crazy michegas. I think there may be a couple more innovations to come before we hang em up for good.

The Kennedy v Nixon template - 2024-11-28T15:33:49Z

Analogously, Trump is Kennedy and Biden/Harris is Nixon.

And the social web is, in 2024, what TV was in 1960.

Trump has mastered the new medium. To a large extent, he created the new medium, and the resulting network formed around him.

So when Carville says he wants to figure out how to communicate the way Trump did, he can't because our way doesn't work in his universe. We have to create our own.

Analogously Nixon might have said about TV in 1959 -- how can we get into that? If you have to ask you can't get there. You have to fit like a hand in a glove, like Kennedy or Trump.

The next Democratic candidate to win the presidency will have to be a media creator. They must create a medium that's perfectly adapted to the communication interests of the 50 percent of the electorate that voted for Harris and the other 20 percent who would if they just knew who she was.

Look at the picture of Kennedy and Nixon. Did we elect Kennedy over Nixon because he had better policy? No. We elected him because he has better hair. Because on TV what counts is your hair. A friend who was a TV news person told me that.

So if you want to win, create an internet farm system. A network with everyone who wants to run for office nationwide on the Democratic ticket. And let's see how they work in the new medium. We get to know them like we knew Archie Bunker. And let's get some people we get to know who also tend to tell the truth (though they can screw up and we'll forgive them, remember the gotchas are over).

- 2024-11-28T00:54:13Z
Every generation or two you hear about a few tech wiener boys who think after getting founders stock at a Silicon Valley company and getting his picture in Business Week or TechCrunch that he should run Africa or make up some country and for a minute tries doing it and no one pays much attention and a generation or two later it happens again, and the conclusion is that being a tech wiener boy doesn’t really prepare you to do anything but make a bunch of money once, be bored, and really nothing else. First time I witnessed this phenomenon was with a few product marketing wünderbrats at Apple in the early 80s, smart people (not kidding) but not nearly as smart as they thought they were. A big part was the serendipity of being in a Hobee’s or Buck's when Steve Jobs or a Kleiner partner was having breakfast after a big IPO.

- 2024-11-26T17:27:33Z
Podcast: We elected Archie Bunker. 17 minutes.

- 2024-11-26T15:57:07Z
Carville gets close to the answer. The Dems shut down their online operation on Election Day, go off the air for 3.5 years, then reboot. The Repubs never sign off. Trump is Archie Bunker. People vote for him, even if they don't agree, over the stranger they don't know. Voters kept saying this, but somehow this didn't register. Never nominate a candidate again who isn't well known to and tolerated by the electorate. Forget about gotchas. The old Dems revolve around fear-of-gotcha. No longer a problem. A flaw proves you're genuine, authentic. Dems need a complete overhaul top to bottom. Their next leader should have a top podcast, because that's how you will govern from now on. Expect to be surprised how Trump does this starting Jan 20.

Marketing party - 2024-11-26T21:32:40Z

- 2024-11-25T14:46:13Z
In January 2017, I scooped everyone, by years, on the idea that a billionaire could buy Twitter and thus purchase the presidency. That value wasn't priced into TWTR stock. No one listened. Here's the next installment. The US government acquires Twitter. Elon Musk is of course named Secretary of Twitter. The "constitution" reconceived for online twitter-like systems, says every other online system has to go through twitter.com to reach users. It will act as their gateway to the net. There will be resistance, but by that time there will be no actually independent twitter-like systems, they will all be owned by venture capital funds, or individual billionaires, and of course they will conform because they are also owned to a large degree by Musk. We will have been cartelized, which is one step beyond enshitified.

- 2024-11-25T14:29:33Z
It's important that Bluesky increase its character limit to 500 because they are not alone. Today there are so many twitter-like systems that are useful, people want to cross-post. If I'm writing something I plan to cross-post, and I pass the 300-char limit, but I'm not finished, what to do. These days generally I view 500 as the actual limit, which means when my cross-poster tries to publish to Bluesky it fails. We should be trying to coalesce on an idea of what a text document is in the mid-late 20s. I've put my proposal out.

