Scripting News

Wed, 14 May 2003 20:57:20 GMT

Docs for Blogger's changes.xml file.

Wed, 14 May 2003 23:14:48 GMT

Dave Sifry: "I've been slow on email lately because Noriko just gave birth to our second child, Noah, yesterday."

Wed, 14 May 2003 21:41:42 GMT

RFC: "Suppose Google were to start using weblogs.com's changes.xml file to seed the indexer. I expect this will bring an onslaught of spammers, and want to try to do something about that, in advance."

Wed, 14 May 2003 22:23:00 GMT

Kottke: "Apple's new iTunes Music Store will be shut down by the some seriously pissed off record companies."

Thu, 15 May 2003 01:16:03 GMT

Derek Slater: "I don't think Apple is at risk."

Wed, 14 May 2003 22:34:37 GMT

Christian Science Monitor: "On the 100th anniversary of Orwell's birth, a lively debate is ensuing over the English author's continuing relevance."

Wed, 14 May 2003 18:42:32 GMT

JD Lasica is listing reviews of the new Matrix.

Wed, 14 May 2003 20:19:03 GMT

The Redhead: "If I thought I could get away with it, this is the questionnaire I would hand to a man on our first date."

Wed, 14 May 2003 21:12:58 GMT

AP: "NBA Hall of Famer Dave DeBusschere, a forward on two championship teams with the New York Knicks and also the youngest coach in league history, died Wednesday of a heart attack at 62." One of my childhood heroes. He played opposite Bill Bradley on the Knicks of the late 60s with Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe and Willis Reed.

Wed, 14 May 2003 18:34:12 GMT

NSF: "Speed-ups to Google's method may make it realistic to calculate page rankings personalized for an individual's interests or customized to a particular topic."

Wed, 14 May 2003 19:02:41 GMT

I had a couple of hours to geek out and thought I'd play with the BlogShares API. No luck. It's not live yet.

Wed, 14 May 2003 12:54:10 GMT

Thankfully Jon Bonne has written his last for the back-and-forth over journalism and blogging. His opening argument is straight out of Orwell. Let's see. There is Mac software, but it doesn't come from the big companies, so it's okay for reporters to say there's no Mac software. Hmm. Okay. I hope I never get a doctor who thinks that way. Or a judge. Or a cop. Or a reporter.

Wed, 14 May 2003 13:01:09 GMT

From there it gets worse. He infers an analogy that's not in my piece. If anything is the analog of the Mac software in this story, it's the voters. Yup Jon they're there. And you still don't get it -- they're the story, not you, not the pols. Maybe here's what I'm saying. If the pros want to survive, never mind bloggers, get some smart, inquisitive people doing it and toughen them up. Too many pros are either lazy, or dumb. This is why I think the people who fret about the FCC decision to allow a small number of companies to own all the television and radio stations and newspapers are worrying about the wrong thing. It's all garbage. All the reporting is lies. We know that. Yet we do this dance as if it were valuable stuff. It isn't. It's hopeless. Scrap the whole system. Let Powell's buddies have it. Let's start over. Reboot.

Wed, 14 May 2003 12:41:34 GMT

Pictures from my trip to Dartmouth last Friday. The second-to-last picture is Mac scripting guy Bill Cheeseman, who in a past life was a trial lawyer who actually tried a case against Berkman's Charlie Nesson. He lives on farm near Dartmouth now. The last picture is Brian Hughes (left) and Alan German, both heroes of the Frontier scripting world, both work at Dartmouth. Brian is a fountain of knowledge and calm on the Frontier lists; and Alan, who used to work at Boeing, wrote the basic TCP verbs in UserTalk. When you receive an email from Manila, or when Radio uploads something via FTP, Alan's excellent code is running.

Wed, 14 May 2003 08:15:31 GMT

BlogShares is getting an XML-RPC interface. Nicely done!

Wed, 14 May 2003 08:38:42 GMT

News.Com: "The RIAA's automated program apparently confused two separate pieces of information -- a legal MP3 and a directory named 'usher' -- and concluded there was an illegal copy of a song by the musician Usher."

Wed, 14 May 2003 08:20:36 GMT

On this day in 2001, in the middle of a trip to Nebraska for his grandfather's funeral, Evan Williams was paid a visit by Murphy. The story is familiar to anyone who has operated a hosting service. Sooner or later all the shit breaks loose at once (or so it seems), and it turns out to be the new driver you installed that has a connection limit and fails silently. At the time I said I hoped someone was working on Evan's biography.

Wed, 14 May 2003 08:28:25 GMT

On this day in 2000, a youngster named Nicole Gordon, age 11, was asked what a venture capitalist is. "Are they people who venture to different capitals," she posed. "I'd like to go to visit capitals like Washington, DC"