![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/09/tylenol.gif\")
The first time I saw a tech company blow it in the Internet age was in 1994 when Intel was trying to quell public outrage about a problem with math functions on their Pentium chip. According to Wikipedia, an estimated 1 in 9 billion floating point divides would produce inaccurate results. The problem could be demonstrated in Excel. Intel said the flaw was so small that it didn't warrant any concern by users. They were probably right. But that didn't stop the outrage from escalating. Every time Intel spoke, the problem got worse. Eventually they had to offer replacement chips to any user who wanted one. It might have cost much less if they had admitted the problem at the start.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:00:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25518"
},
"1": {
"text": "It doesn't happen often that the press sides with users, but when it does, the tech industry usually reacts poorly. The reason is simple. They're accustomed to Gee Whiz treatment from the press. That the people who run the companies are themselves miracles. Because the products they make are so impressive to the people in the press.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:06:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25519"
},
"2": {
"text": "But that's going to fade over time, as tech products become more ordinary. Kids who were brought up with the products don't think they're so amazing, and they'll become reporters or bloggers, and the tech industry will have to deal with crisis not by stonewalling, but with empathy, and understanding of how the public thinks.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:08:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25521"
},
"3": {
"text": "An exec at Google or Facebook might be puzzled by the reaction to the NSA news. Didn't they already know that we have to provide the government with information when they have a legal basis for requiring it? Maybe people did know. But that doesn't matter. Right now they're not happy about it. And the blame is falling on the tech companies. Usually reporters just rewrite press releases. But every once in a while they express their independence. This is one of those times.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:09:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25522"
},
"4": {
"text": "The classic example of a company responding well to a crisis that's no fault of theirs was Johnson & Johnson with the Tylenol murders. If they had spun it the way Intel spun the FDIV problem, or the way Google and Facebook are spinning the NSA crisis, they would have said something like this: \"It's a local problem in Chicago. Only a few of our customers have been effected. We are taking steps to make sure that there's a low probability of any other customers being similarly inconvenienced.\"",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:10:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25523"
},
"5": {
"text": "What a customer would think: \"These guys are clueless. I'd better go with Bayer or Excedrin. I don't want to die just because I had a headache.\"",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:13:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25524"
},
"6": {
"text": "Instead, what Tylenol did, and it's something the tech companies would be well-advised to study, is to approach the problem the way their customers would. They immediately withdrew every bottle of Tylenol on dealer's shelves, everywhere. The first goal was to protect the people, then save the product. Which they did, after taking the hit, and on the way to becoming the leader in product safety. The product came back stronger than it was before.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:13:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25525"
},
"7": {
"text": "Applied to this situation, it would have been smart for the companies to have prepared, by taking steps to blunt the negative effect on their users because of the government intrusion. Sure they had to comply, but did they have to leave the customers so vulnerable? Of course not. They couldn't warn us, that would have been illegal (unfortunately) but they could have made sure that more of the data resided in places that wouldn't be so convenient for the government to monitor. That's the equivalent of Johnson & Johnson putting tamper-proof packaging on Tylenol.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:18:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25527"
}
}
},
"22": {
"text": "Two excellent mob films starring Robert De Niro",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:24:09 GMT",
"name": "twoExcellentMobFilmsStarringDeNiro",
"pgfnum": "25509",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I love it when people turn me on to excellent fun movies I haven't seen before. In that spirit here are two that are sure to delight if you like the same kinds of movies I do. They both star Robert De Niro. And both are very long, but hold your attention.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:24:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25510"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. Once Upon a Time in America is a spaghetti mob movie written and directed by Sergio Leone. It takes place in a Jewish ghetto in lower Manhattan, in a period spanning 50 years or so starting at the beginning of the 20th century. It's a weird movie for sure, and it goes slowly, almost like poetry. But the acting is first rate, and the story is compelling. It's actually two stories interwoven.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:24:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25511"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. Casino is like Goodfellas 2, with different characters, but many of the same actors. Directed by Martin Scorcese, the plot comes from a book by the same author who wrote Goodfellas. Stars De Niro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone. Set in Las Vegas. Same narration style as Goodfellas, though there are two protagonists.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:27:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25512"
},
"3": {
"text": "Also James Woods is in both movies, playing a leading role in #1 and a minor one in #2.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:29:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25513"
},
"4": {
"text": "Also interesting, De Niro plays a Jew in both movies.",
"created": "Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:34:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25515"
}
}
},
"23": {
"text": "Google, Twitter and Facebook, et al have a way out",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:23:45 GMT",
"name": "googleAndFacebookEtAllDidHaveAWayOut",
"pgfnum": "25445",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It's great that there's a discussion online today about whether or not the tech companies had a way to resist the US govt, if they believed that it was wrong to share information about their users without users knowing.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:23:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25446"
},
"1": {
"text": "There is a way around it. They could reverse the process of centralizing user information on their servers.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:24:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25447"
},
"2": {
"text": "When they found the web, Google, Twitter and Facebook, it was a completely decentralized network from a content standpoint.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:25:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25448",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "(It's never been decentralized at a transport level. There are several main peering points, and the name system is a hierarchy.)",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:32:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25457"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Google and Facebook could have, together, easily defined new standards for distributing information in ways that would make it harder for the government to tap in. At least they could have avoided being responsible for it themselves.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:26:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25449"
},
"4": {
"text": "Or they could have been supportive of standards that decentralize, like one that's dear to me -- RSS. Instead they undermined it. In Google's case, in a fairly horrific way. Did they ever say they'd never come back to RSS if we manage to reboot it after cleaning up their mess? A mess that they offered absolutely no help with.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:27:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25450"
},
"5": {
"text": "Twitter had the biggest opportunity to create a free-flowing federated network of free users. They could have given us a new layer the way the web did in 1992. Instead, they sucked in all the energy created by developers and did the same thing the others did -- centralized. Goodbye freedom. Hello NSA.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:29:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25452"
},
"6": {
"text": "They brought this on, they're the cause of the mess we're in now.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:30:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25453"
},
"7": {
"text": "I have no sympathy for them. They could still get out of the hotseat. There would be nothing illegal about them telling the world that they made a huge mistake by centralizing everything, and now they're going to reverse the process. They don't have to say what the consequences of that mistake are, we all know, thanks to Glenn Greenwald.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:30:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25454"
},
"8": {
"text": "What could the government do? They'd be alone.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:31:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25455"
},
"9": {
"text": "Of course, no one in their right mind believes they would do it.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:31:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25456"
},
"10": {
"text": "Because having the govt as a partner, as Citibank and Chase found out, is a great business plan. Too big to fail now clearly applies in tech too.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:36:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25458"
}
}
},
"24": {
"text": "A Google Now story",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:32:01 GMT",
"name": "aGoogleNowStory",
"pgfnum": "25440",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "An example of how good/creepy Google Now is.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:32:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25442"
},
"1": {
"text": "My friend Jen was coming to visit from SLC. Google Now told me her plane was 24 minutes from arriving at the gate at JFK. I had never told them she was visiting me or what flight she was on (I didn't know). But they did. Probably because she uses Gmail or their calendar, and somehow connected me to that trip (or did they just guess!) and thought I might be impressed if they told me about her flight. I was!",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:37:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25444"
},
"2": {
"text": "And I felt a little nausea, as I realized they have me by the balls and don't mind if I know it.",
"created": "Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:35:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25443"
}
}
},
"25": {
"text": "Morning coffee notes",
"created": "Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:23:23 GMT",
"name": "morningCoffeeNotes",
"pgfnum": "25349",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/06/michaelJordan.gif\")
I turned 58 last month, and that means we're getting within striking distance of 60. Actually I'm getting within striking distance of 60. It's a bit of a shock, actually. Inside I feel 19. Or maybe 30. But 58? 60. OMG. Ohhh.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:08:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25254"
},
"1": {
"text": "But Monday night just before Game 7 of the Eastern Division Championship, I solved a problem that I had been thinking about for at least 20 years. It had to do with templating in content management systems. It came to me as we re-approached a problem I had approached several times before in earlier products. This time, I saw the way around the conundrum that had evaded me before. I don't think this is because I'm smarter than I was when I was 38 or 48, rather it's because I have the 20 years of experience that I didn't have then.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:09:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25255"
},
"2": {
"text": "The next little bit is a story that is not about the people involved, Fred Wilson, John Doerr and Michael Jordan, it's illustrative. I have the greatest respect and admiration for all three of them, not just for their accomplishments in the past, but for what they are doing today. All three are very much alive. And all three are still taking chances, learning, and doing new things.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:11:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25256"
},
"3": {
"text": "On Twitter, I saw Wilson refer to Doerr as The Michael Jordan of VC. Something bothered me about this. So I pondered it and realized the problem. How I got there was by changing some of the names, a couple of times and thinking in analogies.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:12:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25257"
},
"4": {
"text": "1. I imagined Matt Mullenweg saying I was The Michael Jordan of Software. This wasn't hard, because Matt said something similar a few weeks ago. No doubt said with genuine admiration, it exposed something inside that's imho incorrect. He said that it's amazing that I keep writing software, many years after I no longer had to. I imagine when Matt looks at me, he hopes that he will have the drive to create when he's my age (he's about 30 years younger than me). But I'd rather if Matt ignored my age and my financial circumstances, and looked at the actual software I'm writing -- today -- not in the past. I would prefer if he said: I think Dave's new software is interesting, but I don't understand it. Or I think Dave's software is revolutionary and it will have impact on all software being developed today. Or something that reflected my status as an active player, maybe even an active superstar. But I think conventional thinking shuts off that train of thought.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:13:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25258",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "And btw, if you look to basketball as an example, the young guys always study the work of people who came before them. The young Knick Iman Schumpert is a great example and inspiration. In an interview I saw him explain in great detail the players who he was borrowing style from. In tech, we tend to throw all that away. We won't always do it, as the art matures we'll understand that we're borrowing from the past, and then become receptive to learning from prior art. But first we have to cure ourselves of the idea that people are obsolete so early. Even basketball, where the bodies can't compete after 40, manages to use the skill and experience of the veterans, as coaches, advisers, trainers.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:44:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25264"
},
"1": {
"text": "Also, I know that what Matt said was a compliment. But it also had meaning. It's possible for something to be both a compliment and worth examining.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:54:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25266"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "2. I had an experience on Twitter with Joshua Benton, someone who I admire and think highly of, who I know hasn't used my new software. This came up in a discussion. I more or less asked him to check out my software before declaring blogging dead. It may not have sounded like that to him and it may have been said more awkwardly (140 char limit). His response was like Matt's. I was using your software in 1990 he said. Nice. So I'm The Michael Jordan of Software. But I'm not because I'm still pushing it. Inventing new ways to approach the rim. New ways to stun and amaze. But you'll never see it if you don't look.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:16:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25259",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "My dream is that Benton would do 1/4 the analysis he did of Evan Williams' new software. I think I've earned a good look, and some thought.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:48:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25265"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "3. And that led me to the final analogy that nailed it. What if LeBron James said that Tim Duncan is The Michael Jordan of Basketball. Wishful thinking! The two men are about to face off in a classic series of the ages in the NBA finals. Game 1 is tonight. It's the old sin of sport and business. Don't celebrate until you win. That's a good way to inspire the competition and undermine your fighting spirit. We saw that happen with the Knicks this season, when JR Smith, thinking the Knicks had won, celebrated by elbowing an opponent. In the face! He was suspended for a game (that the Knicks lost), and more importantly threw his energy out the window. The Knicks were embarassed by the Indiana Pacers in a short series that they never really were in. And Smith was in a funk the rest of the short Knicks run. Every Knicks fan knows this story. ;-(",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:18:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25260"
},
"7": {
"text": "I learn a lot from sports, I really do. I think it's an incredible teacher of human spirit, in a very compact form. Things that may take years or even decades to play out in tech, often happen in just a few minutes in an NBA playoff game.",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:22:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25261"
},
"8": {
"text": "If I were Matt, I would watch that attitude. Because Old Dave might still have a trick or two. Software is not like basketball in that way. I have no stake in the competition between Doerr and Wilson (I assume they still see each other as competitiors). I will root for Doerr now, because I always like an underdog, the same way I rooted for Wilson when he was coming up. And tonight I will definitely be rooting for the Spurs and Tim Duncan, even though LeBron was smart enough not to make any grandiose claims about the obsolescence of his rival. ;-)",
"created": "Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:23:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25262"
}
}
},
"28": {
"text": "Let's not repeat the Google Reader mistake",
"created": "Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:21:14 GMT",
"name": "letsNotRepeatTheGoogleReaderMistake",
"pgfnum": "25194",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/05/drum.gif\")
We're getting ready to do the blogging part of our software at Small Picture. We've done a review of the evolution of my own blog, Scripting News, over the years. It was good to go over it, because it became clear that as Google Reader came to dominate in feed reading, it forced my blog, and presumably many others, to conform to its limits. Features were removed from my blog because they confused Google Reader. And when we tried to reach out to them, the answer was that they didn't have enough people on their team to listen. When that I happened I knew we were in a bad place.",
"created": "Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:03:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25195"
},
"1": {
"text": "But now we're seeing a rebirth of blogging software, other people have noted it, not just me. And along with it, later in the process, perhaps we can have a rebirth of feed aggregators. But we can't do it if a single company dominates the reader market. Yet some reports indicate that's where we're going.",
"created": "Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:04:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25196"
},
"2": {
"text": "I have a plan, if that should happen, if on July 1 we substitute one dominant feed reader for another. My products will produce full-fidelity RSS, that gives us and our users the chance to be fully creative, as we were in the early days of blogging and feed-reading. We won't try to live within the limits of a dominant feed reader. If they can't read our feeds, sorry.",
"created": "Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:07:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25197"
},
"3": {
"text": "Users say \"oh we're just users we can do what we want.\" That's nice, but not true. It's like saying I'm a car driver, I don't care about climate change, so I can burn as much fuel as I want. Yeah, I suppose it's true. There is no law that limits the amount of carbon you burn. But someday you or your kids will not be able to breathe. Same with RSS and blogging. If you want to keep using this stuff, you can't just repeat the same mistake. The new dominant player may be very nice, the people may have good hearts, and mean well, but they might be holding back innovation -- or worse, as Google was, taking out innovation and forcing a kind of dull no-growth uniformity.",
"created": "Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:09:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25198"
}
}
},
"29": {
"text": "Writers, designers and programmers",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:26:18 GMT",
"name": "writersDesignersAndProgrammers",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/04/drummer.gif\")
Writers can write in spaces we control, or we can write in spaces others control. We can spread our writing around, so one story appears in many places, or we can put each story in one place and distribute pointers to it.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:02:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25166"
},
"1": {
"text": "There are tradeoffs. If I write a piece and post it on Huffington or Medium, the theory is that it gets more circulation, our ideas get more exposure, or we get some kind of reputation benefit. Medium is a place where good writers write. Therefore if my story appears there, that leaves an impression that I'm a good writer. Huffington makes it look like I'm a journalist. Same with Forbes these days. But the reps quickly catch up with facts. Pretty much anyone can have an account on any of these systems. And as soon as you see a crude rant show up on one of them, you understand that the name isn't about quality anymore. The value in the name dissipates quickly.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:02:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25169"
},
"2": {
"text": "I've written for several of these pubs, and I don't think my stories get any more play there than they do here, on my blog.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:05:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25176"
},
"3": {
"text": "Huffington plays games with flow. If you ever get a hit story, they use it to deliver flow to stories written by their own people on that topic. Now that hardly seems fair, given that they don't reciprocate by delivering flow to your less popular stories. When this happened, when I had a hit on Huffington, that was the last time I posted anything there.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:05:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25177"
},
"4": {
"text": "When you think about it, if these guys are smart, it has to be that way. They're not going to let big flow come into their servers without monetizing it. So if you don't get much flow from them for your so-so articles and if they siphon off flow from your hits, why should put your work there? It's not a good deal.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:06:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25181"
},
"5": {
"text": "Medium has a slightly different proposition. I have put a few stories there over the last few months, some of my best pieces (they got me to think about them that way -- good for them), but they didn't get any more flow than they did here. They have an excellent stats system so you can see. Their hook is that their tools are nice and HTML5-pretty. They feel good to write with. That's nice. But could you get the same thing outside of Medium? Of course. This is not hard to do. But, key point, we have to work together, to iterate there.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:07:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25182"
},
"6": {
"text": "If good writers work with good designers and programmers we can keep building so that independence continues to be the basic value of the web. Otherwise we're returning the independence we got from the web to another generation of AOLs.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:09:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25183"
},
"7": {
"text": "That's the writer's story. Programmers have a similar one. The web is where we don't have our work controlled by Apple or Google, where we can create exactly what we want for our users. The stuff we believe they'll love. For example one of the most popular features in my new product Fargo would be disallowed if we tried to push it through Apple's store. That's why it's written in JavaScript and runs in a browser.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:20:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25189"
},
"8": {
"text": "I think that if you're a writer, you're hurting your own interest by not working with independent designers and programmers, long-term. And the leaders, the people who advise other writers on what they should be doing, I think they're hurting us even more by leading the parade into the new AOLs. Same with teachers of writers.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:10:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25184"
},
"9": {
"text": "This isn't about any one writer, designer or programmer, it's about all of us. Remember how far the open web has taken us. Let's not abandon it now. It can keep delivering, but only if we work together and feed our creativity and passion into it.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:11:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25185"
},
"10": {
"text": "Writers, designers and programmers. FTW! :-)",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:12:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25187"
}
}
},
"30": {
"text": "Servermatrix becomes IBM",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:25:09 GMT",
"name": "servermatrix",
"pgfnum": "25144",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/04/grandpa.gif\")
About ten years go, seriously, I signed up at Servermatrix and created three or four servers. The first podcasting servers were there. Podmonster1 and 2 I think were their names. A lot of the old UserLand sites are still running there.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:25:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25145"
},
"1": {
"text": "Servermatrix was something of a breakthrough in its day. Previously, to get hosting, I had to buy a box and colocate it at some place with good net connectivity, electricity, air conditioning, etc. What they did was make renting a server almost as easy as buying something on Amazon.",
"created": "Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:33:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "25155"
},
"2": {
"text": "I still have one server running there, with all the stuff I'm too ![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/02/clyde.gif\")
The NBA added rules at the beginning of the 2012-2013 season that were intended to cut down on flopping.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:31:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24959",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Flopping is when a player acts, convincingly, as if he's been fouled.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:35:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24964"
},
"1": {
"text": "It's a form of acting.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:36:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24965"
},
"2": {
"text": "When viewed on replay sometimes there's absolutely no contact, but it looks like there was.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:36:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24966"
},
"3": {
"text": "The flopping player goes down, clutching his head, rolling over repeatedly, to call attention to the \"offense\" by the refs.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:36:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24967"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "Not sure how well it worked during the regular season, but it's not working in the playoffs. The stakes are so high, the players are willing to pay the fines if it means they can get a call to go their way. These games are often so close that a single possession can determine the outcome.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:32:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24960"
},
"2": {
"text": "It's probably even become part of the strategy of the game, and it's easy to imagine the coaches and the players, talking about it privately of course, maybe even in coded language.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:33:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24961"
},
"3": {
"text": "But if the coaches were penalized along with the players, it would likely curtail the flopping, maybe even stop it, esp if suspensions were added to the penalty, earlier in the process.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:33:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24962"
},
"4": {
"text": "It would change the dynamics if the coach could get suspended. It would mean that if the coach thought the player was doing it, he wouldn't put him in the game. It would get the coach on the side of the league and the fans, in stopping the practice.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:34:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24963"
},
"5": {
"text": "And the financial penalties would matter more to the coach, because they pay them for every player, and coaches don't make as much as the players do.",
"created": "Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:39:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24969"
}
}
},
"33": {
"text": "Second CitiBike ride",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:20:14 GMT",
"name": "secondCitibikeRide",
"pgfnum": "24948",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I took my second ride today, this time checking in at the station at 54th and 8th Ave.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:20:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24949"
},
"1": {
"text": "I knew how to do it this time, so I was out of there in no time.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:20:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24950"
},
"2": {
"text": "I forgot to adjust the seat. Stopped a few blocks into the ride and did so.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:20:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24951"
},
"3": {
"text": "However, the seat didn't stay up. I had to stop every few blocks to yank it back up.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:21:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24952"
},
"4": {
"text": "Eventually I got tired of this and just left it low. I felt like an adult riding a kid's bike.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:21:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24953"
},
"5": {
"text": "I guess that's the big question, how well will the system hold up against NYC wear and tear. Everything is still bright and shiny, but eventually it's going to be like everything else in NYC, functional but not too clean. ;-)",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:21:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24954"
},
"6": {
"text": "We love NY, yes we do. But...",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:22:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24955"
},
"7": {
"text": "The second ride was not as much fun as the first.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 20:22:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24956"
}
}
},
"34": {
"text": "Workflowy supports OPML!",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:02:11 GMT",
"name": "workflowySupportsOpml",
"pgfnum": "24918",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I just got a note from Ulf Gjerdingen saying that Workflowy now supports OPML.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:02:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24921"
},
"1": {
"text": "I had to check it out.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:02:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24922"
},
"2": {
"text": "So I went to my outline in Workflowy. Chose Export. And sure enough, there's a new radio button where you can choose OPML.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:02:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24923"
},
"3": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/01/workflowyOpml.gif\")
"
},
"4": {
"text": "Of course I wanted to see if Fargo could read it. So here's what I did.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:03:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24925",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "1. Opened TextEdit.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:03:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24926"
},
"1": {
"text": "2. Chose File/New.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:03:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24927"
},
"2": {
"text": "3. Paste.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:03:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24928"
},
"3": {
"text": "4. Format as Text.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:03:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24929"
},
"4": {
"text": "5. Save into my Dropbox/Apps/Fargo folder.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:04:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24930"
},
"5": {
"text": "6. Switch into Fargo.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:04:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24931"
},
"6": {
"text": "7. Open the file.",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:04:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24932"
},
"7": {
"text": "8. It worked!",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:04:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24933"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/06/01/fargoImport.gif\")
"
},
"6": {
"text": "A happy day is when there's more interop. :-)",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:04:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24935"
},
"7": {
"text": "Thanks Workflowy! :-)",
"created": "Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:05:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24936"
}
}
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "May",
"type": "include",
"url": "http://static.scripting.com/orlando/world/dave/2013/06/02/archive046.opml",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Dropbox is down",
"created": "Thu, 30 May 2013 14:09:44 GMT",
"name": "dropboxIsDown",
"pgfnum": "24790",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "We love that we don't have to run servers for most of what Fargo does, but that means we rely on Dropbox's and Amazon's servers."
