Scripting News

Arrived in Boulder

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:52:55 GMT

Well, pretty much 1/2 my road trip is finished. Drove from SLC to Laramie yesterday, had dinner with Isobel & Brett, then drove from Laramie to Boulder, a quick drive, and back to urban life. Tired but I've got plenty of time to rest before arriving in Denver on Sunday for the start of the DNC, where I will wear two badges. They decided I was a blogger after all, and I am credentialed press.

Meanwhile my iPhone crapped out, it says it has no SIM card. Restarting it made it work, for a while, now it doesn't work at all. I'm going to the Apple store in Boulder this evening to see if they can help.

Meanwhile I'm thinking that since I have Sprint EVDO, I could get a deal from them on a cell phone. Anyone have any ideas about that? The EVDO has been working nicely since I reinstalled the software on the Asus, and I've even been getting used to the keyboard. The big question is will I be able to blog the convention with just the Asus, without having to lug around the 17-inch MacBook Pro. The only potential reason not is the keyboard. And it's not a problem if I'm mostly going to do video and pictures, which seems to be my favorite mode these days. That and FriendFeed/Twitter.

BTW, people who have been trying to call me and can't get through, send me an email and I'll call you back if I'm near a phone. Life with a broken iPhone, esp just before a major schmoozing event, not fluid.

I wonder how this convention will differ from the 2004 convention in Boston. I had a lot of fun there, it was the event that launched podcasting to a whole new level. I'll probably remember more about that convention as I go through the routine again this year. I know I'll look for the press room sooner this year than I did last year. As much as I love being a blogger, the reporters covering the convention have interesting stuff to talk about too, and it's different.

Thinking about taking a different route back to the Bay Area.

XP to Amazon?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:54:09 GMT

I had a random thought today as I read the press release about Amazon's new Elastic Block Store. Once again, I wish the OPML Editor ran on Linux so my software could take advantage of all of Amazon's innovation. I see the Linux guys having the all the fun and I want to play! I wish there was some way we could install XP on one of Amazon's servers. Now that they're trying to retire it in favor of Vista, I wonder if Microsoft would be willing to cut a deal allowing us to install XP in Amazon's cloud? Even better if they did a deal with Amazon so this is just a checkbox.

This must be stopped

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:29:52 GMT

The WSJ reports that the Republicans will have press events in Denver during the Democratic Convention. They even say that the Republicans have found a loophole that allows them access to the floor of the convention. This is not cool.

Here's the relevant quote from the WSJ piece: "Some Republicans will do interviews on the sets of television networks operating in the Pepsi Center, meaning they and the staff escorting them will have access to the site."

At some point Obama and the Democrats are going to have to fight back, and it better be soon. McCain's involvement in corruption should be handled in a gloves-off way. Wes Clark's statement that being shot down and imprisoned, while sad is in fact not a qualification for President. The age issue ought to be brought up in a personal way -- related to McCain's stumbles and appearance. Question his mental ability, and how it's not going to get better as McCain ages. Question his health, he's a cancer survivor. Question his education, his honesty, how he treated his first wife, how he cheated on his current wife, and her drug addiction, is she paying taxes on all her property? How many McMansions does McCain need? He's had a government health care program his whole life, how in touch could he be with your life as you deal with medical issues without insurance and face the prospect of losing your home. This guy has 12 homes and a private jet. How out of touch can you get!

Just getting rid of Republican corruption and incompetence is enough change. Stop taking chances with our future Obama, and hit him back hard. And do not allow Giuliani and Romney on the floor of the convention.

Update: He doesn't know how many homes he's got. Excellent. Super-elite and senile. A perfect ad.

Summer 2008 road trip

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:02:39 GMT

Good morning everybody!

This is Dave coming to you from Salt Lake City, UT.

I'm on my Summer 2008 road trip. Started yesterday at 4AM, and got me into SLC at about 4PM.

Stops include Laramie, WY; Boulder CO and on to Denver on Sunday for the Democratic National Convention. Then four days of watching, listening, talking, and thinking and then back on the road to do it all again!