- 2024-11-25T14:14:37Z
The usual mindless block-inducing bullshit from twitter and every other online venue is showing up on Bluesky. I wonder if people understand the economic box that's pushing them into. It's so important that if it's going to be the next Twitter, we as a world, invest in lifeboats to get off the ship quickly and easily if Hulk Hogan ends up being the czar of Bluesky. Weirder things are possible my friends.

- 2024-11-25T13:39:39Z
According to Blogtree, 259 blogs considered Scripting News their parent blog, ie they were inspired to start blogging by this blog.

- 2024-11-25T15:11:29Z
I just wrote a for-real post on my WordLand site.

- 2024-11-24T14:36:46Z
Imagine if the Democratic Party ran a Bluesky clone where being able to post means you're a dues-paying member of the party. We can vote on referendums, support or not support Democratic initiatives. Site would never shut down, and would support campaigns when they're running. It would cost money to belong to the site. This would keep trolling under control, and would fund projects the community would sponsor, and also pay for operating the service. No advertising, no billionaires sponsoring. They can be members like everyone else.

- 2024-11-24T14:41:28Z
If such a network existed, we would be nominating our own Cabinet members, the shadow Cabinet. Let the journalists compare the qualifications of our candidates vs the incumbent party's. Create news. That's what the Dems absolutely suck at. They very quietly pass legislation that the other party (which votes against) takes credit for. One party is on the air, the other is not. We need to change that. We make news. And we listen to each other, not just the stuffed shirts who run the party now.

- 2024-11-24T14:44:38Z
If there was going to be a User's Charter for Bluesky, item one would be: You can give me the benefit of the doubt. Let's not argue, esp not about details. We assume the other person is smart. That's one way we get stuff done.

- 2024-11-24T14:52:50Z
Rule #2. You have permission. If you want someone else to do something, and they haven't done it, or you don't want to wait, you have permission to do it yourself. You can invoke this rule when someone says "who do they think they are." You had permission, according to rule #2.

- 2024-11-24T16:18:57Z
One of the best things about ChatGPT is that you can ask it to put together exactly the report you want, that the news orgs aren't writing, or you can't find, or get to through paywalls. In this query, I learned about how Republicans deal with intersex people and bathrooms, they apparently don't. Not surprising, to tell the truth.

Billionaire-proof, day2 - 2024-11-23T15:53:34Z

Given that the conversation has rightly turned to billionaire-proofness of Bluesky, if they allow devs to build on Bluesky with RSS in and out, that's enough to alleviate the concern about it being billionaire-proof. They already support outbound RSS. Now just let us get into the system with just RSS. Yes, I know it's a "third party opportunity" but something like this, to have the required value, has to be a fully supported and maintained feature of the platform.

Let's do this right, and we can spread this into Masto-Land and Threads-Land and then we can thank Elon Musk for helping us not just bridge these systems, but make them all part of the same freaking system.

We can do this.

- 2024-11-22T14:45:08Z
I started a feature list on the About WordLand page.

Billionaire-proof? - 2024-11-22T21:41:00Z

I just realized that there's another kind of enshitification that we're experiencing now because the twitter-verse has split into so many forks. Bluesky is hot now, but this isn't over yet.

Developers are deliberately locking their users in by creating new APIs that are not only incompatible with previously existing APIs, but also are difficult for developers who learned earlier APIs to adopt because now they have all kinds of replicated code for different systems. It adds another level of complexity to the developer's code.

What each platform vendor wants is not only captive users, but also locked-in developers. Why do you think they all have new languages? Come on is Swift really better than Go or React or whatever. Groups of Mac developers constantly spinning their wheels to keep up with Apple breaking releases. Groups of JavaScript developers. And there are many kinds of JS devs. When does it end. Ones who build on OpenAI and others that develop on the APIs of other vendors (I'm not even trying to go on that ride, too late in my career.) There's so much confusion, that leads to exhaustion.

Now we're feeling it especially hard when there are such ill-conceived duplicate APIs that all could have been done with RSS 2.0 and OPML. Every one of them. Cory Doctorow, who came up with the term enshitification, also wrote a passionate piece about RSS. I want to say to my friend Cory, if a system isn't built on RSS at this point, they are certainly trying to lock users and developers in. I don't care if it's ActivityPub or ATProto or Facebook or Meta or X or Twitter (sorry I can't keep up with their names).