},
"1": {
"text": "And Dropbox appears to be down now, and that means no Fargo."
},
"2": {
"text": "I feel the same sense of abandonment and confusion that other Fargo users feel."
},
"3": {
"text": "Nothing to be done about it until Dropbox comes back."
},
"4": {
"text": "Update at 11:30AM Eastern -- Dropbox is back up. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 30 May 2013 15:29:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24792"
},
"5": {
"text": "Dave"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "My first ride on a CitiBike",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 21:15:01 GMT",
"name": "myRideOnACitibike",
"pgfnum": "24593",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I just got back from a ride on a CitiBike, one of NYC's new bikeshare deals.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:44:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24594"
},
"1": {
"text": "Executive summary: It works. I felt like I was there on the first day the subway opened in NYC.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:44:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24595"
},
"2": {
"text": "However it was not without glitches.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:45:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24596"
},
"3": {
"text": "I am a founding member, having paid the $95 annual fee on the first day they were available. I am user number 1411. In theory as long as each trip is 45 minutes or less, I don't have to pay any more money to use bikes. As much as I want.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:45:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24597"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/photos/archive/2013/05/26/imGoingToRideOneOfTheseBikesTom/original.jpg\")
But how does it work? I looked all over the website. They had instructions for people who were buying day passes or week passes, but no instructions for people who have annual memberships. I figured I'd find out when I got to the bike station.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:47:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24598"
},
"5": {
"text": "I went to the kiosk. No instructions for members. They did however suggest you get a membership if you're going to use it a lot. Okay I got one, so what do I do? No clue.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:48:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24599"
},
"6": {
"text": "I wasn't going to go home without trying it so I put my credit card in and started the process of buying a daily pass. There are some real usability problems with this system. First, it's very slow. Second, the display is at about belt level for me. Granted I'm tall, but not that tall. Some of the instructions refer to buttons that aren't there. You might guess wrong, as I did. Some user testing could have avoided this.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 21:00:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24606"
},
"7": {
"text": "It was so slow at responding to keystrokes, about midway through the process (I guess) after asking for my phone number and zip code, it just gave up and took me back to the main menu. By then a small crowd had gathered around to find out how it worked. A guy who had done it before showed me that I didn't need to do any of this. There's an unmarked slot where you can insert your keychain card. I did. It took a while for the light to turn from red to green. When it did, I was able to take the bike out of the rack, I adjusted the seat and off I went, south on Broadway toward Times Square.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 21:12:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24608"
},
"8": {
"text": "The bike looks like a klunker, but it rides pretty smooth!",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:52:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24600"
},
"9": {
"text": "It has three gears, probably not enough, but pretty close to enough.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:52:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24601"
},
"10": {
"text": "It's comfortable, more comfortable than my regular ride.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 21:13:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24609"
},
"11": {
"text": "There are flashing red lights on the rear of the bike. (I know this because I saw them on another CitiBike.)",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 21:10:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24607"
},
"12": {
"text": "There's no bell. That makes it an illegal bike in NYC, as I understand it. There were many times on my little excursion that I wish I had a bell. Pedestrians in NYC think bike lanes are useful for picnics, baby carriages (with babies in them), hand-holding at arms length. Waiting for red lights. You name it. The cars like to honk when they think you're in their way. It'd be nice to have something to fight back with, even though a bell sounds a little wimpy, it's less likely to get you killed than the typical NYers salute of Fuck You Asshole. :-)",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:53:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24602",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Update: Apparently it has a bell, I just didn't spot it.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 21:25:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24610"
}
}
},
"13": {
"text": "As soon as I entered Times Square proper, I took a right and headed over to Ninth Ave and rode all the way downtown to Bleecker St, where I made a left on 4th St, and dropped the bike off at the stand on 7th Ave. I got a couple of hot dogs at the Papaya Dog on 8th St, and rode the 1 train back uptown.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:54:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24603"
},
"14": {
"text": "It was on the subway that I realized that I had just used a new form of city transport, one that's perfectly suited for NY. I encountered a few other riders on my way. There's a Zero Day kind of feel to it. People seem excited. The bikes are nice. And there are enough bike lanes to get around.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:55:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24604"
},
"15": {
"text": "Bloomberg is a total 1 percenter, and a real dick about some things, but he got this one right. He will be remembered as a visionary mayor. I believe this is a keeper. Bikes and NY go together.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 20:57:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24605"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "New Flickr",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:26:56 GMT",
"name": "newFlickr",
"pgfnum": "24576",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Users like changes in products that are responsive to their needs and wants.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:00:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24577"
},
"1": {
"text": "Bugs fixed. Performance improved. A key missing feature added.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:01:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24578"
},
"2": {
"text": "Users like a dialog with the product creators that show there's an understanding. That seems to work best if the people who decide about the product are also users of the product.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:01:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24579",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Star Trek fans were horrified to find out that JJ Abrams was not a Star Trek fan.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:21:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24591"
},
"1": {
"text": "Couldn't they find a show runner who liked Star Trek-style science fiction?",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:27:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24592"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "That's why we watch serial shows like Mad Men. We like to see the characters we've come to know in new situations. We nod our heads, that's right, that's what Don Draper would do. If all of a sudden Don Draper started acting like Instagram, we'd wonder if we had the wrong channel.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:01:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24580"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/27/newCoke.gif\")
I've been using Flickr since almost the beginning. When I started, a generous Scripting News reader gifted me with a Pro account, and I've been paying the $25 every year. Sometimes I ask myself if I reallly want to do it, but in the end I always pay the money.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:02:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24581"
},
"5": {
"text": "All the while, Flickr hardly changed at all. I wasn't sure if this was a good thing. It meant that the management at Yahoo wasn't paying attention, I figured. At least if they aren't paying attention there's little chance they'd screw with it. For many years they stayed away. But last week all that changed. All of it.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:03:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24582"
},
"6": {
"text": "The change in Flickr was radical. And the performance of the site, which recently has been pretty bad, got worse. I assume this is because the servers have to do a lot more work to figure out how to lay out the photos so they show up in a neat array, as if we were reading a magazine instead of browsing a website.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:04:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24583"
},
"7": {
"text": "Other people have analyzed the deal changes, I honestly don't care much if it's $25 or $50, and I don't come close to using a terabyte. Mostly what I value from Flickr is the longevity of it. It seemed like a safe place to leave my pictures. My father's pictures are there too. He died in 2009. Up till now I wasn't too worried.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:06:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24584"
},
"8": {
"text": "Couldn't Flickr have given us the option of not using the new features? What if we don't want them? Why force this on us.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:07:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24585"
},
"9": {
"text": "What if I don't like the idea of ads on my pictures, the ones I pay them to store for me, btw. I can pay to get rid of the ads for myself, but as I understand it (and my understanding might be wrong) the ads will still show up for people who view my pictures.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:08:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24586"
},
"10": {
"text": "I want my pictures to be the star on Flickr, not Flickr. I don't care if they're hip -- or if they appeal to people who like Instagram or Facebook or whatever. I kind of doubt whether the superficial changes they make will attract many new users. Their competition have been out there for quite some time. I don't think Flickr did anyting more than match them. And the changes are so superficial. It looks like a mask that says Instagram while lurking in the back is something old and ugly, as if they're embarassed about what Flickr was. The site I thought was good enough to pay $25 a year to use. Flickr which looked just fine without the mask, now looks like a New Yorker cartoon. A parody of something that was pretty good as it was, and is horribly tragically pathetic trying to be something it's not and probably never will be.",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:09:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24587"
},
"11": {
"text": "I don't know what the answer is. Yahoo had a lot of money and offered some to the founders of Flickr. I don't blame them one bit for taking it. And how could the management at Yahoo understand what they bought if they weren't themselves users?",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:11:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24588"
},
"12": {
"text": "There's a lot of irony in the fact that all this embarassing change was implemented on the same day they were promisng that they would never do to Tumblr what they were proudly and openly doing to Flickr. Didn't anyone at Yahoo speak up and say that maybe people might notice the disconnect?",
"created": "Mon, 27 May 2013 17:12:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24589"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Fargo thread on Hacker News",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 23:47:38 GMT",
"name": "hackerNewsThreadOnHn",
"pgfnum": "24533",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I didn't want to post Fargo to Hacker News because it would seem too much like an ad, but this evening someone else did, and it's generating a lot of new users, and people seem genuinely excited about it.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 23:47:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24534"
},
"1": {
"text": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5772623",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 23:48:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24535"
},
"2": {
"text": "It's worth having a look at, and if you think it's interesting, please upvote! :-)",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 23:48:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24536"
},
"3": {
"text": "Thanks!",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 23:48:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24537"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Kickstarter for VCs",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 21:55:20 GMT",
"name": "kickstarterForVcs",
"pgfnum": "24519",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/26/planetMoneySquirrel.gif\")
Listening to the latest Planet Money gave me an idea. They went to Kickstarter to give their fans a way to fund public radio in a fun way, by buying a t-shirt. They used this event as a way to program a few shows where they examined the economics of t-shirts, and since it's Planet Money it was hugely interesting. I love their show. And they raised an astounding amount of money. $590,807.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 22:01:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24526",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "I thought that the way they did it might work for raising money from tech investors and successful entrepreneurs to fund the development of new open formats and protocols.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 22:03:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24527"
},
"2": {
"text": "My work generates open formats and protocols, because unlike most other entrepreneurs, I have a philosophy of no lock-in for users. This makes me more vulnerable to predatory competition, and it usually it comes from VC-backed companies. It's hard for me to compete with them not only because they have more money (lots) but they also have the halo that comes from VC investment. There was a time when money from Kleiner Perkins was a huge lift for a startup and they're still a powerful ally, but now Union Square and Spark Capital are even more influential.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 21:56:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24521"
},
"3": {
"text": "I've talked with the principal guys at these funds about changing the way they invest. Let's add a premium to investments that add to the open ecosystem instead of just consuming, but so far none of them have been willing to go for it. So it falls to me to do it for them. I'm not aware of other companies that do this, if there are any please send me an email.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 21:57:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24522"
},
"4": {
"text": "I think it's a good idea for investors to put back, so that when this cycle winds down, as it inevitably will, there are some new open formats and protocols to build on. If you depend on me to do it, the results won't be as good as they should be.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 22:00:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24525"
},
"5": {
"text": "Now, we could go to Kickstarter and ask end-users to fund development of open formats and protocols, and it might work -- it did for the Diaspora guys. But I suspect they were more investing in their anti-Facebook message, or their youthfu optimism (some might say naivete). I won't make my work anti-anything (except lock-in which isn't a thing really, it's more of a practice) and as you know I lost my peach fuzz a long time ago. ;-)",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 22:05:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24528"
},
"6": {
"text": "I think successful VCs and entrepreneurs should invest. I think they should kick back into the ecosystem that made them rich. I'll recuse myself from any investments such a Kickstarter might make, in fact I'll put money in along-side them. Let's give all new companies an incentive to give freedom of choice to their users, right from the start.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 22:06:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24529"
},
"7": {
"text": "Look at it this way -- when you get good service at a restaurant, you don't have to leave a tip. But you do anyway, because it's the right thing to do. Same thing here. Open formats make people rich. Those people should give back to create more open formats for themselves the next group of investors, entrepreneurs and users.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 22:08:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24530"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "If you love to make software...",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 15:36:27 GMT",
"name": "ifYouLoveToDevelopSoftware",
"pgfnum": "24515",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A 14-min podcast about programming as art and engineering, and why if that's what you do, you keep doing it.",
"created": "Sun, 26 May 2013 15:36:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24518",
"type": "link",
"url": "http://static.scripting.com/myReallySimple/2013/05/26/davecast2013may26.m4a"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "Mathew taught me something",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:27:52 GMT",
"name": "mathewTaughtMeSomething",
"pgfnum": "24475",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/25/accordionGuy.gif\")
In late March when we shipped Little Outliner, Mathew Ingram wrote a very nice piece about our startup in GigaOm. But the title was problematic. It said: \"Watch out, internet: Dave Winer is back in the business of making blogging tools.\" I groaned. We had just shipped an outliner, a small one, and there were no blogging tools anywhere in sight. But somehow, looking at my outliner, Mathew saw blogging. I should have listened more carefully. Instead I wrote a post that claimed, boldly: \"I'm not making blogging tools.\" I put a smiley after it to show there were no hard feelings. I wanted to get on the record quickly and clearly. Don't think this is a blogging tool. It's an outliner.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:08:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24476"
},
"1": {
"text": "Then in April we shipped a much more ambitious product, Fargo -- whose name relative to Little Outliner was supposed to be kind of a pun. Little Outliner is little, but Fargo will Go Far(ther). How far it will go has not yet been revealed, but we're hard at work on a publishing platform that Fargo connects to. At the time I didn't think that the publishing side could or should be viewed as blogging. But now, as it's evolved, and I've met our first users (back in March we didn't know who they were), I can see that Mathew was right. We are in the business of making blogging tools. Did I know it at the time when I said we weren't? I didn't. Nothing changed except the product and the users. If they are changing, you have to go with them. You can't fight City Hall, and if your users say it's blogging, and a respected analyst says it's blogging -- it's blogging. ;-)",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:11:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24477"
},
"2": {
"text": "Another thing happened while all our development was going on -- Tumblr, a product which I have deep respect for, sold to Yahoo. What I admire most about Tumblr, as a product designer, is its templating system. It's a descendent of the ones we developed at UserLand in Manila and Radio, which in turn were descended from the templates used by designers in the desktop publishing era using Quark and Pagemaker.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:14:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24478"
},
"3": {
"text": "Templating is at the core of blogging. The reach of a blogging system is determined by the richness and flexibility of its templating. And here's an interesting fact. If the content has structure, as outlines do, you can do a lot more for the user with templates. CSS is a nice beginning, but the outlines give you power flat text designers and authors can only dream of.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:25:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24482"
},
"4": {
"text": "We can, and are, doing more. Tumblr has now been around for a long time. Our earlier work has been around even longer. It's time for a fresh look at tools for designers, writers and programmers, centered around web content. If people want to think of that as blogging, who am I to argue with them.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:15:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24479"
},
"5": {
"text": "So I won't. :-)",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:16:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24480"
},
"6": {
"text": "PS: A good content tool should also be a workgroup collaboration tool, as Fargo is.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 14:33:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24484"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "Investing in America on Memorial Day",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:43:14 GMT",
"name": "keepAmericaGoing",
"pgfnum": "24465",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "There's a false argument about the national debt that goes like this.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:43:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24466"
},
"1": {
"text": "We can't leave a huge debt for future generations to pay off.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:43:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24467"
},
"2": {
"text": "It's false for a couple of reasons:",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:43:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24468",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "1. If you make good investments, they create growth and the growth pays off the investment. That's how business works. If you build an interstate highway system, that creates growth in cities that weren't served well by other forms of transport, they pay more taxes, and those taxes are used to pay back the bonds that were sold to create the highways.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:44:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24469",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "The time to worry is when we make investments that don't create value, like the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. No growth came as a result of that borrowing. We should think very carefully before starting unnecessary wars, aside from the moral reasons, the economics are really tough.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:52:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24474"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "2. We pay the debt back in a currency that we print. So if there isn't enough money coming in from #1, we pay back the bond holders with new dollars. You say that's inflationary, and I'm no economist, but I have a bit of common sense. If taxes aren't generating enough to pay back your good investments that's because the economy is depressed, and in those times a little inflation is a good thing, because it counteracts something even worse than inflation -- deflation.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:45:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24470"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "But even if you don't buy the math of it, consider the emotional argument. You're worried about future generations, but what about our debt to past generations that sacrificed for us so we could have good education, homes, health care, transport? Aren't we betraying them if we let the infrastructure they built for us crumble and disappear?",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:47:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24471"
},
"4": {
"text": "When do we think about our ancestors and what we owe them?",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:48:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24472"
},
"5": {
"text": "Of course that's what Memorial Day is for. To remember the people who came before, especially those who sacrificed so we could be propserous and healthy. We invest in our country because the only other option is to see the country crumble. And we invest because we hope for a better future for those who come next.",
"created": "Sat, 25 May 2013 13:48:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24473"
}
}
},
"8": {
"text": "The whitewashing method",
"created": "Fri, 24 May 2013 13:51:57 GMT",
"name": "theWhitewashingMethod",
"pgfnum": "24413",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "You know how they have all these methods of development, agile, etc.",
"created": "Fri, 24 May 2013 13:52:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24414"
},
"1": {
"text": "My method is whitewashing fences."