I tried to set up a LAN in my car, to no avail. There isn't much Sprint EVDO on the road between Reno and Salt Lake. No matter, as it turns out there isn't much I want to say to or hear from the net while on the road.

I listened to an excellent Gillmor Gang podcast with Marc Canter and Evan Prodromou of identi.ca. I agree with Steve that identi.ca must do what Twitter does, and the things Twitter stopped doing (like the hugely important XMPP gateway) but no more.

If a user has to stop and think whether they should use 140 characters or 250 because this micro-message might go through a gateway to Twitter, well, that's the end of identi.ca right there. Doesn't make it through most people's annoyance filter. Maybe later, when and if identi.ca takes over the world, but it hasn't happened yet, so for now, do what Twitter does -- and no more.

Also, Twitter does have a hard limit of 140 characters per message. Here's an example. I wrote a script to send a 250 character tweet to Twitter. Here's what showed up on Twitter. 140 characters and no URL linking to an addendum.

Let's try the same on identi.ca. Good, it works identically. (Hence its name.) Keep it that way!

To Steve, there have been URIs for individual twits for a long time. That's not something new with the threading features in Twitter.

I loved that Kevin Marks always has one more half-baked BigCo replacement for something we've in the LittleGuy world have had working for years. Evan does an excellent job of taking it up the butt (I mean that as a compliment) -- BOGU is the way of the software world esp when you're being evangelized by IBM (in the 80s), Microsoft (in the 90s) or Google (in the 00s).

Marc and Steve have great rapport, as good as anything I've heard in podcasting. And Marc, I left a voicemail for you, but given the way the phone company works, you probably won't get it for a few days. Say hi to Doc for me!

There's something really spooky about listening to a podcast with these guys interspersed with doing Bluetooth cellphone calls to them at the same time! Oh man, technology is amazing.

Anyway, I am posting pics to Flickr (and Twitter) fairly regularly.

Today I hang out with NakedJen in Salt Lake and might have a meal with Phil Windley and then tomorrow it's back on the road heading into Wyoming.

Obama does mean change, here's why

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:57:14 GMT

It's so obvious it's almost mathematical.

After eight years of Bush -- if Obama is elected, everything will be different.

Instead of a President who shoots from the hip and trusts his untrustworthy gut, you'll have a President who gets educated, and chooses teachers who really know their stuff. That's the change Obama will bring to Washington. The rest of it, if you were thinking that all of a sudden one day Washington would work in a fundamentally different way, we can argue over whether it's desirable (I'd say it's not) but we wouldn't have much argument over whether it's possible -- it's not.

And by the way -- when Bush shoots from the hip, he's probably actually doing what the defense and oil industries tell him to do. He's like Columbo, it's easier for them if we think he's a bumbler, no need to look any deeper.

So the first change you'll get from Obama is that he's not Bush. That alone is a lot of change. Now let's stop worrying about it and get on with making sure he wins. (And we, like the Republicans, should do everything and anything we have to do to win. Sorry if you don't like it, but it's too important, too much depends on it.)

Think of it like this. One day you're using Windows and wake up the next day and all your computers are running Mac OS X. It's still a computer. It's still fundamentally the same experience. But it works a bit more logically, and you don't get in trouble as often. It's not foolproof, but it's a bit better.

If you prefer Windows to Mac, switch them around.

McCain, even if he hadn't changed his tune and started acting just like Bush, saying the same nonsensical things that make you think he's now working for the same people Bush is (defense contractors and the oil indiustry), would still be a poor choice re Obama. On the other hand, want to have your eyes opened? Watch the movie Why We Fight and then ask yourself if Obama might not be owned by the same people. If he can prove he's not, then we really might be getting some substantial change.

There are truths to the way our country works that are never talked about on the national stage. Change is possible at that level, but those industries will still have a seat at the table when Obama is President. Eisenhower warned of it in his farewell speech. It's serious stuff.

Bush gave into these people because he is one of them. His VP is a defense contractor. We know at least that Obama is not one of them. Change? Big change.