I want to build on a system that's pure inbound and outbound RSS. Give me lists in OPML and the please just let me ignore the rest of your lockin strategy. They talk a good line about wanting interop, federation and standards, but their actions speak otherwise.

At a conference the CEO of twitter-splitter Bluesky said her product is billionaire-proof, but it doesn't seem too likely to me that it is. And maybe they're quoting her incorrectly. A billionaire could take it over and the users would have no recourse, the whole thing would blow up even more quickly than Twitter is (and I'm not convinced it has blown up, there still seems to be a lot going on there, I think perhaps people are exaggerating how polluted it is or maybe I'm being shielded by an algorithm). It would be nice to use a system that is truly billionaire-proof. How about building a network on top of something else that is 100 percent RSS.

And btw, RSS is probably the closest to billionaire-proof. I don't get royalties on it, lots of people have tried to make big bucks from it, but so far its only allegiance is to people who want to publish and receive news. If a billionaire could buy it, they probably would have by now. 😄

WordLand screen shot - 2024-11-23T01:38:29Z

- 2024-11-22T02:16:04Z
Ayn Rand, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan walk into a bar. The bartender serves them tainted alcohol because there are no regulations. They die.

There are no more gotchas - 2024-11-21T14:35:47Z

When people said they didn't know Kamala well, they weren't kidding. She didn't start broadcasting until three months before the election. That's not even one season of Abbott Elementary or Wheel of Fortune. Of course they didn't know her. That's because the Dems go off the air on Election Day and don't show up again for three years. Meanwhile the other party is on the air 24 hours a day, every day of every year.

Next time we nominate a candidate, the voters will already know them and like them. No more of the "we don't know her well enough." That's what mattered. They want a sense that they know who you are. The same way kids of my generation knew who Archie Bunker was, and Maude, and Mary Tyler Moore. That's where trust comes from. We may not have liked Archie Bunker's politics, but we knew who he was.

We should be marketing the hell out of this shit all the time so when we choose a candidate the people will already know and like them.

I listened to a pathetic Daily Blast podcast yesterday where Greg Sargent and his guest kept saying "we gotta figure this out."

The answer is staring you in the face. Dems are only on the air for a few months every four years. Of course the other side spins you like crazy.

You all are clinging to the "gotcha" model of journalism. There are no more gotchas. We've known that since Access Hollywood. The leaders of the new Democratic Party will be comfortable in their own skin. They tell you what they think. Fetterman, AOC, Tammy Baldwin. There will be many of them.

Get on the air and relax and say what you really think. And when the Repubs lie, say it like that -- they're lying. When you say nothing people think you agree with them.

Let's get the Dems back on the air before the inauguration. I'll kick in $100 to get it started, and I'll tell everyone I know to fund it too. There's no time to waste.

- 2024-11-20T13:39:57Z
On Bluesky, inbound RSS is becoming a thing.

- 2024-11-20T14:36:12Z
It's noteworthy that we haven't seen many outages as Bluesky scales. On Twitter they had fail whales for years.

- 2024-11-20T13:51:13Z
What matters with social networks is what you can get done there, not so much the features of the network. Bluesky has the same features today it had a month ago. The difference is we had an election in the US, I guess that was the catalyst. The presence of Elon Musk so close to Trump says there is a need for a Musk-free place. I've kept my account on Twitter. I started there in 2006, and I love the web more than I feel it would do any good to erase my presence there. It's pretty much against my religion to deliberately erase bits of the web. And whatever you think of Twitter, it is most definitely part of the web.

- 2024-11-20T22:07:27Z
Basically, if you have to lock your users in, your product must suck.

- 2024-11-19T21:29:44Z
A quick podcast about the new 365-day-a-year campaign we need on the social web to keep our democracy alive.

- 2024-11-19T20:02:56Z
We've found Lauren Kapp, the 25-year-old creative genius behind kamalahq. We need to get her back on the air, with her team, fully funded and supported. We need leadership on the social web. Thanks to Brian Puckett for the link.

#rss