},
"2": {
"text": "I'm Tom Sawyer and I have a great fence and some paint."
},
"3": {
"text": "It's a beautiful day and I'm having the time of my life whitewashing this fence."
},
"4": {
"text": "My friends want to know if they can do it too."
},
"5": {
"text": "I don't know! I'm having so much fun..."
},
"6": {
"text": "I'll have to get back to you."
}
}
},
"9": {
"text": "3 free ideas for Hacker News",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:59:33 GMT",
"name": "aSuggestionForHackerNews",
"pgfnum": "24344",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/23/can.gif\")
The other day I suggested perhaps adding blocking to HN, mostly as a way of starting a discussion. And it led to some interesting ideas that I think are worth considering.",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:43:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24345"
},
"1": {
"text": "A lot of the personal attacks come from accounts created to post one message. The user has never commented before, or submitted a link to the site.",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:44:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24346"
},
"2": {
"text": "So here are some ideas:",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:52:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24351",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "1. Add a waiting period before new accounts can post. Like registering a gun.",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:45:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24347"
},
"1": {
"text": "2. Charge for creating an account. Maybe $5 or so. Not very much money, but perhaps enough to make someone think again. If they want to be anonymous, use Bitcoin. That's what it's for.",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:52:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24352"
},
"2": {
"text": "3. Automatically downvote posts from accounts created within the last hour. Make it clear to readers that this comment was made by a new account.",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:52:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24350"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "What made me think of this idea was yet another one-off flame from a user named redmarx who created the account 13 hours ago, the exact same time his post was created. Now what do you think is going on there? A courageous whistle-blower, or a coward who doesn't want to own his or her own words? :-)",
"created": "Thu, 23 May 2013 15:46:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24348"
}
}
},
"10": {
"text": "Icon Chooser Dialog",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:54:22 GMT",
"name": "iconChooserDialog",
"pgfnum": "24234",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Our users love icons.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:54:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24235"
},
"1": {
"text": "I guess most users do, but people who write in outliners need a little more graphic relief because our work is totally text and structure. Adding a bit of graphics is like adding spice to a sauce. And they're fun!",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:55:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24236"
},
"2": {
"text": "We're lucky because Font Awesome is such a great collection of icons. And it keeps getting better. If you're developing web apps, you're nuts if you aren't using Font Awesome. Seriously.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:56:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24237"
},
"3": {
"text": "Anyway, until Fargo 0.65 it was a lot of work to add an icon to an outline. What changed is that we created an icon chooser dialog that makes it easy and fun.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:56:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24238"
},
"4": {
"text": "If you're using Fargo, you can try it out with the Icon Chooser command in the Outliner menu.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:57:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24239"
},
"5": {
"text": "If you're not using Fargo, here's a little demo app you can try. It doesn't do much but allow you to browse the icons. When you click on one, an alert pops up saying which icon you chose.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:57:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24240"
},
"6": {
"text": "If you're a programmer, the code is free to use under the GPL. That means any improvements you make must also be licensed under the GPL. And it would be nice if you said where you got it. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 14:58:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24241"
},
"7": {
"text": "https://github.com/scripting/Icon-Chooser"
},
"8": {
"text": "Enjoy!",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 15:10:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24245"
}
}
},
"11": {
"text": "Hacker News is depressing",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 12:34:39 GMT",
"name": "hackerNewsIsDepressing",
"pgfnum": "24212",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/21/trashcan.gif\")
Yesterday someone at Hacker News thought to point to my piece about Marissa Mayer. It was a story I wrote in about 15 minutes. The point was at the end of the piece. As a preamble, I told a couple of stories from my personal experience. I figured it would get a few comments, maybe a couple of thousand reads, and that would be that. But the torrent of abuse on Hacker News was something that I haven't seen in a long time.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 12:34:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24213"
},
"1": {
"text": "One of the main reasons it doesn't work is that people don't ask questions to clarify. They jump to conclusions, some of which are very wrong. For example, they assumed I was the only person who was concerned about the BlogThis! button. Not true.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 13:02:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24221"
},
"2": {
"text": "They assumed that I was being \"egotistical\" for thinking that Google ever cared what I thought, and arrogant that I think they should care what I think now. It's a fact that at one point, early-on, Google did care. Their chief PR person was from Apple, Cindy McCaffrey, a class act in every way. She would routinely send emails to me and Doc Searls asking our opinions. Whether anyone else there cared, I don't know. But I was invited to a meeting with engineers to talk about blogging, RSS and XML-RPC at one point. I can't imagine why they would ask me to tell them what I think if they didn't care. I suppose it might have been a big conspiracy, like Mission Impossible. Hey I wouldn't put it past some of the trolls on Hacker News to argue that. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 13:03:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24222"
},
"3": {
"text": "On the other hand, I don't take it personally that Google doesn't care what I think these days, partially because I don't think they care what anyone thinks. That's a long story all by itself.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 13:05:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24223"
},
"4": {
"text": "Now, we could have had an interesting discussion on HN if people would have asked questions for clarification instead of just piling on the abuse based on their impressions. That's taking them at face-value, assuming they really want an informative discussion. Probably the trolls in the thread, and their upvoters, wanted nothing like that.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 13:06:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24224"
},
"5": {
"text": "There were some other ludicrous statements. Did any of them know that I started a new company in December, and we shipped our first two products in March and April? They said I thought JavaScript was a bad language. How funny, because I'm writing almost all my code these days in JavaScript. They say I'm old and out of date. Funny. They're the ones who are out of date! :-)",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 13:08:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24225"
},
"6": {
"text": "And if you say someone's old as a way of hurting them, the joke will eventually come back to hurt you. As one of the characters of Citizen Kane, Bernstein, said so eloquently, old age is the one disease you don't look forward to being cured of. It comes to everyone. I was young once. Now I'm middle-aged. Truth. And the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I don't see what it has to do with the point of my blog post.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 13:09:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24226"
},
"7": {
"text": "Now I think there's a solution to letting the assholes control the conversation...",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 13:36:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24227"
},
"8": {
"text": "As discourse has moved to Twitter, its big contribution has been to push aside the abuse that's common with discussion boards and mail lists. A very simple feature in Twitter, the block command, enforces decorum, by empowering the listener to turn you off if they find you offensive. People learn that if they say abusive things, they don't have to listen. The only people I listen to on Twitter are those who can make a point without getting personal. I learn from disagreement, but I can't stand people who use their freedom to speak as a way of hurting others.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 12:36:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24214"
},
"9": {
"text": "Then I wondered -- if it works so well for Twitter -- why can't sites block Hacker News if the abuse gets too heavy? After yesterday's experience I probably would do it. I like the flow they deliver, but I hate the abuse.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 12:46:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24218"
},
"10": {
"text": "So I have a suggestion for Paul Graham, the guy who runs Hacker News. Give sites the option of blocking links from Hacker News. I honestly don't care what the HN trolls, and the people who upvote them, supposedly \"think\" about me. None of it is based on anything real. A lot of it is anonymous. Sometimes people create accounts just for the purpose of dropping a big smelly turd in the middle of a discussion.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 12:38:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24215"
},
"11": {
"text": "Let's learn a trick from Twitter, and cut off the trolls at the source.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 12:47:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24219"
},
"12": {
"text": "PS: I subscribe to the Hacker News feed, which does not include comments. It's very useful stuff. So the links themselves are good.",
"created": "Tue, 21 May 2013 12:59:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24220"
}
}
},
"12": {
"text": "I tried Google Glass",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:16:09 GMT",
"name": "iTriedGoogleGlass",
"pgfnum": "24177",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/20/glass.gif\")
I went to dinner last night with the two Scobles, Robert and Patrick.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:16:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24178"
},
"1": {
"text": "Robert is famous for the picture of him wearing a Google Glass while in the shower.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:16:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24179"
},
"2": {
"text": "Last night, he was wearing the glasses most of the dinner, but took them off. He said I should try them. I did.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:16:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24180"
},
"3": {
"text": "What you get is a sequence of cards, with recent tweets, emails, Google Now type stuff. You scroll through them by swiping on the stem of the glasses. It doesn't take any time to get the hang of it.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:17:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24181"
},
"4": {
"text": "You can create tweets with voice. It happened so quickly I barely knew I had done it. I created a tweet on Scoble's account. It contained an expletive which they conveniently ***'ed out for me.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:18:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24182"
},
"5": {
"text": "It was nice. However I don't feel any lust for having one of my own. I carry an Android phone and an iPad with me most places. The UI of Google Glass, while interesting, doesn't seem to be an improvement over the phone interface.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:18:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24183"
},
"6": {
"text": "But it's early days. Maybe someone will figure this out. The Apple II wasn't much use before Visicalc, for example. The Mac came with a couple of demo apps, but didn't blossom until there were 20 or 30 useful pieces of software for it (it needed more of an ecosystem than an individual killer app).",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 16:19:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24184"
}
}
},
"13": {
"text": "My one talk with Marissa Mayer",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 13:54:46 GMT",
"name": "myOneTalkWithMarissaMayer",
"pgfnum": "24145",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It was 2003. Google had just bought Blogger. On the acquisition, they said they wouldn't do anything to tilt the table in favor of Blogger. There was concern in the wider blogging community that Google might use its power in search to give people an incentive to use Blogger over other publishing platforms. They said this would never happen.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 13:54:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24146"
},
"1": {
"text": "But a few weeks after the deal they broke the promise. They added a BlogThis! button to Google Toolbar. It only worked with Blogger. It would have been a simple matter to make it work with any blogging tool. But they didn't see why they should do that.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 13:55:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24147",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It would have been okay if Blogger was the default. But give the users a preference to set the address of our blogging platform.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 14:04:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24154"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "Back then Google cared a little about what I thought, so the result was a conference call between me and an exec at Google, Marissa Mayer. I was driving cross-country from California to Boston, so I stopped in Utah, in the parking lot of a 7-11 just east of Salt Lake City, and we had the call.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 13:56:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24148"
},
"3": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/21/fargo.gif\")
All I remember of it was there came a point in the conversation when Mayer had had enough. She just got up and left. I think the people remaining in the conference room were a little embarassed. Google didn't do anything to change the BlogThis! button.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 13:57:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24149"
},
"4": {
"text": "All this is to say that the promises execs make on acquisitions are meaningless. They own the thing, they will do what they want to with it. It doesn't matter how many nice sounds Mayer makes on the deal. At the core she cares not one bit what the users of Tumblr think. She's saying what she needs to say to make the deal happen. To avoid a PR crisis on Day One. To make the team at Tumblr feel like their work has value to the new owners. That somehow this acquisition isn't actually an acquisition.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 13:58:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24150"
},
"5": {
"text": "I have some intuition about this myself, because I sold a company. We were bought because we had a presence in the Mac market, which was highly coveted at the time. I negotiated for myself a role as the \"Chief architect of Symantec's Mac strategy.\" A few weeks after the deal I made a presentation to the exec staff about what our Mac strategy would be. Only one person showed up, the president of the company, Gordon Eubanks. He watched a couple of slides and thanked me for the input. I asked What about my chief architect role? He told me that was something they told me to get me to do the deal.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 13:59:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24151"
},
"6": {
"text": "He left the room. What was I going to do? What could I do? Nothing, that's what. :-)",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 14:01:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24152"
},
"7": {
"text": "Moral of the story: When you sell your company, no matter what promises were made, you sold it. It's theirs now. They will do what they want to with it. Promises don't matter.",
"created": "Mon, 20 May 2013 14:02:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24153"
}
}
},
"14": {
"text": "Yahoo buying Tumblr",
"created": "Sun, 19 May 2013 17:55:21 GMT",
"name": "yahooBuyingTumblr",
"pgfnum": "24103",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It looks like Yahoo is buying Tumblr.",
"created": "Sun, 19 May 2013 17:40:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24104"
},
"1": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/19/champagne.gif\")
I feel some sense of pride here because Tumblr is a descendent of products I made, Manila and Radio, that laid the groundwork for products like theirs. David Karp and Marco Arment will get rich (or richer) and that's cool because they're smart people who worked hard and made something real happened. I am in awe of systems that handle as much content as Tumblr. Their users should be in awe as well, imho.",
"created": "Sun, 19 May 2013 17:40:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24105"
},
"2": {
"text": "Yet we still don't have a whole system for product development in this industry.",
"created": "Sun, 19 May 2013 17:41:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24106"
},
"3": {
"text": "The rewards for digging the first holes that become the foundations for great systems like Tumblr and WordPress are minimal, if they exist at all. When you try to talk with investors about kicking back a bit of their proceeds in ventures that in addition providing good ROI, also create open formats and protocols that industries can be built on, you get blank stares. As if they don't understand. Of course they do understand, it's just easier to pretend they don't.",
"created": "Sun, 19 May 2013 17:41:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24107"
},
"4": {
"text": "They profit from this work, but like the grasshopper in the famous fable, they aren't willing to participate in the investment that made the profit possible. Too bad, because if they did -- I think their companies would be stronger as a result. The better the foundation, the bigger the building you can make, and the more efficient it is to keep it running. Had we had a longer easier runway for Radio and Manila, Tumblr might have gone further on less investment.",
"created": "Sun, 19 May 2013 17:45:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24109"
},
"5": {
"text": "Anyway, that's a small point right now. Get out the champagne and celebrate, because some of the good guys won. (Or at least appear to have, we'll find out for sure tomorrow.)",
"created": "Sun, 19 May 2013 17:43:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24108"
}
}
},
"15": {
"text": "Users mail list for Dropbox",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:12:17 GMT",
"name": "usersMailListForDropbox",
"pgfnum": "24062",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/18/drum.gif\")
I've been wondering lately why there has been so little useful stuff written about Fargo. It's an interesting product from a lot of angles.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:12:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24063"
},
"1": {
"text": "So I've been asking questions, and this is what I've figured out.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:21:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24074"
},
"2": {
"text": "1. There are great places to go for reviews of Mac products.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:13:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24064"
},
"3": {
"text": "2. If you want to know about software that's sold on Amazon, you'll find lots of reviews from users. I understand that well because I depend on reviews for almost everything I buy on Amazon.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:13:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24065"
},
"4": {
"text": "3. For IOS and Android apps there are the stores, which have reviews.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:14:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24066"
},
"5": {
"text": "But there is no place, that I know for Dropbox users to find out what the great apps are and what users are doing with them.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:14:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24067"
},
"6": {
"text": "Probably because Dropbox as a platform is so new?",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:15:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24068"
},
"7": {
"text": "It's like a fog here, because we're all operating with so little information.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:15:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24069"
},
"8": {
"text": "So let's solove the problem. I started a mail list today for users of Dropbox who want to be in the loop on all kinds of new products. Obviously it's a chicken and egg thing. If enough users show up, the developers will follow, and vice versa.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:15:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24070"
},
"9": {
"text": "https://groups.google.com/forum/dropbox-users",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:16:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24071"
},
"10": {
"text": "We'll probably need some rules of conduct at some point, or move to a blog or blogs, because mail lists always tend to flame out if there's no moderation, but for now, it's a good way for people to meet, if there's enough interest.",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:16:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24072"
},
"11": {
"text": "As a vendor of a Dropbox-based product, I can tell you I am highly motivated to see this work. Most people who use Dropbox, some of whom would love a great outliner, don't know my product exists. I want desperately to fix that. :-)",
"created": "Sat, 18 May 2013 19:16:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24073"
}
}
},
"16": {
"text": "Google is the new MSM",
"created": "Fri, 17 May 2013 15:32:44 GMT",
"name": "googleIsTheNewMsm",
"pgfnum": "24051",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/17/bulworth.gif\")
Last night watching the NBA on TNT, new commercials for the YouTube comedy fest. The production was distinctly not YouTube. It was professional in every way. Nothing amateur about it. Google is now MSM. All that talk about Burning Man is sleight of hand. That guy has as much in common with you and me as Rupert Murdoch does.",
"created": "Fri, 17 May 2013 15:32:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24052"
},
"1": {
"text": "It's not just Google, Twitter is also MSM. Facebook? Eh. Their presence on TV is mostly in URLs at the bottom of other peoples' ads. Their commercials are amateurish, awful imitations of other tech company commercials. Not to say they're the only ones with awful commercials, but theirs are awful in their amateurishness.",
"created": "Fri, 17 May 2013 15:33:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24054"
},
"2": {
"text": "A blog post on Forbes suggests that Google is going to bring RSS back in a MSM-type way. You'll be able to follow Blogger blogs in Google Plus. Maybe they'll make a deal with Automattic and Tumblr to make it possible to follow their blogs too. Me and you? Well we can be followed, but only if we use one of the silos. We have to be locked in someone's trunk to participate.",
"created": "Fri, 17 May 2013 15:35:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24055"
},
"3": {
"text": "The web is going to play the same role to all this crazy locked up stuff that it played to MSM in the 90s. We're going to be the oddballs. The ones with amateurish sites. We'll be the artisans, the local farmers of ideas. The ones that lack polish but speak from our experience. We'll do what Bulworth so famously did. I don't have access, and I don't want it. I'd much prefer to hear from other people who don't have access and don't want it.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 17 May 2013 15:36:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24057",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "The web keeps moving. If your attention has shifted and you can't see that, that's not the same thing as the web being lost. Maybe you got lost? :-)",
"created": "Fri, 17 May 2013 15:38:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24058"
}
}
},
"17": {
"text": "Why Dave Wynn uses Fargo",
"created": "Thu, 16 May 2013 15:55:16 GMT",
"name": "whyDaveWynnUsesFargo",
"pgfnum": "23999",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Over on our Community Feed for Fargo users, a conversation started about how people are loving writing code with Fargo. This really surprised me, because we haven't done much to encourage this. There's a simple feature in the app that allows you to run a single-line of JavaScript code. This means you can call any routine that's in Fargo, or in Bootstrap, jQuery or in the core JavaScript libraries.",
"created": "Thu, 16 May 2013 15:55:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24000"
},
"1": {
"text": "We have it in there because it's useful for one-liners, for debugging the app. It's not meant to make it a programming environment. But some people seem to love it. I wanted to know why, so I asked. And what came back from Dave Wynn, a user who I had not met until this exchange, was a simple and eloquent explanation of why Fargo is a great product (I happen to agree with him of course, but then it's partly my creation). Here's what he said, of course in an outline (Fargo is an outliner).",
"created": "Thu, 16 May 2013 16:21:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "24003"
},
"2": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/11/bus.gif\")
I did a house-cleaning on my river server on May 9. At that time some of the rivers stopped updating. Mostly the ones that no longer have tabs in the user interface because either I personally didn't have enough interest in the subject and not many other people were reading them. I didn't feel like paying for machine resources if only one or two people were reading the flow, or if there were only one or two new items a week.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 22:55:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23790"
},
"1": {
"text": "One of the rivers that I turned off is the Apple river. I use a Mac, several in fact. And I have an iPad and an iPod. I am a long-time Apple shareholder. I am an Apple user, but I am not a dedicated member of the Apple community like some people I respect are. For example, Brent Simmons, Marco Arment, John Gruber, Daniel Jalkut or Michael Gartenberg. I see a tremendous value in the river, if only someone rooted in the community would take an interest. It's also a potential money-maker, imho.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 22:56:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23791"