I wish the leading icons of the Democratic blogosphere would listen to this and stop worrying about the superficial distinctions. This piece was prompted by a Josh Marshall piece on the subject of change. Marshall is great when he doesn't ponder impossibilities. Let's focus on who owns the Presidency and be happy if we've been able to introduce a little pushback to the defense and oil industries, this will make change, if we in fact are able to.

A taste of FlickrFan

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:27:12 GMT

FlickrFan, like all rivers of news, is about flow. In this case it's a flow of pictures, from your contacts on Flickr, from AP and AFP, and from anyone else that you know that provides a feed of high-def pictures.

I like to view the pictures on a big-screen TV that's hooked up to a Mac Mini, but I also use it on my desktop, and various laptops -- no matter where or how you watch, it's an interesting way to view the news.

Then I thought, why not scroll the pictures through a web page, one every few seconds? So last night I put it together, on an experimental basis, and it's pretty interesting! It's just a taste of what you get with FlickrFan, but it doesn't require any software other than a web browser.

http://show.flickrfan.org/

Click on the link and kick back for a few and let the pics scroll by. Today the news is mostly the Olympics and General Musharraf of Pakistan (he resigned). Last week there were lots of Russian tanks. Tomorrow I bet there will be hurricane pics from Florida. Watch out cause sometimes the pics are not work-safe, usually not because of sex, rather because of blood, even death. But that reflects what's actually happening in the world.

Thanks to two very fine organizations for their support: AFP for their fire-hose of wonderful news pictures, and WordPress.com for hosting the pictures and providing bandwidth. I couldn't afford the hosting myself.

Hope you like it!

Update: Interesting to see Boston.Com going in this direction too.

Catholic League wants offensive bloggers nixed by Dems

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:15:23 GMT

This is really ignorant and crude. There's a misunderstanding that bloggers somehow must have the same politics or even standards as the party who's throwing the convention. I think we should have the Catholic League nixed for being ignorant and crude, and offensive.

Thank G-d no one listens to me!

I've got a problem with Firefox 3

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:21:51 GMT

Now that the tool I use to manage S3 is available for Firefox 3, I have been able to switch to it, and I have. But there's a real problem with how search works in this browser. It could be there's a simple solution if so, let me know what it is. But right now, it's broken.

Here's the problem -- I go to the search box in the upper right corner of the window and enter a phrase, and click Return. What I expect to happen is that Google opens with results for that search term. What actually happens is that cuil.com opens with results for that search term. Okay, I figure it's a matter of switching the default, when I go to the popup I expect to see the same choices as in Firefox 2, with Amazon, Yahoo, AOL, Google, etc. But Cuil is the only choice, and there's no way to delete it. Okay, there's a link to Get More Search Engines, but Google is not on the list. Huh? WTF is going on here?

The answer better be realllly good. I'm pissed. I don't want to use cuil.com, sorry.

Update: I got hacked. Re-installed Firefox. Fixed. Better.

Bear Hug Camp (click on the bear)

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:43:43 GMT

Dare left something out (and it's important)

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:50:10 GMT

I'm in the middle of a complex project or I'd take more time out to explain, but Dare Obasanjo left out the one thing in the history of SOAP vs REST that guys like him always leave out. I don't know why they do it, because it's the most important bit, it's the point between the complexity of SOAP as it evolved through the interests of the BigCos and the incompleteness of REST.

It's called XML-RPC and it's what SOAP was before the BigCo's made it complex.

Really ought to include it in your thinking, Dare and everyone else. You're missing out on something that works really well. You should at least learn the lessons and add to REST what it needs to catch up with XML-RPC. Seriously.

What's missing in REST, btw, is a standard method of serializing structs, lists and scalar types. The languages we use have a lot more in common than you might think. We're all writing code, again and again, every time we support a new interface that could be written once and then baked into the kernels of our languages, and then our operating systems. Apple actually did this with Mac OS, XML-RPC support is baked in. So did Python. So if you think it's just me saying this, you should take another look.

More movement in TwitterLand

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:45:14 GMT

I love it when things change!

