Scripting News

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 02:08:47 GMT

Today's audio blog post about music, baseball, music, downtown freeways, Steve Wozniak, indie music and the Grateful Dead.

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 03:13:09 GMT

In today's podcast I said the Houston Astros have to win. I was wrong. The St Louis Cardinals had to win. It's an old-time World Series, Boston vs St Louis. I guess that means Texas ain't in it. Okay with me. ";->"

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:43:27 GMT

John Kerry killed a poor defenseless goose today to show that he likes guns. I'll vote for him anyway. And I like the way it routes around the NRA which has shown its colors. It's not about protecting the 2nd Amendment, because Kerry supports it. They're using their members for something else. Good for Kerry for calling their bluff. If Bush can run as a compassionate conservative, no reason Kerry can't run as a gun-totin liberal. It's about time the liberals started kicking some butt. Or shooting it. ";->"

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 03:24:36 GMT

NY Times: "Eliot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general, has recently taken on a procession of corporate powers from Wall Street analysts to mutual funds to insurance brokers. Now he is casting his eyes on the music industry, particularly its practices for influencing what songs are heard on the public airwaves."

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:37:37 GMT

We got another $1000 donation today. As has become customary, the announcement will come tomorrow. The Friday night dinner, Nov 5, will be at Ming's Palace in Palo Alto at 7PM. We'll have a signup page tomorrow. The cost is $30 per person but we may subsidize it to get the cost down so more people can come. We have room for 80 people.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 19:24:40 GMT

BBC: "The Iranian journalists' union has held a meeting to protest at the arrests of eight webloggers and reformist newspaper journalists in recent months."

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 16:40:18 GMT

Now for the surprise. Yesterday we got a $1000 donation from Google. This is great because there are so many ways the weblog community and Google can cooperate to make the World Wide Web work better, and help people get the information they're looking for, faster and faster. Bloggers create the knowledge on the Web, and Google helps us find it. We've had our differences, mostly about technical issues, and for now, we still do -- but when it comes to learning about and supporting the blogosphere, we're on the same side. So it's with great pleasure that I thank Google for their financial support of BloggerCon, and look forward to their participation in the event.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:43:16 GMT

Some further comments about the Google donation.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 16:28:37 GMT

Thanks to Ross Rader, Doc Searls, Frank Paynter, Hank Barry, Jay Dedman, Scott Owens, John Furrier, Kona Cooker, Patrick Ritchie, Zoltan Der, Doug Kaye, Aldo Castaneda, Alex Williams and Mark Fletcher for their generous donations to BloggerCon.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 16:24:03 GMT

NY Times: "Real anger is as rare on television as real discussion."

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:44:05 GMT

When I see Dick Cheney on TV I wonder if he's really running for vice-president of the United States, or vice-president of the sixth grade. With his wife laughing in the background as he takes cheap personal shots at a man who very well might be President of the United States shortly, I feel sad for my country that this is the best we've been able to elect to the second highest office in our country. Shame on Cheney, shame on the Republicans, shame on us.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 14:15:36 GMT

Jon Gordon interviews Mitch Altman, the designer of TV-B-Gone.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 14:07:41 GMT

The Wall Street Journal explores the world of Iraqi weblogs.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 14:01:24 GMT

I went to an interesting blogger's dinner last night at the Pike Brewery. We watched the end of the Red Sox game, met some Republicans (arrgh), a Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State, and a father-son podcasting team. Listening to their review of the Clusty search engine right now.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:15:59 GMT

Today's Scripting News is dedicated to miracles. When you live long enough you learn that miracles happen; in fact they happen all the time, you just have to keep your eyes open, and be willing to see them. Today in Boston, even a small child in kindergarten has lived long enough to see the Boston Red Sox defeat the mighty Yankees, something I never thought I'd be able to write, not in this lifetime. And who could not see the miracle in last night's victory? The Red Sox did what the Mets could not do, and they did it with such style, such force of character, and in the end, so decisively. Hats off to the Sox. Now it's okay, for a moment, for the fans to think that victory in the World Series will be theirs. Having disposed of the terrible foe, wouldn't it be something to see them face their former ace, Roger Clemens, in a cold, snowy game 7 in Boston? Could they win such a game? Could they? That's the amazing thing about baseball, you won't know till it happens. We could live to see that. And you'll see that there's another miracle, much smaller, that we can celebrate later today. The next big donor to the BloggerCon cause.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:44:24 GMT

Speaking of miracles, Lance Knobel notes that former US president Bill Clinton is well enough after heart surgery, to make a campaign appearance with John Kerry on Monday in Philadelphia. Lance also notes that President Bush is scheduled for a day of rest on Saturday, fueling speculation that the long-expected October surprise will be a Bush visit to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:48:58 GMT

UndergroundClips links to and reviews the CBC's unauthorized biography of Dick Cheney. (346MB)

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:56:57 GMT

Another miracle on this day of miracles, Julie Leung and Adam Curry discover they have many things in common.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:49:38 GMT

Yesterday, talking with Marcus Mauller, we figured out how to integrate BitTorrent with Manila. The key is to do it through Gems. In a special Manila site on a server running the BitTorrent software, when you upload a Gem to that site, it automatically generates a meta file, and links to it in the Gems table listing. It's the perfect user interface. The content creator needs to know nothing about the difficult process of Torrent-izing a media file, the URL is handled the same way the non-Torrent URL is handled.