},
"2": {
"text": "It's really time for communities to spread out and become more inclusive. With a well-curated river, the Mac community can explore more niches, and grow in some interesting ways, perhaps.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 22:58:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23792"
},
"3": {
"text": "So I offer to keep running the river...",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 22:59:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23793"
},
"4": {
"text": "1. If someone with a site with serious flow offers to display the river on their site, linked to from their home page.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 22:59:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23794"
},
"5": {
"text": "2. It can be rendered in their template.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 22:59:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23795"
},
"6": {
"text": "3. I will provide support on the technical process for getting the river to display well in another site. It involves using jQuery, something I'm not an expert in. But I got it to work here, so I presume we can get it working anywhere. If we need help I know where to ask for it. ;-)",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 22:59:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23796"
},
"7": {
"text": "4. The curator has to have the ability to edit an OPML subscription list, and make it available at a public HTTP address. Fargo, my outliner, does this very nicely, in conjunction with Dropbox. But you can use any tool you like.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 23:00:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23797"
},
"8": {
"text": "5. The person doing the curating and the person doing the display can be different people, if you like.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 23:00:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23798"
},
"9": {
"text": "6. Curating here means choosing feeds, not stories. We're looking for good sources of Mac news and opinion. But it's up to those sources to decide what goes in the river. It's just an RSS aggregator on the back-end.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 23:09:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23803"
},
"10": {
"text": "7. All I want in return is a link from the page back to a page that shows people how to set up their own rivers, which I will write. It won't be hype-ish. I may ask for a little money for the software.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 23:01:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23799"
},
"11": {
"text": "I think the Apple river is a great place to start. Now I'm looking for one of the leaders in the Mac blogging world to step up and work with me on this. I may not be a Mac insider these days, but I go back to the beginning. I was onstage at the Mac rollout in 1984. I had an ad in the first issue of MacWorld. My product won the top Eddy in 1986. I used to go to WWDC back when it was in San Jose. I even spoke at WWDC one year. Ask Guy Kawasaki. ;-)",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 23:01:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23800"
},
"12": {
"text": "Let's do this. I think it'll turn out to be an important step in the growth of the Mac blogosphere.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 23:03:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23801"
}
}
},
"21": {
"text": "Should the Community Feed be an RSS feed in addition to being an OPML feed?",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 03:33:03 GMT",
"name": "shouldTheCommunityFeedBeAnRssFeedInAdditionToBeingAnOpmlFeed",
"pgfnum": "23768",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "This question came up in the Community Feed, which you can read in Fargo, by choosing the Community Feed command from the Docs menu. Or you can read it in the Small Picture Reader if you don't use Fargo. I wrote my answer there, but thought it would be interesting to also post it here. No I didn't use the fancy Blogging 2.0 protocol I described in an earlier post. Soooon!",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 03:33:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23769"
},
"1": {
"text": "Well of course it would be nice to have everything, if there were no cost."
},
"2": {
"text": "It would take time to write the code and keep it running. It would be worth doing if there would be a lot of people using it. But right now the Community Feed a new feature. We're still at the point where we're introducing ourselves. If that's all it does it will have been worth it."
},
"3": {
"text": "I'm an investor in software, and I have to make decisions as any investor would. I can't buy everything. And right now there are other projects that I think need more attention."
},
"4": {
"text": "Also, and this is a key point, this is not something you need Kyle or me to do. The OPML feed is public. If you want to write the code to convert it to an RSS feed, you can do it.",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Read it once every ten minutes. Use the eTag feature of HTTP to conserve bandwidth. Generate RSS 2.0. How will you synthesize a title for each item? I don't know, that's a hard problem. RSS 2.0 doesn't require titles, but Google Reader did. That made generating RSS feeds a difficult process for data that doesn't inherently have titles. But Google Reader is going away, so we're free to do as we please, you say. Not so fast. The replacements are clones. I bet they're just as picky as GR was. At least until the dust settles, and that isn't going to happen this year even, probably."
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "But OPML feeds? Ahhh that's easy. Since I'm writing both ends I can make it work. And if I want to change things based on what I learn, I can do that too. That's why the early days on anything are important. And why you should go slowly enough so you can feed back what you learn into the protocol."
},
"6": {
"text": "Anyway you see these questions sound simple, but when you actually start writing the code, they can become complex."
},
"7": {
"text": "Bottom-line: My bet is that no one would use an RSS feed of this content. That makes it a bad investment. I've been wrong before, btw.",
"created": "Sat, 11 May 2013 03:41:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23770"
}
}
},
"22": {
"text": "Standards for Rivers",
"created": "Fri, 10 May 2013 16:07:48 GMT",
"name": "newsMovingToRivers",
"pgfnum": "23698",
"pubdate": "Fri, 10 May 2013 16:05:49 GMT",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/04/drummer.gif\")
I've had Markdown on my to-do list for a few months, and the other day, with a bit of blank space in my worklist, I decided to give it a shot.",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:43:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23558"
},
"1": {
"text": "It was amazingly easy to integrate into our JavaScript app. I just downloaded the source for Pagedown, the Markdown interpreter used by Stack Overflow. I put it into a file on our server, and included it in Fargo. Added a command to the File menu, and came up with a simple way to generate it for users. The whole thing was done in a couple of hours.",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:56:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23571"
},
"2": {
"text": "Now we need people who know Markdown and outliners to take a look at this, try it out and relatively quickly, before there's an installed base to break, figure out if there's anything special we need to do, because this is an outliner and not a straight text editor.",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:47:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23562"
},
"3": {
"text": "Here are a couple of considerations:",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:47:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23563"
},
"4": {
"text": "1. Should we generate one or two return chars at the end of every outline heading? At first we did one, then thought better and generated two, but now we're back at one. Pretty sure one is the right answer. We often think of a headline as a paragraph, but sometimes headlines are titles. Markdown views titles and paragraphs very differently.",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:48:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23564"
},
"5": {
"text": "2. Indentation. I thought at first that we should generate a tab for every level, but backed out of that idea quickly because Markdown treats tabs as very special characters. Everything deeper than level 0 would be seen as preformatted code. Not the desired outcome.",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:51:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23567"
},
"6": {
"text": "So I wonder if there have been any others who have integrated outlining and Markdown before? If so, what did they do here?",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:52:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23568"
},
"7": {
"text": "See the Fargo docs for an idea how it works from a user's standpoint.",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:54:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23570"
},
"8": {
"text": "I welcome any comments from Markdown experts (I am anything but that).",
"created": "Sat, 04 May 2013 20:53:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23569"
}
}
},
"30": {
"text": "Fargo and Markdown",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:40:18 GMT",
"name": "fargoAndMarkdown",
"pgfnum": "23515",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/03/drummer.gif\")
A quick note about a new development with our Fargo outliner.",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:26:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23516"
},
"1": {
"text": "Fargo now has a Markdown processor baked-in. This means that a user can write a Markdown-formatted outline, and generate HTML from it, with a single command in the File menu.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:35:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23521",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "We're using the open source Pagedown library.",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:06:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23514"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "Markdown and text go together, by design. Outliners are text editors, a special kind that understand structure. There is a structure to Markdown, as there is structure to HTML, but so far as we know, none of the Markdown editors have been outliners.",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:29:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23517"
},
"3": {
"text": "How the connection with outlines and Markdown will proceed is an unknown. By baking in Markdown we're asking a simple question. How does this work? We hope to hear from users and other smart people who have ideas.",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:30:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23518"
},
"4": {
"text": "This feature is available in Fargo 0.55, which is now released on the site.",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:31:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23519"
},
"5": {
"text": "Let's have fun! :-)",
"created": "Fri, 03 May 2013 20:31:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23520"
}
}
},
"31": {
"text": "The Knicks as a metaphor",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:43:06 GMT",
"name": "swattingAwayFlies",
"pgfnum": "23466",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/02/knicks.gif\")
A number of Knicks players did something extremely stupid when they dressed in black for last night's game, saying they were dressing for the Celtics' funeral. These guys may be talented athletes, but they don't understand sports. Amazingly. How could they get that far in the NBA without understanding that you don't celebrate until you win. I know they're young. I wonder if they've ever heard about Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 16:27:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23472",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "Sports, if it teaches us anything, it's how to struggle against our folly. How not to tempt fate. How to manage our own presence.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 16:29:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23473"
},
"2": {
"text": "Look at the incredible baskets these guys make. But they only make them when they're grounded, in the moment, feeling the energy, whatever it is. So JR Smith started celebrating after they had a solid lead in Game 3. He got ejected, and suspended, and not only wasn't there to help in Game 4, he broke the bubble around the Knicks, that had been around the team since they emerged from an awful funk in February. Now we have to wonder if they can get it back.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 16:30:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23474"
},
"3": {
"text": "The Celtics, last night, walking off the court, may have helped the Knicks get back in the groove, repeating trash talk about Carmelo's wife. I'm just theorizing, lip-reading. But maybe he'll get angry and really want to win. That's probably all it takes.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 16:31:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23475"
},
"4": {
"text": "Meanwhile in Oklahoma City, the Thunder coach thought he could sneak by the Rockets with a trick. Oh how sad. Kevin Durant who I thought was a true fighter, is instead mired in self-pity. And the Rockets, a young, smart, admirable -- wonderful group of young men -- are pushing every one of their buttons, artfully. They might pull out the upset. Amazing parallels between the Celtics and the Rockets. One team old, one young. Both not going out peacefully.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 16:32:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23476"
},
"5": {
"text": "All this is a metaphor for my former friend Mike Arrington, who may be the JR Smith of tech. He was celebrating the demise of RSS while the body was still breathing. He had no clue that he had won, or that anyone was keeping score.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 16:33:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23477"
},
"6": {
"text": "Technology isn't all that different from basketball. There's teamwork, and bubbles of energy, and franchises. RSS is not something that dies, any more than the NBA dies. Players come and go, there are generations -- the Patrick Ewing Knicks and the Bernard King Knicks. Now we have the Carmelo Anthony Knicks. But RSS, like the NBA is bigger than me or Mike. He doesn't get to say it's dead. RSS just laughs, shrugs it off and keeps on going.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 16:34:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23478"
}
}
},
"32": {
"text": "The Fargo-WordPress connection",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 14:59:09 GMT",
"name": "theFargowordpressConnection",
"pgfnum": "23454",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/05/02/wheel.gif\")
My outliner is an authoring tool. I think of it as the hub of a wheel with lots of spokes. At the end of each spoke is a way to communicate.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 14:59:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23455"
},
"1": {
"text": "Some of the spokes lead to private places, for example, the worknotes I share with my programming partner. No one else sees those. But then there are blog posts, like the one you're reading now. At the end of this spoke is software I wrote that renders an outline in this form. I'm one of a small number of people, today, using that method of rendering.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:16:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23464"
},
"2": {
"text": "Yesterday we released a spoke that leads to WordPress, the popular open source blogging environment. You can now use Fargo to create and edit posts in WordPress. This works in two ways:",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:01:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23456",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "1. You can use the outliner to organize a library of posts you want to be able to access quickly.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:02:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23457"
},
"1": {
"text": "2. You can use the outliner to structure each blog post.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:02:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23458",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "By default each level is represented in the blog post by indentation. But we also add CSS styles to each paragraph that indicate what level they are at. So a skilled CSS designer can set it up so that level indentation does much more to control the appearance of the text. I expect lots of interesting stuff to develop here.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:07:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23463"
}
}
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Here are the docs for the feature, and a list of recent new posts written in Fargo.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:04:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23460"
},
"4": {
"text": "Here's a homemade video demo of the new Fargo-WordPress connection.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:04:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23459",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "Over time you'll see us add more connection, and of course offer a general way for anyone to add new spokes to the wheel. And because we're using an open format, it'll even be possible to hook other outliners up to the same connections.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:04:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23461"
},
"6": {
"text": "For anyone who cares, this is how you bootstrap a new standard, a coral reef for authoring and rendering.",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:06:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23462"
},
"7": {
"text": "PS: This is what the post looks like in WordPress. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 02 May 2013 15:25:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23465"
}
}
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "April",
"name": "april",
"type": "include",
"url": "http://static.scripting.com/orlando/world/dave/2013/05/02/archive042.opml",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Pando depends on its feed",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:12:17 GMT",
"name": "toTheReadersOfPandoDaily",
"pgfnum": "23374",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I subscribe to Pando, along with several hundred other feeds in my personal river.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:08:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23375"
},
"1": {
"text": "http://tabs.mediahackers.org/?panel=dave",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:08:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23376"
},
"2": {
"text": "I click on one link in 100, and I post one or two a year to my linkblog.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:08:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23377"
},
"3": {
"text": "If they improved the quality of their posts, I'd push more of their links. I don't have the largest reader base on the Internet, but I am part of a chain that pushes lots of info and ideas around the net. If you drew a net of the people who follow me and who follow them, it would be pretty damn large.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:09:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23378"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/30/panda.gif\")
I use RSS because it means I can pay attention to more stuff. If for some reason Pando deleted their feed, I would almost never see a link to one of their stories. The other people I follow, and I follow a lot of people, don't seem to know they exist. It's a very small publication, relative to the size of others like The Verge, Mashable, Engadget, TechCrunch, etc.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:09:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23379"
},
"5": {
"text": "Last night Pando ran a piece where they suggested that we \"retire\" RSS when Google Reader shuts down in July. This was hopefully the last gasp of a malicious thread started by Mike Arrington and repeated by his fanboys, many times over the last couple of years. Their promotion of this idea was out of nowhere, had nothing to do with anything that was actually happening. If they were right, the passing of Google Reader would have happened without any protest. I suppose it's wishful thinking on Google's part that we depended on them to sustain RSS. When the dust settles, I think we'll see that they were stifling RSS. When competiton enters the picture, when lock-in is no longer an option (and that dies with Google on July 1), we will see the market pick up where it left off before Google entered.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:11:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23380"
},
"6": {
"text": "So to the extent that there was any thought behind Arrington's rants about RSS, it was incorrect thought. He misunderstood what was going on. And the people who echoed his mantra were equally clueless.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:14:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23381"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "A song I sing to users",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:32:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23384",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "When users ask when a feature will be available, this is what I say.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:32:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23385"
},
"1": {
"text": "",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:32:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23386"
},
"2": {
"text": "Software takes time. Good software takes even more time. We know that so we don't make promises about when software is coming. It'll be here when it's ready.",
"created": "Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:32:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23387"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "What about Feedburner?",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:54:53 GMT",
"name": "whatAboutFeedburner",
"pgfnum": "23369",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It would, imho, be appropriate for users to ask Google what their plans are for Feedburner.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:54:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23370"
},
"1": {
"text": "It seems that shutting down that service is even more problematic than the shutdown of Google Reader.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:55:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23371"
},
"2": {
"text": "Why? Because it effects everyone who uses RSS, even people who don't use Google products.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:55:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23372"
},
"3": {
"text": "There's a real opportunity to do this transition more carefully than the diaspora from Reader.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:56:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23373"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Google Glass is not a trivial product",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:13:24 GMT",
"name": "googleGlassIsNotATrivialProduct",
"pgfnum": "23354",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Watching this Chris Dixon interview this morning helped me appreciate that Google Glass has real-world non-trivial applications.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:16:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23356"
},
"1": {
"text": "Examples:",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:17:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23357"
},
"2": {
"text": "1. A teacher giving a lecture while drawing a diagram on whiteboard.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:17:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23358"
},
"3": {
"text": "2. As a teleprompter for a person giving a speech.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:17:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23359"
},
"4": {
"text": "3. A doctor reviewing test results while examining a patient.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:18:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23360"
},
"5": {
"text": "4. An architect looking at designs on a site visit.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:18:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23361"
},
"6": {
"text": "5. Watching your heart rate while riding a bike.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:25:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23367"
},
"7": {
"text": "6. Sign-language interpreter for a real-time meeting.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:32:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23368"
},
"8": {
"text": "7. In general, as a heads-up display for jobs that require use of your hands and access to information, at the same time.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:20:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23365"
},
"9": {
"text": "Honestly, I had not thought of these applications until Dixon explained.",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:19:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23363"
},
"10": {
"text": "And of course there are trivial applications, like watching Green Acres while pretending to pay attention to someone talking. ;-)",
"created": "Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:22:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23366"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Outliners and word processors",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:21:01 GMT",
"name": "outlinersAndWordProcessors",
"pgfnum": "23321",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I was writing a comment in response to a comment from Hanan Cohen, and decided to make it a post. It was getting so long, and said stuff that I wanted to say more prominently.",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:21:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23322"
},
"1": {
"text": "Hanan said that Word had outlining in the late 80s, and they never took it out. So we should look out for users of that outliner as people who might like Fargo. But I don't look for any magic there, because their idea of outlining and ours are not the same thing.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:33:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23327",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It's like the word unconference. It was a term we came up with for BloggerCon, and then was applied to a very different kind of conference and the result was confusion. That's what outlining in word processors was, from my point of view, confusion.",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:03:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23330"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "What they called outlining was more like outline formatting. Putting Roman numerals on the top sections, capital letters on the first level. Numbers on the second and so on.",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:22:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23326"
},
"3": {
"text": "Word is a word processor. Its primary function is writing-for-printing. The choices the designers made make it a relatively strong formatter and a weak organizer."