And so far it looks like the Twitter folk did a good job with the features to support threading.

This is a very lightweight feature on the server side, lots more work in the client, and very similar to the effort required to support payloads. Just three new fields in the struct that represents a status. A pointer to the payload, its MIME type and size so clients know what to display to represent the payload.

I love that identi.ca is matching Twitter feature-for-feature in the API, where it counts; continuing what Steve Gillmor calls their bearhug. Good term.

I also love that Twitter's API seems more responsive since the last time I worked on code that ran against it. Seems all the outages had a payoff, faster service for API calls.

I'm in a good mood, that's for sure, and then I heard that Obamaman raised $51 million in July. I love how they waited to announce theirs until after McSame announced he raised a mere $27 million. Heh. I love it when Dems play nasty. It's about fcuking time.

BTW, back to tech politics, Steve Gillmor is absolutely correct to insist that identi.ca stick to the 140 character limit. If they didn't, users would have to remember to only type 140-character posts if they wanted them to be able to go over a bridge to Twitter. Imagine if all the rail in the US were the same gauge, how much easier things would have been (they're not even a consistent gauge in the NYC subway system). Engineers have a hard time accepting historic limits like this, but it's often a good idea (not always of course).

On a related topic DeWitt Clinton talks about the way FriendFeed handles general RSS sources.

This is a test

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:33:14 GMT

Hello.

Russian general threatens Poland

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:16:31 GMT

It sure is escalating quickly.

AP: "A top Russian general said Friday that Poland's agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported."

Almost as if the ~~Soviets~~ Russians had a plan.

Gotta wonder if Bush is up to this level of confrontation.

Hope he talks to his dad and Scowcroft, and listens.

And someone needs to tell McCain, seriously, STFU.

They picked the perfect time to challenge the US. (For them, worst for us.)

Hat-tip, I read about this first, of all places, on Powerline, a right-wing blog. I thought at first, oh yeah sure, they're blowing it out of proportion, but, unfortunately, they're not.

It's in Pravda too, whatever that is, these days. It used to be the house organ of the Soviet Union, when there was a Soviet Union. Seems pretty clear, the Russians want to reconstitute their old empire, at a minimum.

Follow the discussion on FriendFeed.

Perfect timing!

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:23:10 GMT

I just read this interesting post on Louis Gray's blog.

Essentially now any Twitter client can now associate another post as a reply to another existing post. This means that Twhirl or TweetDeck can allow a user to post a normal status update, and provide a "+" sign underneath and a new post can be appended as a reply to the previous post.

Hmmm. Where have I seen that before?

Oh yeah! Sounds like an outliner.

Update: I've got something working with a test account. You can actually walk the threading structure in the browser. Nice!

Here's what the threading looks like in the outliner.

Click on the pic for a larger image.

The beginnings of community

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:53:49 GMT

Yesterday an update of FlickrFan shipped for the Summer of OPML project, and as we hoped, new users popped up and all of a sudden it's a teeny little bit like a community!

So, of course it's time to put it in perspective, with a howto explaining how to report problems and ask for help.

http://editor.opml.org/community.html

Hope you enjoy, and you're free to repurpose it for other projects, but attribution is requested.

FlickrFan is converted

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:21:08 GMT

The Summer of OPML is rolling right along.

The next app to be converted is FlickrFan.

http://flickrfan.org/

Onward!

Which bank has the best online UI?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:31:08 GMT

I had a huge problem last night with the online banking website at BofA. I needed to adjust a repeating monthly payment, the price had gone up, and I was getting nasty letters from the vendor. I couldn't figure out how to do it. This morning I chatted with one of their online support people, who told me I had to call the 800 number, and amazingly it took less than two hours to find the answer, which I never would have found just by navigating the site.

I did finally solve the problem but now I wonder if there are any great simple UIs for online banking out there? It would cost me nothing to switch. So I'm wondering if any of the readers of this blog have good experiences with their online banking service? I've heard good things about Citibank, Wells Fargo. Are there any that are just plain great??

