Scripting News

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 03:39:16 GMT

I watched CNN and MSNBC this evening, two networks that seemed somewhat fair, and had to turn them off, in disgust. They're spinning heavy for Bush, basically saying he won the election with the Osama speech. No polls to back them up. Pure spin, pure manipulation, first by bin Laden, then by the TV networks. This reeks of the Dean Scream. Maybe much worse.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 23:24:16 GMT

For review and testing: Podcast debugger.

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 02:00:52 GMT

Aaron Brown, on CNN, about the US: "Not exactly bin Laden country."

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 03:34:15 GMT

Three years ago today Scoble rolled and totaled his car, and walked.

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 02:20:49 GMT

Lots to think about in bin Laden's message. When he says we're responsible for what the country does, he's right, and that's something only one candidate said, and it wasn't Bush or Kerry.

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 02:29:01 GMT

Excerpts of a translation of bin Laden's message by Aljazeera.

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:51:50 GMT

Please read this piece, written in 2001, if you're planning on being at the Making Money session at BloggerCon III, eight days from today. "Dell Computer started in Michael's dorm room."

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 01:43:22 GMT

I went for a walk today, of course; with my iPod, of course. I thought I was going to listen to a podcast, but I didn't. Instead I listened to some RIAA-owned music. It was like eating chocolate cake, with chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. I'll get back on the bandwagon tomorrow. ";->"

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 16:03:12 GMT

US Department of State supports RSS 2.0.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:28:26 GMT

Okay it took a while to figure this one out, but the appearance of Osama bin Laden on TV so close to the election is a reminder that Bush went after the wrong guy. Osama is still free, and thumbing his nose at the US. How can Bush say he's tough on terror with a straight face with Uncle Osama hogging the news cycle, probably from now to Election Day. Now let's just hope bin Laden is just giving a stump speech and this isn't notice that thousands of Americans are about to die.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 20:22:43 GMT

Today's big political news, Osama bin Laden speaks to the American people. What does it mean? What a twist. October surprise.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:26:02 GMT

BBC: "Arabic TV station al-Jazeera has broadcast a videotape in which Osama Bin Laden threatens fresh attacks on the US."

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:11:40 GMT

Survey: "Which of the two major party candidates will use the bin Laden appearance to score political points?"

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 15:44:20 GMT

This site is a brainchild of Prof Larry Lessig at Stanford Law School.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 15:24:06 GMT

The new word for the day is enblogment.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 16:12:17 GMT

To the geeks -- what impresses users? Interop.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:41:24 GMT

Here's why we must throw Bush out of office. The big moment came when Colin Powell went before the UN to explain why it was time to go to war with Iraq. That's when the impeachment proceedings should have started, in hindsight. Unfortunately we didn't know then that they were lying. Blame us for believing that our President wouldn't unilaterally go to war based on a lie. That's criminal. He should go to jail. Sorry Republicans, you nominated the wrong guy.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:58:07 GMT

If we don't get rid of Bush, we've just ratified a new form of government for the US. What comes next on that road? Kerry is definitely the conservative candidate for President. No doubt about that.

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:30:41 GMT

Our Department of Homeland Security is going after a toy store in Oregon. A bomb plot? Anthrax? Funding terrorists? Nah. "Agents went to Pufferbelly based on a trademark infringement complaint filed in the agency's intellectual property rights center in Washington, DC."

Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:36:07 GMT

Capsule review of this week's West Wing, which I was able to watch after getting the Divx codec. There's a surprise ending. A small amount of good acting, something happened to one character, but I wish they had all gone for that walk in the woods. The current WW writers don't understand their characters. They never say or do anything that isn't TV-tested crap. I didn't even shed a tear for the character who went for the walk. That's how poor the show is. I used to cry effusively at the old WW eighteen times per episode. Feh. I'll still watch it if only for the scenery, but it used to be such a great show, now it's so incredibly mediocre.

Should we do this the old-fashioned way?

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:33:28 GMT

Adam Curry is my friend, and that's not a small thing for me, but it's not true that he solely invented podcasting. We were doing it at Harvard almost a year before Adam's first podcast. I started doing regular podcasts myself in June of this year. I did a podcast from the T at the DNC, and from Interstate 25 in New Mexico. All this before Adam started the Daily Source Code in August.

Now that the buzz has grown so much, which is basically a good thing, the distortion level has gotten super-high and Adam is becoming the sole inventor of the art and technology. Part of me doesn't care, but some of the stories that are coming out are incredibly mean. That I mind, a lot. (Sorry, I'm not going to point to them.) There have always been a lot of hitchhikers, even hijackers, as a format or protocol or activity becomes popular, but Adam isn't one of those people. We've been working on this together since Y2K. He's supported everything I've done, and vice versa. We're friends, and I hope to work with him for many years to come.

There's another angle to this. The iPodder software was the first software to handle enclosures specially for iPods, but Radio UserLand had support for time-shifted enclosures in its first release in January 2002. So to say that iPodder was the first software to enable podcasting, would be taking a fairly narrow view of what podcasting is. Even though Adam gives me credit for the RSS work I did, he didn't actually give me credit for the software, or for the podcasts we did at Harvard in 2003, and my own personal podcast stream starting this summer.

So there's this question out there -- should we just overlook that the story being passed around is wrong, and getting wronger every day, or should the bloggers and podcasters care to have the real story get out there? I'm tired of fighting for credit, but I'm equally tired of inventing stuff and popularizing stuff, which is really hard work, and having other people make the money and get the credit. More than tired, exhausted. And I'm already getting trashed for the work I've done here, believe it or not. That's more than tiring, more than exhausting, that's harrowing.

Time to go for a walk and listen to Woz talk about the early days of hacking and Apple.