},
"4": {
"text": "Conversely, we can put formatting capabilities into an outliner, but it would behave like an outliner, not a word processor. We fully explored this with MORE, the users loved it, but they still needed to export to Word or Pagemaker if print formatting was important."
},
"5": {
"text": "Word is a production tool -- good for annual reports, formal papers, stories, books. Fargo is an organizing tool, good for lists, project plans, narrating your work, presentations, team communication. You could organize a conference with an outliner. The slides would naturally be composed wiht an outliner.",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:36:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23328"
},
"6": {
"text": "An outliner is designed for editing structure more than it is for editing text. The text is sort of \"along for the ride.\" Or you could see an outliner as text-on-rails. Outliner text is always ready to move, with a single mouse gesture or keystroke. You enter text into an outliner so you can move it around, like stick-up notes on a whiteboard."
},
"7": {
"text": "The reason a program has to be either a word processor or an outliner is this: There's only one keyboard, and one set of mouse gestures. The identity of a product is determined by choices made by the designer. Word processors are good at selecting words, sentences and paragraphs. Outliners select headlines and all their subs. Shift-click in the two apps do vastly different things, yet in both cases they are \"extending the selection.\" Even the data structures used by the programs are different. Yet superficially they look similar."
},
"8": {
"text": "Some great software designers were fooled by this in the first go-around. Probably the guys who did Word thought at first that they were equalling our outliner, but I guess over time they realized what we learned too. That you need to know what your product is supposed to do before you make those choices. Otherwise it ends up as a confusing unusable mess. That's why Lotus 1-2-3 was a magical product, and Symphony, that confronted this problem head-on and didn't solve it (because it doesn't have a solution) never had 1-2-3's balance and sharp-edge feel. Symphony was mush, 1-2-3 was fine.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:41:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23329",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Apple's iTunes is another good example. It's all over the map, doing a dozen different things, without a single idea tying it all together. You can tell that the designers are confused too, because in each rev the commands move around and are re-named. Things you depend on disappear, but if you know the magic formula you can make them reappear. One senses that it might be possible to do a beautiful music app that felt wonderful, but if Apple were to produce one, they'd have to start over.",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:06:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23331"
}
}
},
"9": {
"text": "People who used an outliner were never satisfied with what the word processors called outlining. Ultimately that's how you tell what you got. When you sit a person down in front of the keyboard, does magic happen?"
},
"10": {
"text": "BTW, this is great. When I was selling outliners in the 80s there were no blogs, so I couldn't comment on how the various categories of software were handled by reviewers. Now the conversation can be multi-dimensional and lots of learning can happen quickly. Hope! :-)",
"created": "Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:22:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23325"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "The message of Boston",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:19:44 GMT",
"name": "theMessageOfBoston",
"pgfnum": "14446",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "This post was written quickly.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:35:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14455"
},
"1": {
"text": "It was an interesting week to be in Boston, as in the Chinese proverb about living in interesting times. But not for the reasons people think.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:19:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14447"
},
"2": {
"text": "I learned this last night, in a big way, at the Berkman Thursday meetup. We had about 15 people there, some original people from the old days, and some new people who totally fit in. Having new people there makes sense, because the Thursday group was like that. Every week we'd have a fair number of returning friends, and always a healthy number of newbies.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:20:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14449"
},
"3": {
"text": "One man, whose name I didn't catch, said something that I found surprising at first. He said that the press got the story of Boston wrong. The people weren't cowering in fear in their houses as was reported on TV and on Twitter. That was a lie. I admit I found it irrational. Boston is probably about the size of Queens, in geography and in population. If someone was holed up in Astoria, people in Flushing probably wouldn't be too worried. It wouldn't make sense. It would be like worrying that you'd get hit by a bus on any given day. There are a lot of days when no one gets hit by a bus. And even so, the chances of you being that person, well, it's not a smart thing to spend a lot of time worrying about. (Though please, look first before you step out into a street!)",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:21:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14450"
},
"4": {
"text": "Everyone in the room who was from Boston immediately agreed, enthusiastically. They didn't like that they were being portrayed that way by the media. So we explored the actual story, what was really going on among the people of Boston. The answer was, they were working together to make their city safe. The city hadn't shut down on the Tuesday or Wednesday after the bombing. But on Thursday night, when the bombers were on the run, the police asked everyone to stay off the street. And the people did what they were asked to do, because that's what people do.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:24:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14451",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "One person explained it this way: The police wanted to take all the pieces off the board. So if the bomber started moving he would stand out.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:38:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14456"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "This goes back to one of the themes of my talk on Wednesday night at the Boston Globe. People feel a need to be part of the world they live in. Most of us feel like we're on the sidelines, spectators, consumers, eyeballs, credit card numbers, and that's not what we want. We want meaning. We want to make a contribution. We want do do good and have that good make a difference. If you look at what people actually do, not the stories you read in the paper or hear on CNN, this is obvious. The bombings not only worried people, for a short time when the scope of the danger was unknown, but people also saw the opportunity to get some of the precious stuff, meaning and relevance.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:26:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14452"
},
"6": {
"text": "Why was this a theme of my talk at the Globe? Because the news industry has the ability to offer people exactly what they want, but they won't do it. Their view of the world is that we're out there and they're inside. They talk, we listen. They are relevant, their lives have meaning. The meaning of our lives is not important to them. As long as they view it that way, people will continue to be frustrated by them, as long as they pay any attention. And more and more they're chosing to not pay attention.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:28:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14453"
},
"7": {
"text": "This week the people of Boston learned something about the press because they told a big lie not just about a handful of them, but all of them, collectively. This presents a unique opportunity for a whole city to wake up and take over. I suggested at dinner that the people of Boston buy the Boston Globe, and give it a new direction. You know a city the size of Boston could buy the Globe. And you know what, it's actually for sale. :-)",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:33:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14454"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "Older techies and outliners",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:43:14 GMT",
"name": "olderTechiesAndOutliners",
"pgfnum": "14440",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I had a flash yesterday, after doing a series of demos of Fargo here in Boston on this trip and my last one in March. In several cases, the people were close to my own age, and were former users of MORE and ThinkTank. For these people I just needed to show how Fargo picked up on the ideas in those products and brought them into the technology world of 2013. But in a couple of cases, the people, smart and accomplished, had no idea what I was talking about, so I had to start from the beginning. Just like the old days, before outliners were a semi-major category. I don't mind doing this, I actually kind of like it -- but the engine is rusty. I haven't done this kind of selling in many years.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:43:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14441"
},
"1": {
"text": "The conclusion I reached, in an email, trying to explain it to a friend (who is 47) is that if you're under 50 you probably came into computing after the outlining category began to fade. If you're over 50 and a techie, you probably remember at least knowing someone who was a fanatical outliner, whose arms would wave as they tried to explain what they were so excited about. As they spoke, little bits of saliva would drip from the corners of their mouths. Non-inductees of the Club of Outliner Fanatics would stare, not knowing what to make of it. But at least they knew what they were, if only by the reaction they provoked with their acolytes.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:45:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14442"
},
"2": {
"text": "Now, there are companies, notably Omni and Eastgate, who have made a good living selling outliners, all along. I think that's because, while the category hasn't been growing as a percentage of computer use, it is growing in absolute terms, because so many more people use computers today than did in the late 80s and early 90s.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:48:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14443"
},
"3": {
"text": "I have my work cut out for me. I have to explain Fargo to a couple of new generations who don't feel so new, being in their 20s, 30s and 40s. This is going to be fun. ;-)",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:49:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14444"
},
"4": {
"text": "BTW, my father, who would have been 84 this year, loved my outliners. So it's not just people in their 50s and 60s. Some of the people who could explain why this software is so great, are no longer with us. My dad would have absolutely flipped over Fargo. I think about that a lot. Wish I had done this work sooner so he could have seen it.",
"created": "Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:50:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14445"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "How to create an \"include\" node",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:16:37 GMT",
"name": "howToCreateAnIncludeNode",
"pgfnum": "14402",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "My friend Anton Zuiker is our best tester. Anton is a really smart guy. And he's earnest. And doesn't give up. And he makes things break. Which is exactly what you look for in a tester. Because you want to find out about breakage as soon as you break something. Easier to fix then. And it helps make the software better sooner, which is what we're trying to do, all software developers.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:16:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14403"
},
"1": {
"text": "Anyway, Anton wrote me an email this morning asking how to include an outline in another outline. I'm including the full text of his email below. I don't think he'll mind.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:17:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14404",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Dave, asking this off-list because I'm not sure you've announced this functionality yet."
},
"1": {
"text": "Something that I've never grasped is how to include an outline in another outline, or said another way, display Outline1 inside Outline2. I know you've referred to this, and some of the more experienced outliners on the list are mentioning it, but I'm not seeing includes mentioned in the HowTo or Fargo docs."
},
"2": {
"text": "Sorry for my confusion, but I'm finally at the point where I want to connect my outlines. Am I getting ahead of the feature rollout?"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "I'm on a train and couldn't think of a better place to answer his question than in a blog post, so here goes.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:19:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14406"
},
"3": {
"text": "Headlines in outlines, sometimes called nodes, can have hidden attributes that tell software how to do special things with it. One of the things we can do is include an outline in another. Include is the right word.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:19:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14407"
},
"4": {
"text": "The way you do that is to add a type attribute to the node. The value of the type attribute should be \"include\" -- leave out the quotes. It should have another attribute called \"url\" and its value is the address of the outline that's to be included. That's all there is to it.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:20:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14408"
},
"5": {
"text": "Now, how to do that?",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:21:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14409"
},
"6": {
"text": "In Fargo, we have a command that lets you edit the attributes of any headline. It's called, unimaginatively, Edit Attributes, and it's in the outliner menu. So if I wanted to add an include node here, pointing to my states outline, I would edit its attributes like this:",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:22:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14410",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/36518280/misc/images/atteditor.gif\")
",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:22:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14411"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "The \"created\" attribute is automatically put there by Fargo, on every headline you create, so we can tell when it was created. It also gives each headline a unique identity, unless you manage to create two headlines in the same second (us programmer types are always thinking about things this way, they're called \"edge\" conditions, and every one of them eventually happens, it seems).",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:35:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14412"
},
"8": {
"text": "BTW, I've created such an include node here, as a sub of the headline you're reading right now, so you can see how an include node works.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:36:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14413",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "My Much-Maligned States Outline",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:36:50 GMT",
"name": "myMuchmalignedStatesOutline",
"pgfnum": "14414",
"type": "include",
"url": "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/36518280/worldOutline/states.opml",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "United States",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "New England",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Connecticut"
},
"1": {
"text": "Maine"
},
"2": {
"text": "Massachusetts"
},
"3": {
"text": "New Hampshire"
},
"4": {
"text": "Rhode Island"
},
"5": {
"text": "Vermont"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "Mid-Atlantic",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Delaware"
},
"1": {
"text": "Maryland"
},
"2": {
"text": "New Jersey"
},
"3": {
"text": "New York"
},
"4": {
"text": "Pennsylvania"
},
"5": {
"text": "Virginia"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "South",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Alabama"
},
"1": {
"text": "Arkansas"
},
"2": {
"text": "Florida",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Boca Raton",
"created": "Sun, 21 Aug 2005 03:11:20 GMT"
},
"1": {
"text": "Daytona Beach"
},
"2": {
"text": "Fort Lauderdale",
"created": "Sun, 21 Aug 2005 03:11:14 GMT"
},
"3": {
"text": "Gainesville"
},
"4": {
"text": "Jacksonville",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Amelia Island"
},
"1": {
"text": "St Augustine",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Anastasia Island"
},
"1": {
"text": "Crescent Beach"
}
}
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "Key West"
},
"6": {
"text": "Miami"
},
"7": {
"text": "Orlando"
},
"8": {
"text": "Talahassee"
},
"9": {
"text": "Tampa"
},
"10": {
"text": "Winter Park",
"created": "Sun, 21 Aug 2005 03:11:01 GMT"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Georgia"
},
"4": {
"text": "Louisiana"
},
"5": {
"text": "Mississippi"
},
"6": {
"text": "North Carolina"
},
"7": {
"text": "South Carolina"
},
"8": {
"text": "Tennessee"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Midwest",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Illinois"
},
"1": {
"text": "Indiana"
},
"2": {
"text": "Iowa"
},
"3": {
"text": "Kentucky"
},
"4": {
"text": "Michigan",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Detroit"
},
"1": {
"text": "Flint"
},
"2": {
"text": "Lansing"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "Minnesota"
},
"6": {
"text": "Missouri"
},
"7": {
"text": "Ohio"
},
"8": {
"text": "West Virginia"
},
"9": {
"text": "Wisconsin"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Great Plains",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Kansas"
},
"1": {
"text": "Nebraska",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Lincoln"
},
"1": {
"text": "Omaha"
},
"2": {
"text": "Grand Island"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "North Dakota"
},
"3": {
"text": "Oklahoma"
},
"4": {
"text": "South Dakota"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "Mountains",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Colorado"
},
"1": {
"text": "Idaho"
},
"2": {
"text": "Montana"
},
"3": {
"text": "Utah"
},
"4": {
"text": "Wyoming"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "Southwest",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Arizona"
},
"1": {
"text": "New Mexico"
},
"2": {
"text": "Texas",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Austin"
},
"1": {
"text": "Houston"
},
"2": {
"text": "Dallas"
},
"3": {
"text": "Waco"
}
}
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "Far West",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Alaska"
},
"1": {
"text": "California",
"collapse": "true",
"name": "california",
"type": "blogpost"
},
"2": {
"text": "Hawaii"
},
"3": {
"text": "Nevada",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Ely",
"created": "Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:56:39 GMT"
},
"1": {
"text": "Gerlach",
"created": "Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:56:47 GMT"
},
"2": {
"text": "Las Vegas",
"created": "Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:56:37 GMT"
},
"3": {
"text": "Pahrump"
},
"4": {
"text": "Reno",
"created": "Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:56:35 GMT"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Oregon"
},
"5": {
"text": "Washington"
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
},
"9": {
"text": "I'm sure this is confusing at first. But if you try it out, ask questions, and do it again, eventually it'll make sense. You're learning a pretty cool computer science concept -- pointers. But it's really not that hard, once you understand it. ;-)",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:40:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14415"
}
}
},
"8": {
"text": "A semi-luddite view of Google glasses",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:53:59 GMT",
"name": "aSemiludditeViewOfGoogleGlasses",
"pgfnum": "23304",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "This was written very quickly.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:03:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23311"
},
"1": {
"text": "At the beginning of my blogging career, in 1994, I expressed doubt that PDAs would become general-purpose computers.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:54:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23305"
},
"2": {
"text": "Randy Battat, then an exec at Motorola, rebutted that people used to say that about personal computers, and that I would come around. I never did, and I was more or less proven right. We're still struggling with mobile devices, trying to figure out what they're good at. One thing they are not, is being a general-purpose computer. The reason is simple. No keyboard. No way around that. Without a keyboard, they are good for reading and relatively short messages. They work well for text messaging and Twitter. I marvel at how some people can write full blog posts and emails with their tablets and phones. But I think that will continue to be something that only some people can do. I'm an excellent typist, but I have to use two index fingers on a virtual keyboard. There isn't room for both my hands.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:54:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23306",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Other people opined about PDAs and I ran a roundup piece.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:02:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23310"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Now to Google glasses. I want to put my stake in the ground. (And I know the product is called Google Glass, but I think they're glasses, so I'm inclined to describe the product my way, without using their brand name (and hence the lowercase G.))",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:57:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23307"
},
"4": {
"text": "I think they will make an excellent display device for the obvious reason that they're mounted in front of your eyes, the organ we use for vision. The idea of moving your fingers to the side of your head, of winking to take a picture, well I don't like that so much. I admit I might be a luddite here, and am going to keep my eyes and ears open for indications that I'm wrong. It happens, quite a bit when it comes to brand-new tech.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:57:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23308"
},
"5": {
"text": "I think they could be a great part of a mobile computing platform. With more computing power and UI in my pocket, in the form of my smart phone, or in a big pocket, in the form of a tablet. They communicate over Bluetooth, and together form a more useful reading and communication device, but probably still not a very good writing tool. The idea that I would use glasses without tethering them to something more capable for finger-work, well that's what I thought was wrong with the PDA idea in 1994. It turns out, in 2013, for some people -- that the PDA of today can be used without tethering. But it doesn't have the same utility as the desktop computer I'm typing this blog post on. IMHO of course.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:59:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23309"