Great comments here and on FriendFeed.

A brilliant idea at Harvard

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:07:24 GMT

Before I started blogging, I held many if not most of my good ideas in reserve because I thought some day I might do them as products. But as you get older, you realize that most of the things you think of are going to be outside your grasp, you're not going to get to do them, so rather than hold on to them, it's better to let them go. Maybe someone else will do them, and at least you'll have the pleasure of using the product before your time is up. That was one of the ideas that led me to write the first set of DaveNets, I was just dumping all the ideas I had pent up that I was never going to do.

Anyway...

When I was at Harvard, I came across a project called H2O, which was an abbreviation for Harvard 2.0, kind of like Web 2.0. Cute, eh? I believe it was the brain child of Charlie Nesson and Jonathan Zittrain.

At first glance it appears to be a discussion group, a way for a community of people to discuss something, but it's actually twice as clever, and represents a fundamentally different idea. Something new in discussion groups, you say? Cannot be. Everything's been done, everything's been thought of. Well unless I'm mistaken this is a new idea. It was for me.

Let's say you're in an online discussion. Someone asks a divisive question. Quickly the discussion devolves into personal attacks. Sometimes it's amazing how quickly it gets personal. Of course there's nothing interesting about that, the people don't know each other personally, so the attacks aren't even on target. And you get no new perspectives on the issues, no new information that might change your mind or at least help you see the other side of the argument.

What if, instead, you couldn't see what other people said for 24 hours. Then the first responses are unveiled, and you can write a rebuttal, but once again, they stay hidden for 24 hours. You can write as much as you like, or as little, or edit or refine your position, but only you see it. It works, you learn a lot more this way.

And then you can tweak it from there. What if during the 24 hour period only one other person, chosen by the moderator, can see what you wrote? The moderator can be devilish or compassionate, he or she can choose someone who will agree with you, or show you the folly of your ways, or show you a perspective you've never considered. That's where people like Charlie and Jonathan really shine, they are always thinking of ways to bend your mind. Why not make an online platform that enables them, not just the idiotic pointless banter that most online discussions devolve into.

Anway that's the new idea for the day.

PS: Pretty sure H2O is open source.

PPS: The discussion software is called Rotisserie, the project is H2O.

The EFF position on Wikipedia

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:20:21 GMT

EFF: Wikipedia Wins Dismissal of Baseless Defamation Claims.

While it may have been a good defense in court, their position is nonsense. Wales et al promote Wikipedia as an authoritative encyclopedia. Wikipedia likes certain people, and dislikes others -- it tends to like people who say it's wonderful and utopian, and dislikes people who have mixed opinions about it. I believe it's used as a way to attack people they don't like. I bet the profiles of everyone who has ever given Jimmy Wales good press are positive. Show me one where they are trashed. (I was thinking about this watching Wales on a WNYC radio show the other day, I bet the interviewer, Brian Lehrer, has a great profile on Wikipedia, otherwise he might have asked some non-softball questions.)

I'm reminded of this when I see the glowing bios for Nesson and Zittrain and am reminded of the way they treat me. Just in their choice of pictures you can see their opinion.

So the court may have been convinced, but I am not. Let Wales disconnect, stop promoting the thing so much, let the Wikimedia Foundation fade into the background, and then let's start talking about how to make this thing really neutral and independent of these people's interests.

A memeplant that worked

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:42:27 GMT

Yesterday I pointed to a howto by Jay Ridgeway that showed how to connect two laconi.ca communities together. Today I'm going to try it myself.

I followed the instructions, and it worked. I have a new account on Jay's laconi.ca installation, and I subscribed it to Ars Technica on Evan's installation.

Obviously this is just a first hack at the problem -- there needs to be authorization on the other side, otherwise anyone could subscribe me to their feed and well, that's a pretty powerful tool for spammers. But we're off to a good start!!

Update: There's a piece on Louis Gray's blog that explains why this idea is so powerful.

Update: There's something about the word memeplant that I really like, but I can't put my finger on it.

Update: Phil Windley got the seed.