}
}
},
"9": {
"text": "Care to Share Your OPML?",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:32:15 GMT",
"name": "feedDiscovery",
"pgfnum": "23277",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/24/drum.gif\")
Interesting question last night on Twitter from Daman Bahner. He asked how about rebooting Share Your OPML now that there's renewed interest in RSS. That requires a little explaining for people who are not familiar with the original service with that name.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:55:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23278"
},
"1": {
"text": "First, OPML is used to exchange subscription lists between RSS aggregators. I'm the one who made this choice, because I thought it would be cool if people could edit their lists in our outliner (at UserLand) and OPML was the file format of the editor. All our competitors wanted to make it easy for our users to switch to their products, and Radio was the product that got all this RSS stuff going with users, so it became an instant standard. And even though few people use Radio today, the choice of OPML is still with us.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:56:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23279"
},
"2": {
"text": "If anyone writes a book about how standards really are developed, the way OPML became the standard for subscription lists would make an excellent counterpoint to the theory that all standards come from deliberative bodies of warring BigCo's.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:16:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23294"
},
"3": {
"text": "Share Your OPML took advantage of the standard. I asked the readers of my blog to upload their OPML files to a server I wrote at share.opml.org. It was later rewritten by Andrew Grumet and then Dan MacTough. That version is visible today through the Internet Archive.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:58:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23280"
},
"4": {
"text": "The reason it became popular? Because everyone who mattered in the RSS world of that day read Scripting News, and I beat the drum relentlessly and without shame for Share Your OPML, an idea I totally wanted to see happen. ;-)",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:18:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23295"
},
"5": {
"text": "How it worked...",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:30:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23296"
},
"6": {
"text": "When you uploaded your OPML, we added the info to a database.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:02:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23281"
},
"7": {
"text": "From that we produced a top 100 list of feeds.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:09:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23291"
},
"8": {
"text": "We ran an aggregator of the top 100, sort of an early version of TechMeme.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:03:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23282"
},
"9": {
"text": "We kept a list of the most prolific subscribers.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:03:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23283"
},
"10": {
"text": "You could find out who subscribes to a given feed (including your own).",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:04:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23284"
},
"11": {
"text": "And most important, it would make recommendations, based on the feeds you're following, suggesting feeds that \"people like you\" also follow. It was very good at this. (Can't show you this page because archive.org wasn't a member, and this was a members-only feature.)",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:04:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23285"
},
"12": {
"text": "We also had a blog, of course.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:13:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23293"
},
"13": {
"text": "You can get an idea of how it works by clicking around the archive. That was the best thing about it. You could lose a lot of time just clicking around and seeing what was related to what.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:04:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23286"
},
"14": {
"text": "We had to take it off the air because it was getting too popular and it was a labor of love, not a for-profit business, although it would have made an excellent for-profit business. I wanted to, but failed at finding a programmer to work with me on it. It wasn't the kind of project I wanted to take on by myself.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:05:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23288"
},
"15": {
"text": "Anyway -- today it would still be a good idea, but now I have a startup that's keeping me busy.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:06:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23289"
},
"16": {
"text": "Daman Bahner asked me about this on Twitter last night, and I asked him to put up a blog post explaining the idea. And that motivated me to write about it myself. Maybe we can fund this as a community thing. Might be a fun way to do it. Share your ideas, if you find this interesting.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:07:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23290"
},
"17": {
"text": "PS: I'm meeting with an old VC friend in Boston later this week. I'm going to suggest they kick in some money for labor-of-love tech projects. That's how a lot of the best ideas develop. What would they get in return? First right to invest in the projects. Seems like a no-brainer (a term VCs like to use a lot). :-)",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:09:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23292"
},
"18": {
"text": "PPS: I've often wondered if any tech investors read my blog. If you are one, leave a comment, or send me an email. dave dot winer at gmail dot com. I'm interested in knowing if we have any money in our community.",
"created": "Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:36:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23297"
}
}
},
"10": {
"text": "Verizon can't take your money",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:11:00 GMT",
"name": "verizonIsDumb",
"pgfnum": "23251",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "The problem:",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:13:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23255"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. I have an iPad LTE.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:13:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23256"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. When I was at the Knicks game on Sunday, I wanted to send some pictures to friends, but the iPad said I maxed out my data plan.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:13:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23257"
},
"3": {
"text": "3. I haven't used it once this month. How could that be.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:13:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23258"
},
"4": {
"text": "4. Then I remembered. My credit cards expire in May. Maybe that's it.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:13:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23259"
},
"5": {
"text": "5. When I got home I checked on the iPad, and sure enough, that was the problem.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:14:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23260"
},
"6": {
"text": "6. I enter the new credit card info, and re-entered my address, as it required me to do, even though the address was the same as last time.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:14:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23261"
},
"7": {
"text": "7. Invalid address.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:14:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23262"
},
"8": {
"text": "8. Every way I tried to enter the address it objected. I did this for about ten minutes. I thought I would take care of this during halftime of the Nets/Bulls game. We were already well into the third quarter.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:15:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23263"
},
"9": {
"text": "9. I decided to call the company and ask if they could just take the credit card info over the phone. After waiting on hold, I was told no, they couldn't do that.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:15:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23264"
},
"10": {
"text": "10. The very nice person said she understood why I was so frustrated (I didn't say I was), and called me by my first name even though I asked her not to.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:16:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23265"
},
"11": {
"text": "11. Enter it again, she said. This time it will work. Optimist!",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:16:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23266"
},
"12": {
"text": "12. I entered it again. It did not work. It's worth mentioning that every time I try, I have to enter my email address and password, the iPad doesn't offer to remember these for me. A lot of hunting and pecking. We repeat this three times. No go. She has no advice to offer, but she is willing to escalate it.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:17:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23267"
},
"13": {
"text": "13. Her boss comes on the line, Frankie, who of course understands why I am so upset (this is a script they hired a psychiatrist consultant for) and said I should just enter the information again and this time it will work. I said I was unwilling to do this. He asked is there anything else he could help me with.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:18:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23268"
},
"14": {
"text": "So you want to know the answer?",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:19:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23269"
},
"15": {
"text": "You have to type the address exactly as it appears in the credit card company account. No variance, not even whitespace. It's not case sensitive (lucky thing because the iPad determines the case and it doesn't agree with my bank's) but otherwise you have to type it literally exactly as they have it. Once I did that, after learning this on an Apple support discussion board, the request went through.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:19:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23270"
},
"16": {
"text": "Now tell me something -- why didn't the Verizon people know this? They should hire a systems person not a psychiatrist. Instead of trying to sooth understandably frustrated customers, they should make happy customers, or at least not insanely unhappy customers. Or they could teach their people how to use Google.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:20:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23271"
},
"17": {
"text": "Anytime you have to do business with one of these companies you're in for a lot of trouble, that's for sure.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:24:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23272"
},
"18": {
"text": "PS: Apple would like to get in on the Crazy Huge Company game. Look at this dialog that just popped up out of nowhere.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:39:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23273",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/23/appleCrazyToo.gif\")
",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:40:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23274"
},
"1": {
"text": "I unplugged it and plugged it back in. All is well. Imagine if the user believed their stupid dialog.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:42:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23275"
}
}
}
}
},
"11": {
"text": "New Fargo intro dialog",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:05:40 GMT",
"name": "newFargoIntroDialog",
"pgfnum": "23216",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "We've gotten a lot of feedback on the initial user experience for Fargo, and decided to take another look at it. The result is a new intro dialog. Screen shot below.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:05:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23217"
},
"1": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/23/fargoIntroDialog.gif\")
"
},
"2": {
"text": "The actual dialog is a little bigger, the full image is scaled to fit into the web page.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:13:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23223"
},
"3": {
"text": "Let me know what you think of it...",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:06:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23220"
},
"4": {
"text": "Dave",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:06:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23221"
},
"5": {
"text": "PS: This is deployed in Fargo 0.51.",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:13:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23224"
},
"6": {
"text": "PPS: As I was writing this I was thinking of the Matrix. Clicking on the Dropbox button is like taking the red pill. Clicking on More Info is the blue pill. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:00:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23229"
}
}
},
"12": {
"text": "Where's the app?",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:21:58 GMT",
"name": "wheresTheApp",
"pgfnum": "23188",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/22/tr.gif\")
In the early days of the web, I remember (vaguely) marveling at the idea that I could put software in a machine that had a persistent connection and have it be accessible anywhere. This was great until I created something that became moderately popular and learned the wonders of scaling. And then I learned about ISPs who don't react well to outages. After all that it didn't seem so magical.",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:22:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23189"
},
"1": {
"text": "Today, almost 20 years later, we've pivoted to a new architecture and it's got me puzzled again, at times, looking one way then another trying to find the app, and not getting it right at first -- even though I wrote the app myself. Here's what's weird.",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:23:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23190"
},
"2": {
"text": "1. Because JavaScript has become such a powerful language that performs so well, you can literally put the code for an app in a web page. To install the app just visit the page. To update the app, reload. Amazingly simple.",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:24:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23191"
},
"3": {
"text": "2. But those apps have limited ability to store stuff. Little Outliner proved that even though there are limits, you can still create something useful that runs in the page, with absolutely nothing else. Every computer that runs a modern browser has decided that each virtual \"site\" can have a few megabytes of storage. That might not be a lot for movies or audio, but for outlines, it's plenty.",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:25:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23192"
},
"4": {
"text": "3. Enter Dropbox, and presumably Microsoft SkyDrive, Box.net and Google Drive as well, with APIs that add another dimension to what a modern web app can do. Now instead of a few megs of storage that can only be accessed locally, and can't be moved between computers, these services offer gigabytes of storage, and infinite mobility. The data moves as fluidly as the web itself. This coupled with in-browser JavaScript is enough to make a full-blown computer. The UI is handled by HTML. Logic by JS, and storage by the Box-Drives.",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:26:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23193"
},
"5": {
"text": "A user asked if Fargo could write to the local sub-folder of Dropbox even if he didn't have a net connection. I actually had to think for a moment. No, it can't. Think of the circuitous route the data goes through just to end up right back where it started. And think about all the efforts to sandbox web apps so they couldn't get at the local hard drive. That barrier is gone. Now we have to trust the Box-Drive folks to make sure the sandboxes they maintain are really solid. So far they seem to meet the challenge.",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:29:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23194"
},
"6": {
"text": "But we are, once again, in a strange new world. Maybe there are ways it will get weary and will break. But if there are, we don't know what they are yet. And for now, it's just a mysterious kind of fun. The gee-whiz factor is high again. ;-)",
"created": "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:31:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "23195"
}
}
},
"13": {
"text": "Wish for WordPress and Tumblr",
"created": "Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:16:18 GMT",
"name": "myWishForWordpressAndTumblr",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I love that WordPress and Tumblr have APIs."
},
"1": {
"text": "However, I wish their APIs were callable directly from JavaScript running in the browser."
},
"2": {
"text": "As it stands now, unless I'm missing something, if I want to connect to either service from an app running in the browser, I have to run a proxy server that does nothing more than act as a gateway between my browser-based app and their server."
},
"3": {
"text": "It would be incredibly helpful if they ran that endpoint. They already have to run a server since their apps are entirely server-based."
},
"4": {
"text": "We're trying to keep server load to a minimum in Fargo. It's one thing to deploy a server that provides some visible functionality for users, but this is just getting around a limit in the browser.",
"created": "Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:18:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22979"
},
"5": {
"text": "Over time, more functionality can migrate to the \"edge\" computer. Smoothing out and optimizing the interface between the browser and the server will help move that process along.",
"created": "Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:19:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22980"
},
"6": {
"text": "Small Picture, Inc." } } }, "16": { "text": "Rollout postponed", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:16:01 GMT", "name": "postponedRollout", "pgfnum": "22752", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "We had planned to introduce a new product yesterday, around the time of the tragic explosions in Boston. Of course we postponed the announcement. I'm sure marketers all over the country faced a similar decision, and today are evaluating what to do.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:54:00 GMT", "pgfnum": "22753" }, "1": { "text": "The best approach to us seems to wait a couple of days and see where we're at.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:06:16 GMT", "pgfnum": "22758" }, "2": { "text": "However, in the meantime, we have users waiting for the new stuff. So we decided to quietly give our closest users and friends a chance to preview the product, report on any problems, and in the meantime we can fix bugs and prepare for a formal announcement later this week.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:09:32 GMT", "pgfnum": "22771" }, "3": { "text": "So, without fanfare: http://fargo.io/ is the new outliner from Small Picture.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:56:12 GMT", "pgfnum": "22755" }, "4": { "text": "In the right margin of the app are links to docs and a press guide.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:11:38 GMT", "pgfnum": "22759" }, "5": { "text": "If you have questions, you can post them here or on the Q&A page for the product, or on the support mail list.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:57:57 GMT", "pgfnum": "22756" }, "6": { "text": "We'll be back with more news later in the week.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:13:39 GMT", "pgfnum": "22760" } } }, "17": { "text": "\"Assume you saw the news\"", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:47:08 GMT", "name": "howTheMindWorks", "pgfnum": "22743", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "When I got back to work at 3:46PM this afternoon, I got a message from Kyle after checking in: \"Assume you saw the news.\"", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:47:14 GMT", "pgfnum": "22744" }, "1": { "text": "What.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:48:18 GMT", "pgfnum": "22745" }, "2": { "text": "The change in body chemistry was palpable. I assume this is a moment I'm going to remember.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:52:38 GMT", "pgfnum": "22750" }, "3": { "text": "I had not seen the news.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:52:45 GMT", "pgfnum": "22751" }, "4": { "text": "I went to Twitter, but not before imagining what might have happened. I formed a theory. North Korea had destroyed a Japanese city. Or maybe an American city. We're on the verge of World War III.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:49:03 GMT", "pgfnum": "22746" }, "5": { "text": "I found out quickly. Twitter is good for that.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:49:44 GMT", "pgfnum": "22747" }, "6": { "text": "I went back and said: \"Wow that was some strong medicine.\"", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:49:56 GMT", "pgfnum": "22748" }, "7": { "text": "The imagination is a powerful machine.", "created": "Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:50:18 GMT", "pgfnum": "22749" } } }, "18": { "text": "Jeff is an idea processor", "created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:40:25 GMT", "name": "jeffIsAnIdeaProcessor", "pgfnum": "22723", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "Jeff Jarvis loves whiteboards.", "created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:40:33 GMT", "pgfnum": "22724" }, "1": { "text": "
![](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/15/whiteboard.jpg\")
",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:40:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22725"
},
"2": {
"text": "I never want to say an idea guy like Jeff is wrong.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:42:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22726"
},
"3": {
"text": "Rather -- there's a tool that could make that kind of work much easier, faster, and get better results. It's called an outliner. I happen to make one.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:48:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22729"
},
"4": {
"text": "http://littleoutliner.com/",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:42:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22728"
},
"5": {
"text": "Perfect use-case.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:42:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22727"
},
"6": {
"text": "For an idea guy, an author, an outliner is like a spreadsheet for an accountant."
}
}
},
"19": {
"text": "A future Glass service",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:00:09 GMT",
"name": "aFutureGlassService",
"pgfnum": "22712",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Someday a VC is going to invest in a startup that:",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:00:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22713"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. Employs a fleet of Glass-wearing unemployed 20-somethings in major cities.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:00:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22714"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. Like TaskRabbit, you can rent these people on an hourly basis.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:00:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22715"
},
"3": {
"text": "3. They will go where you tell them to, and look at what you want them to look at.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:01:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22716"
},
"4": {
"text": "4. Public places only. Places where no one has a reasonable expectation of privacy.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:02:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22719"
},
"5": {
"text": "5. You will be able to watch the world through their eyes.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:01:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22717"
},
"6": {
"text": "Lots of applications! The innocent-looking Glass-wearing hipster is spying for your wife or husband. Or your ex. Or your boss. The IRS. :-)",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:01:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22718"
}
}
},
"20": {
"text": "Football and publishing",
"created": "Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:28:57 GMT",
"name": "footballAndPublishing",
"pgfnum": "22696",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I love football metaphors.",
"created": "Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:29:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22698"
},
"1": {
"text": "Visualize this...",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:13:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22721"
},
"2": {
"text": "The quarterback pulls back to pass, the defenders rush in, the offensive line holds them back.",
"created": "Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:12:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22720"
},
"3": {
"text": "Receivers go long, when all of a sudden the defenders turn around and race back to the line of scrimmage.",
"created": "Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:30:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22700"
},
"4": {
"text": "The quarterback stands there for a moment, shrugs his shoulders and lobs a bomb to one of the receivers, who catches it and trots into the end-zone.",
"created": "Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:30:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22701"
},
"5": {
"text": "Fans are agape, chins drop, eyes widen. Huh? What? Is that football?",
"created": "Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:31:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22702"
},
"6": {
"text": "I see the same thing happening in online news.",
"created": "Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:31:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22703"
},
"7": {
"text": "The publishers have fallen in love with paywalls. That's like the defenders retreating back to the line of scrimmage. The quarterback is Twitter. Gradually supporting new media types, bringing in the talent that used to populate television and print with their imagery, songs, athletiticsm, drama, looks, humor, celebrity. The raw materials of media.",
"created": "Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:32:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22704"
}
}
},
"21": {
"text": "Busting the fourth wall in TV",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:54:55 GMT",
"name": "bustingTheFourthWall",
"pgfnum": "22552",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Two lovable TV commercial campaigns.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:55:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22553"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. The GEICO pig.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:55:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22554"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. American Airlines hires Don Draper.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:55:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22555"
},
"3": {
"text": "They're both playing games with the fourth wall. They're including the viewer in on a joke that the humans don't get.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:55:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22556"
},
"4": {
"text": "The pig knows he's a pig, and of course so do we. But the humans, flight attendants, a girlfriend, a cop, don't seem to get it.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:55:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22557",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "Jon Hamm explains first class to us exactly the way Don Draper explained the Carousel to Kodak. It's amazing to be pitched a real airline by a fictitious character, and one as compelling as Draper. And it's an account the character wanted to close! A big airline. Oh the humanity.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:56:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22558",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
},
"1": {
"text": "This is a great commercial, but the last two bits are not necessary. Where the narrator says -- eh, we can talk about it later, that's when the American Airlines logo should come up with the plane soaring through the sky. Fade out.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:21:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22575"
},
"2": {
"text": "The client probably insisted on having the last part. But this is an ad about you and me, not really about the airline. Yes, it's a little self-deprecating on our behalf, but we don't mind because it's Don Draper. He's our friend. And he's telling us something is new at American Airlines. We know he's lying. But we still like it, because it's sweet and funny.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:21:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22576"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "I love being involved in the commercialism. I love that kind of art. Great stuff.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:57:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22559"
}
}
},
"22": {
"text": "Workflowy and Little Outliner",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:07:52 GMT",
"name": "workflowyAndLittleOutliner",
"pgfnum": "22546",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/11/drum.gif\")
Little Outliner v0.42 is up.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:08:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22547"
},
"1": {
"text": "The main new feature in this release is the ability to import outlines from Workflowy, a popular browser-based outliner.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:08:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22548"
},
"2": {
"text": "It would be simpler if they supported OPML import and export, as our outliners do, but you take what you get. The users want to go back and forth, so let's make it as easy as possible.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:39:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22551"
},
"3": {
"text": "Here's how you do it.",
"created": "Fri, 12 Apr 2013 03:10:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22550"
},
"4": {
"text": "1. In Workflowy, get the section of the outline that you want to export on screen.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:21:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22525"
},
"5": {
"text": "2. Hover with the mouse just to the left of the main headline and nudge the mouse down to reveal the full menu, and click on the Export command. (Screen shot.)",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:22:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22526"
},
"6": {
"text": "3. A dialog appears containing the exported text. Be sure to click on the Plain text option. (Screen shot.)",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:24:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22527"
},
"7": {
"text": "4. Copy all the text, then go to Little Outliner. Position the cursor where you want the text to go, and Paste. (Screen shot.)",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:26:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22528"
}
}
},
"23": {
"text": "Outlining a meeting",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:41:03 GMT",
"name": "outliningAMeeting",
"pgfnum": "22529",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "We've been trying some experiments liveblogging with the outliner.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:41:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22530"
},
"1": {
"text": "For now, I think outlining doesn't add much to liveblogging. But there is an area where I am pretty sure outlining makes a big difference in a group setting, because we've done it -- in meetings.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:41:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22531"
},
"2": {
"text": "You can try it with one other person looking over your shoulder while you outline a project you're doing together. For example, imagine you're buying a house with your spouse. Start by listing all the things you want and don't want in a house. As you list your ideas, the other person will get some too, you add them to the outline.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:42:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22532"
},
"3": {
"text": "Pause for a moment and group them.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:10:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22545"
},
"4": {
"text": "Start listing neighborhoods.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:43:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22533"
},
"5": {
"text": "How much money you want to spend.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:43:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22534"
},
"6": {
"text": "How many bedrooms. A yard? A nice view? Schools? Close to public transit?",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:43:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22535"
},
"7": {
"text": "Jump around. If your partner has an idea in one category when you're in the other, just do what they ask. It's about being fluid with your thinking.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:47:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22543"
},
"8": {
"text": "Pretty quickly you start using the outline to organize the problem. It becomes a shared space between the two of you, and it really doesn't matter who is at the keyboard, who controls the mouse. The ideas come from both of you.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:43:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22536"
},
"9": {
"text": "The same idea works in a larger context if you can project the outline on a screen.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:44:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22537"
},
"10": {
"text": "It can have magical results in organizing a project that has resisted organization.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:44:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22538"
},
"11": {
"text": "Don't make a big deal about using the outline at first. It's just being projected, maybe one or two people will start looking at it while you type. Then someone says \"Move this item under the other category.\" They have trouble explaining so they get up and show you. Do what they ask you to do. Now they're controlling the outline by pointing to the projected image of it.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:45:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22539"
},
"12": {
"text": "Sometimes the power of technology is less important than the communication between two human beings.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:46:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22540"
},
"13": {
"text": "This process was possible 25 years ago. I know because we did it back then.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:46:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22541"
},
"14": {
"text": "Give it a try.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:46:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22542"
}
}
},
"24": {
"text": "A vision for River of News",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:07:32 GMT",
"name": "aVisionForRiverOfNews",
"pgfnum": "22459",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I had lunch a couple of weeks ago with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. They're just three stops south of me on the A train. We should do this more often, political bloggers and tech bloggers getting together to share a meal and talk about what's possible.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:07:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22460"
},
"1": {
"text": "At one point in the conversation Josh asked me what new technology they should be looking at. I didn't hesitate -- I had an answer prepared. This is what I suggested.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:08:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22461"
},
"2": {
"text": "1. Let's ask your readers for their OPML subscription lists.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:09:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22462"
},
"3": {
"text": "2. Read the lists into a database and rank the feeds, figure out which are the most popular.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:09:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22463"
},
"4": {
"text": "3. Then let's start a river with those feeds. Let it run for a few days so all the feeds update a few times, and see what we've got. My bet is that we'll have a pretty fantastic and totally unique news service.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:09:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22464"
},
"5": {
"text": "4. Give it some space on TPM and let it live and breathe. We'll all read this river, and get ideas for more feeds to add to it. You'll learn about other, smaller, political blogs, and they'll get exposure to a wider audience. Win-win. (You'll also run links to stories from Politico and Buzzfeed, so oddly it'll be the place people come to find out what's new on your competitors' sites.)",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:10:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22466"
},
"6": {
"text": "5. Make deals with them Josh. Ask them if they want to run some TPM ads. Share revenue.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:11:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22467"
},
"7": {
"text": "This is a way to build community in new directions. Encourage people to step out from the discussion boards and start their own pubs. It would instantly make TPM the technology leader in the political blogosphere.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:11:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22468"
},
"8": {
"text": "I promised I would write it up so that the idea could be presented to those people in their community who are RSS-savvy.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:12:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22469"
},
"9": {
"text": "This is something I talk about all the time with news people who will listen. You never should have let Google own the news distribution system. But now that they're evacuating, hurry up and fill the void, before another tech giant owns the space. News publishing is something news publishers should at least have a say in.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:12:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22470"
},
"10": {
"text": "Also see my pitch for River of News. We need some updated technology here. My River2 software can be a start, but we've figured out how to do it more efficiently since then, with JavaScript and JSON. I don't have the bandwidth now to do the development, at least not at this time, with Small Picture actively shipping new products. So there's an opportunity here for techies as well.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:13:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22471"
}
}
},
"25": {
"text": "Another pitch for River of News",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:00:32 GMT",
"name": "anotherPitchForRiverOfNews",
"pgfnum": "22453",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I know most of the developers working on replacing Google Reader are doing just that -- creating products and services that do more or less exactly what Google Reader does.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:00:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22454"
},
"1": {
"text": "But there is another kind of aggregator, river of news, and its needs are pretty simple, compared to the Google Reader approach which requires synchronization among different clients. If I had the time here's the software I would write.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:01:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22455"
},
"2": {
"text": "A feed scanner that accepts OPML subscription lists and generates river.js files. "
},
"3": {
"text": "This is the core of a River of News aggregator. It doesn't say how to display it, but there's an excellent jQuery app that does this, written by a group of developers led by Nicolas Gallagher. And it also leaves subscription management to other tools.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:02:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22457"
},
"4": {
"text": "It would be great if this core feed engine could easily be deployed in an EC2 instance and very lean so it could scan lots of feeds for lots of users."
},
"5": {
"text": "It would be really nice to have this simple problem solved once and for all. And it's relatively simple compared to the problems of synching."
},
"6": {
"text": "For some reason this isn't being discussed. It should be. River of News may not be the only way to read RSS-based news, but it's a good way. And for some people such as myself, it's the only one we need.",
"created": "Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:03:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22458"
}
}
},
"26": {
"text": "The next Small Picture outliner",
"created": "Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:23:36 GMT",
"name": "theNextSmallPictureOutliner",
"pgfnum": "22430",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/10/drum.gif\")
Good morning and welcome to your Daily Tease of what's coming soon from your friends at Small Picture (i.e. Kyle and myself).",
"created": "Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:50:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22431"
},
"1": {
"text": "We've been working on Little Outliner's big bro. We're getting close.",
"created": "Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:50:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22432"
},
"2": {
"text": "The big thing in this release, other than the ability to edit more than one outline at a time, is that your files reside in a folder in your Dropbox. This gives us the ubiquity we seek for our simple idea outliner, note-taker, todo list, project organizer.",
"created": "Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:50:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22433"
},
"3": {
"text": "As we've gotten deeper into this project we've realized more and more that it's the right move. It makes all kinds of things possible. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:52:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22434"
},
"4": {
"text": "I expect I'll talk a bit about this in the Thunderdome chat I'm doing later today, so I wanted the readers of my blog to hear it first.",
"created": "Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:52:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22435"
}
}
},
"27": {
"text": "Comments on Arrington/Gawker",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:49:09 GMT",
"name": "commentsOnArringtongawker",
"pgfnum": "22355",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "1. I am a former friend of Mike Arrington. He was also my lawyer before he was a friend.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:31:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22356"
},
"1": {
"text": "2. I don't think what Gawker did was right.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:31:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22357"
},
"2": {
"text": "3. An anonymous commenter on TechCrunch said that on any day, any man could be torn apart the way Gawker was trying to tear apart Arrington. I believe that.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:31:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22358"
},
"3": {
"text": "4. My fear in speaking was not of reprisal by Arrington, as an Atlantic author assumes it is, I've been attacked by him at the height of his power, and am still here to tell the tale. The fear is if I stand up and say something I'll be the next one Gawker goes after.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:32:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22359"
},
"4": {
"text": "5. Mike has done things I don't support, that I don't agree with, that anger me, even at times enrage me, but what Gawker has accused him of is one of the worst things you can say about a man. You have to really know that someone is guilty before you make those kinds of charges. I think they know how weak their story is, and it's appalling that they went ahead with it anyway.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:32:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22360"
},
"5": {
"text": "6. Heather Harde's statement is the strongest possible endorsement he could get, as a woman who commands a lot of respect in Silicon Valley, her support says all that needs to be said. I encourage Mike to back down now, and let her statement be the end of it.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:47:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22374"
}
}
},
"28": {
"text": "Drew Houston and the role of MIT",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:44:04 GMT",
"name": "theRoleOfUniversities",
"pgfnum": "22322",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/08/newAccordionGuyBig.gif\")
I read an interview with Dropbox founder Drew Houston that ran in MIT Tech Review in early 2012. Really interesting story, well worth a read, especially for this bit about where the idea for Dropbox came from.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:44:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22323"
},
"1": {
"text": "\"For me, it goes all the way back to MIT, where there is a campus network called Athena. You can sit down at any of thousands of workstations and your whole environment follows you around: not just your files but where your icons were on your desktop. Then I left and discovered that no one had really built that for the rest of the world.\""
},
"2": {
"text": "I thought -- how interesting, the idea for a hugely important, transformative technology came from using the campus network as a student at MIT.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:47:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22325"
},
"3": {
"text": "Then I remembered where Zuck was when Facebook was being hatched. In case you're not familiar with the legend, it was down the street in Cambridge at Harvard. His co-founders were also Harvard undergrads.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:48:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22326"
},
"4": {
"text": "In my own case, the idea for outlining came in a hallway conversation with a fellow grad student at the University of Wisconsin. He told me about editors for Lisp systems that understood structure. From there it was a few steps to editable structures for non-programmers.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:48:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22327"
},
"5": {
"text": "Universities, for people who really use them, can be incredible places to make connections between people and ideas.",
"created": "Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:49:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22328"
}
}
},
"29": {
"text": "Why podcasting matters",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:08:59 GMT",
"name": "whyPodcastingMatters",
"pgfnum": "22239",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Earlier I wrote about how podcasting got its name. I wrote it because there's a reporter who says he gave podcasting its name. He didn't. It pisses me off when people who know they didn't do something claim credit for it anyway. I don't need to explain why it's wrong, do I? ;-)",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:09:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22240"
},
"1": {
"text": "Now, I want to say that even though I have never made a dime off podcasting, and I did a lot of work to make it happen, and I even spent money on it, it was still worth it.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:10:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22241"
},
"2": {
"text": "Because it's a form of literature that's valuable and it persists.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:10:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22242"
},
"3": {
"text": "To this day, when I go for a walk on a sunny day, or a frigid one, in NY or Seattle or Europe, I can listen to the people that I want to hear from, with no gatekeepers in the middle. I still listen to a lot of programming that is professionally produced, but I think it is better because it has to compete in a free market. One where the cost is pretty close to zero to distribute the programming.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:10:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22243"
},
"4": {
"text": "So even though it didn't make me money, it gave me something much better. Ideas! :-)",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:11:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22244"
}
}
},
"30": {
"text": "Streisand's money",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:46:17 GMT",
"name": "streisandsMoney",
"pgfnum": "22221",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "An interesting chain of thought.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:46:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22222"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. I saw a tweet by Fred Benenson about the Streisand Effect which I had never heard of.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:46:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22223"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. So I looked it up.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:46:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22224"
},
"3": {
"text": "3. Decided to participate, so I tweeted a link to the page.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:47:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22225",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Streisand_Estate.jpg\")
",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:53:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22247"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "4. Got a tweet from Sonal Chokshi saying that Streisand has a shopping mall with all her collections, in the basement of the house.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:47:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22226"
},
"5": {
"text": "5. I thought about being rich. I couldn't imagine that shopping mall really made Streisand feel good. But I imagined that a poor person could dream that it might. I tweeted to that effect.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:49:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22227"
},
"6": {
"text": "That led me to another train of thought that I didn't blog.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:50:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22228"
},
"7": {
"text": "I have opinions about what money does to people because I have been lucky enough to have money do it to me. Having money is nice, but not nearly as nice as poor people (which I have also been) imagine it is. But then I wondered how other people deal with money, and I wondered if they all reach this conclusion.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:50:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22229"
},
"8": {
"text": "Now, I'm sure I'm right that money doesn't buy happiness, but when you first get that message, what's your response? I think perhaps some people go into denial, and insist that it must.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:51:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22230"
},
"9": {
"text": "What led me to that was a piece I read last week about a guy who, like me, never stopped programming. He had a theory why people think that's unusual. Because being in charge of programmers has more status than being one. The more you are in charge of, the more status. It isn't the quality of the work that matters, it's the size of the subservience.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:52:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22231"
},
"10": {
"text": "It's funny because I never felt this way! And of course since I didn't feel this way, it didn't occur to me that others did. ",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:53:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22232"
},
"11": {
"text": "I always thought the greatest gift was to be able to do stuff yourself, without having to do it through others. It was the act of creating that was the priviledge. If you had a choice between being a player or a coach, wouldn't everyone choose to be a player? I guess not.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:54:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22233"
},
"12": {
"text": "Mitt Romney is a symbol of this for me. It didn't occur to him, I guess, that we wouldn't love him. If we don't love him, then what was the point of making all that money? I think a lot of rich people never put that to the test, and go through life assuming that they are loved for their money. This explains, imho, a lot of the behavior I see. Being rich seems to equate to \"behaving badly.\"",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:56:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22234"
},
"13": {
"text": "Another person who helped put this together for me is Frank Langella, in the Fresh Air interview that ran this week. He recounts what age does to you. And how actors deal with it, or don't. It was both rich and chilling. And a good perspective for anyone who gives money or fame too much credit for giving meaning or happiness to life.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:01:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22237"
},
"14": {
"text": "Time for a walk! :-)",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:03:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22238"
}
}
},
"31": {
"text": "How podcasting got its name",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:06:18 GMT",
"name": "howPodcastingGotItsName",
"pgfnum": "22205",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/07/ipod.gif\")
In September 2004, the activity we called audioblogging was starting to gain traction. There were a dozen or so regular programs. We had tools for creating audioblog feeds, and an aggregator that could pull them all together into a river of audio programming.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:23:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22206"
},
"1": {
"text": "I had my own show, Morning Coffee Notes. Adam Curry had Daily Source Code and together we did a short-lived audioblog called Trade Secrets. Adam was working on an open source tool that would bring Apple's iPod into the mix. In September he opened the iPodder-dev mail list, which I publicized on Scripting News.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:45:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22216"
},
"2": {
"text": "In the first days of the iPodder-dev mail list the term podcast was introduced and adopted as the name of the activity.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:46:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22217"
},
"3": {
"text": "Here's the sequence of events, with links.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:26:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22207"
},
"4": {
"text": "1. On September 13, Adam posts the inaugural message on the iPodder-Dev list. (You will get a warning from Yahoo when you click on the link because the mail list has since been overrun by spam for porn sites. Oh the humanity!)",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:26:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22208"
},
"5": {
"text": "2. Lots of people introduce themselves, including Dannie Gregoire, a \"reasonably competent Perl programmer\" from Kentucky.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:30:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22209"
},
"6": {
"text": "3. On September 15, Gregoire posts a message where he uses the term \"podcaster.\" I read this message, as did Adam.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:33:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22210"
},
"7": {
"text": "4. In a phone talk, Adam and I discussed this, and agreed we needed a name for the activity, and that Gregoire's suggested term was pretty good, so we agreed to use it. The conversation was recorded and distributed as one of the Trade Secrets shows. (Note: I'm not sure of the date of this podcast.)",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:38:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22212"
},
"8": {
"text": "5. Gregoire recalls the sequence of events in a post to the list on September 20.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:43:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22215"
},
"9": {
"text": "6. On September 24, I wrote a definitive page explaining what a podcast is.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:39:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22213"
},
"10": {
"text": "7. On September 27, I decided to rename the audioblogging session for the upcoming BloggerCon, Podcasting. Adam was the discussion leader.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:58:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22220"
},
"11": {
"text": "8. On September 28, Doc Searls wrote a post entitled DIY Radio with Podcasting. I couldn't locate a subsequent post where he did a Google search and found zero hits for the term, predicting that there would be a lot more, as the idea caught on.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:53:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22218",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "On second thought, that post might have been written by Rex Hammock.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:18:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22245"
},
"1": {
"text": "Update: Apparently it wasn't Rex, but he has a quote from Doc's missing post.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:18:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22246"
}
}
},
"12": {
"text": "Finally, a Google Trends graph clearly indicates that the term was introduced in September 2004.",
"created": "Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:55:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22219"
}
}
},
"32": {
"text": "Did something break in Chrome/Mac?",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:45:55 GMT",
"name": "appleEventToBrowser",
"pgfnum": "22113",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Update: Thanks to elasticthreads, in a comment thread belog, for helping with a few workarounds, and the first one I tried worked. I have a fix I can release if other Frontier/OPML Editor users are seeing the same problem. Right now since I've not heard from anyone, I'm not going to do a release. ",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:28:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22139"
},
"1": {
"text": "I have a question to ask other people who do web development on a Mac using Chrome. I'm not trying to make news, this is just a question. I'm using my blog to ask it.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:46:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22114"
},
"2": {
"text": "1. Back in Netscape days the browser supported a set of interapplication messages called \"Apple Events\" that allowed other apps to make calls to the browser to get it to do things.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:46:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22115"
},
"3": {
"text": "2. The most useful one, imho, was the GURL message, which said \"Here's a URL, please open it in the browser.\"",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:47:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22116"
},
"4": {
"text": "3. This feature is deeply integrated in my CMS. I put my cursor on something, right-click and choose View in Browser. It figures out what its URL is and shoots a GURL message over to the browser, and within a second I'm viewing the page.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:47:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22117"
},
"5": {
"text": "4. This feature was copied by every browser from then on. You could shoot a GURL over to any of them and they'd open the page. This included Chrome. Until sometime in the last few days. Then it stopped working.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:49:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22119",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Here's the Apple Event I'm sending:",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:57:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22124"
},
"1": {
"text": "appleEvent ('rimZ', 'GURL', 'GURL', '----', string (\"http://scripting.com/\"), 'cwin', nil)",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:59:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22126"
},
"2": {
"text": "No error is returned, the event eventually times out.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:59:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22127"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "5. I rebooted the system, relaunched the browser and my CMS, it still doesn't work.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:50:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22120"
},
"7": {
"text": "So my question is this -- if you do web development on Mac with Chrome, did this stop working for you too?",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:50:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22121"
},
"8": {
"text": "PS: I started a Hacker News thread for this, in case you prefer to comment there.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:07:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22128"
},
"9": {
"text": "PPS: Losing this feels like losing the right rear-view-mirror on a car. Very jarring.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:07:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22129"
},
"10": {
"text": "PPPS: Gradually our development environment is being whittled away by Google and Apple. If I were paranoid I'd think they want to slow us all down, for some reason. That's the net effect.",
"created": "Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:08:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22130"
}
}
},
"33": {
"text": "Pay For Your Sins",
"created": "Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:33:56 GMT",
"name": "payForYourSins",
"pgfnum": "22140",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Now that I've started a new business, my first business mentor speaks to me again, from childhood.",
"created": "Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:34:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22141"
},
"1": {
"text": "My grandfather, Rudy Kiesler, was a businessman. He came to the US during the war, a Jew fleeing the Nazis, with a few diamonds sewn into my grandmother's coat, which was stolen on the way. So they arrived in the US, to their new home in Brooklyn, like many other imigrants, without a dime.",
"created": "Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:34:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22142"
},
"2": {
"text": "He started a sewing shop, and grew it, and grew it, until when he retired after having a stroke in his 60s, he had a dozen factories in the South, and a nice bit of cash in the bank.",
"created": "Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:35:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22143"
},
"3": {
"text": "When I was a kid he didn't seem like a wise person. He yelled a lot, loudly, and had hard opinions about everything. But there was an intellect in there. He was a good card player, and a good provider, and he did teach me one important thing about business, an idea that keeps coming up.",
"created": "Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:36:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22144"
},
"4": {
"text": "\"Pay for your sins,\" he would say. It's one of those ideas that means different things depending how you approach it. You're going to pay for them, one way or the other. So knowing that, think twice before you do it. And if you try not to pay for them you're only making it worse. There's a compound interest to sins.",
"created": "Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:37:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22145"
},
"5": {
"text": "Compare this to the lame \"Don't be evil\" -- which has none of the subtlety. Why not be evil? My grandfather knew the answer.",
"created": "Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:38:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22146"
}
}
},
"34": {
"text": "I do outliners for the thinking",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:39:16 GMT",
"name": "whyIDoOutliners",
"pgfnum": "22039",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/03/beetlejuice.gif\")
I love outliner people. They are so cool.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:39:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22040",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I love how the new outliner is so lightweight and \"transparent\", yet powerful. It's a great mind mapping tool sans the cognitive load of layout and \"making it pretty\". I would love to see native experiences and sync to cloud (Evernote and the like are IMO becoming too heavyweight and start to get in the way of quickly taking notes or thinking)",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 03:12:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22048"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "When I ship a new outliner that's where people are looking for them, and today that is on the web -- I get to meet a lot of outliner people. And that makes me feel great!!",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:49:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22047"
},
"2": {
"text": "And that gets me thinking about why I do it. Because now the part about whether or not we attract users, which was speculative a couple of weeks ago, is no longer speculative. They are here, and more are coming.",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:45:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22045"
},
"3": {
"text": "This is why...",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:46:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22046"
},
"4": {
"text": "We need better tools for thinking. With those tools we might do more of it, and be more effective. I want the thinkers to be more powerful. That's it, that's why I work on outlining software. It's for the thinking.",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:40:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22043"
},
"5": {
"text": "The rest of it, open formats, keeping choice in the software, valuing users, that's all so we do more thinking.",
"created": "Thu, 04 Apr 2013 02:41:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22044"
}
}
},
"35": {
"text": "We're not doing software right",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:42:02 GMT",
"name": "wereNotDoingSoftwareRight",
"pgfnum": "21998",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/04/02/bee.gif\")
Nice writeup by James Fallows of Little Outliner, much appreciated.",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:42:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21999"
},
"1": {
"text": "The story he tells is pretty typical of the software industry. He wrote about an online outliner a few years ago, but it's gone now. His favorite outliner, Grandview -- long-gone. My early outliners, gone too. A few products took their place, but nothing like the great start we got at the beginning of the PC software era.",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:42:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22000"
},
"2": {
"text": "What changed is the way we finance software.",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:43:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22001"
},
"3": {
"text": "And that seems to be a story reporters appreciate now, because one of their most-used products, Google Reader, is going away. Probably wouldn't happen if a smaller company made it, if they depended on revenue from the product to make payroll.",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:43:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22002"
},
"4": {
"text": "The wave that's undermining journalism crashed over software many years ago. That's why when journalists want us to make their mission the center of our attention, it's a bit of narcissism on their part. Because what's happening to their profession happened to mine long ago.",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:44:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22003"
},
"5": {
"text": "We human beings aren't that good at creating sustainable systems. The bees are dying. The globe is warming. And we lose great ideas in software, and it takes generations to reinvent them, only to lose them again.",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:45:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22004"
},
"6": {
"text": "I'm bringing back a little of it now. Outliners are my thing. Now let's see if we can make this work as a business. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:46:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "22005"
}
}
},
"36": {
"text": "Outliner plug-ins",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:00:16 GMT",
"name": "outlinerPlugins",
"pgfnum": "21894",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "As you may know, we shipped Little Outliner one week ago today.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:00:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21895"
},
"1": {
"text": "It's done pretty well. I've been watching our stats page regularly and there always seem to be at least a couple dozen people using it. Sometimes as many as a thousand people are outlining with our simple browser-based notepad.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:00:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21896"
},
"2": {
"text": "But all the users, and esp Kyle and myself, want the full-featured product. And we'll have something for you to try out, pretty soon. We did most of the development on the full product before releasing Little Outliner. We wanted to be sure the basic outlining code works, and we wanted to start off with the simple, no-brainer product.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:01:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21897"
},
"3": {
"text": "We will always have Little Outliner, because power-user products can get too complicated for beginners. Just like a ski mountain has a bunny slope, with a hot cup of cocoa close-by, we want to make sure there's a super-easy outliner so people can get comfortable with the idea.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:02:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21898"
},
"4": {
"text": "Okay, so we've built a rich product, it's coming soon -- but I want to also hook up tools to produce different ways of viewing text that was written and organized in the outliner. The prototypical example of this is a slide show. That's what MORE did so well, why it won all the awards, and caught the attention of the press and investors, Guy Kawasaki and Apple, and a whole boatload of users. So that's where we begin with the plug-in story today.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:03:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21899"
},
"5": {
"text": "We've created a little slide-show renderer, using the beautiful JavaScript presentations of reveal.js. Then we added an icon to the left side-bar of Little Outliner that takes the content of the bar cursor outline and shoots it over to the presenter. It in turn sends back the HTML which we then display in a preview window. All this is done with interfaces that are every bit as simple as they sound.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:05:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21900"
},
"6": {
"text": "All this is accomplished with OPML, which is an incredible way to package up a structure of text to ship between programs. It's almost a whole language unto itself for specifying the arrangement of text. And as you know, we have an easy editor for producing OPML (the world-famous Little Outliner you've heard so much about). And with all the experimentation that's been done in JavaScript tools for presenting stuff, the outliner is the missing element that makes this stuff truly user-friendly. If you don't believe me, have a look at the docs for reveal.js. Or bespoke.js. Or impress.js. All of them produce wonderfully animated presentations, but you have to be a real glutton for tech detail to even begin to create your own. But with an outliner it's dramatically easy.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:06:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21902"
},
"7": {
"text": "So now we're ready to show, dear developer, how plug-ins will work with our outliner. Right now you have to jump through a few hoops to enable the demo. This howto shows you what to do.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:12:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21903"
},
"8": {
"text": "http://worknotes.smallpicture.com/march2013/pluginDemo"
},
"9": {
"text": "Hope you like! :-)",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:22:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21904"
}
}
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "March",
"name": "march",
"type": "include",
"url": "http://static.scripting.com/orlando/world/dave/2013/04/01/archive040.opml",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Why don't programmers speak for programming?",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:01:42 GMT",
"name": "whyArentProgrammersSpeakingForProgramming",
"pgfnum": "21871",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I've been watching for this for a few weeks. When public discourse turns to programming, the people who speak are people who don't program for a living. Sure some of them took computer science classes in college, or at one time were professional coders. But not people who today do it as their primary thing. In one particularly egregious case, they were quoting NBA players on why you should learn to code! That is so weird.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:01:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21872"
},
"1": {
"text": "So why is this? I think I finally figured it out, and it was the NBA connection that did it for me. Programmers don't generally speak in politically correct terms. And we don't have many, if any, spokes models who will talk in vague enough terms to be sure that they will never actually say anything meaningful. This disqualifies us from participating in public discussions. We simply can't be trusted to never say anything we mean.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:05:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21873"
},
"2": {
"text": "Maybe that's not it? But I don't like it. I'd like to see some developers be heard. I'd like to just once nod my head and say yeah that person knows what they're talking about when it comes to technology.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:07:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21875"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "The creepiest April 1 web page?",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:37:40 GMT",
"name": "theCreepiestApril1WebPage",
"pgfnum": "21798",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/31/amare.gif\")
The worst tradition of the net is the April Fools news article.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:32:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21787"
},
"1": {
"text": "I have something to announce. I'm quitting. No I'm not. Fooled you!",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:32:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21788"
},
"2": {
"text": "My competitor is a jerk. Haha. You're a fool.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:32:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21789"
},
"3": {
"text": "None of it is funny, and while sometimes you are surprised, the surprise almost never feels good, or right.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:33:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21790"
},
"4": {
"text": "It's bad enough that the people who indulge in this idiocy hurt their own reps, but it also makes it hard to do any communication on April 1. North Korea is threatening nuclear war. Haha. April Fools. Cyprus is having a run on the banks. No they're not. But what if they are? What if there really is astounding news on April 1? Are you prepared to believe it?",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:33:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21791"
},
"5": {
"text": "It would be good if we were all more circumspect about what we read.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:35:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21792"
},
"6": {
"text": "But journalists joking about inaccuracy in their reporting is like a surgeon leaving his or her lunch in your chest. Or a programmer deliberately putting a virus on your hard disk. Lies are the stuff we're supposed to be fighting against, not actively inviting in.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:35:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21793"
},
"7": {
"text": "If I come across something totally awful, I'll put a pointer here. Feel free to do the same in a comment.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:36:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21795"
},
"8": {
"text": "1. TechCrunch wins the award for the first inane April Idiocy post.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:25:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21808"
},
"9": {
"text": "2. Scott Radcliffe says he can't wait for Google's announcement tomorrow. So I ask him what they're going to announce and he says he was saying he hates 4/1 in a roundabout way. Oh. Ouch.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:32:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21876"
},
"10": {
"text": "3. Seth Godin's is noteworthy because he's the last person I'd expect to partake in the idiocy. Peer pressure? The idea of a $0 Kindle is interesting. Since when does Godin have leaks of product announcements, esp for one of his biggest customers (if not his biggest). It was misleading for a fraction of a second, and then made me want to throw up.",
"created": "Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:16:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21887"
},
"11": {
"text": "Yours truly,",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:36:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21796"
},
"12": {
"text": "Dave Winer, 3/31/13",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:36:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21797"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "The soul of the new developer",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:35:54 GMT",
"name": "theSoulOfTheNewEngineer",
"pgfnum": "21775",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/31/knicksUniform.gif\")
Just read this story in today's NY Times about the Stuyvesant High School teacher who wanted to make an elite school to teach computer science to young gifted New Yorkers.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:36:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21776"
},
"1": {
"text": "It was a Fred Wilson thing. Fred Wilson is to developers what Spike Lee is to the Knicks. The guy who shows up at every game and roots the team on, through thick and thin, no matter if they start a Brooklyn team (Lee is also a cultural icon of Brooklyn). He loves the orange and blue uniforms of the Knicks and Madison Square Garden. Only in this sport, the fan is confused for the great player by the opinion leaders and gatekeepers. As if all there were to being a champion is having a lot of money (you might argue the opposite is true, the most interesting players are the ones who don't have any money, but hunger for recognition).",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:36:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21777"
},
"2": {
"text": "The Board of Ed liked the idea so much they stole it and usurped it, and now instead of creating great young talent to flow into Fred's NY startups, they'll create Certified Cisco maintenence guys. Or people who can keep Windows networks running as long as Microsoft is making them. Or Oracle databases.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:38:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21778"
},
"3": {
"text": "The fight is a familiar one. Should we create hackers for Wall Street or for the nascent high tech startup industry that's trying to get a foothold in NYC. Fred of course wants the flow for Foursquare and Stack Exchange and Etsy etc. And Bloomberg wants them for Chase, Citibank and the Department of Sanitation.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:39:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21779"
},
"4": {
"text": "There is a third possibility. Tell the captains of finance to back off, and let's create some developers who are capable of taking us in new directions. Not into Wilson's companies or Bloomberg's.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:41:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21781"
},
"5": {
"text": "Not much chance of that of course. ;-)",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:26:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21785"
},
"6": {
"text": "So we'll still have Spike Lee coaching the team. Let's keep everything on a steady predictable course. As long as it makes me richer. (Paraphrasing.)",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:42:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21782"
},
"7": {
"text": "New York has always been run for the benefit of the already-rich at the expense of the gifted artist. Maybe it's not true in every art, but it totally so in the art of creating great world-changing software. In a few years when these kids are ready to work there will be a new league, and no one is prepared today to teach them the skills they will need for that. So it doesn't matter much who controls the curriculum. The really smart ones will figure it out. And they will surprise us and teach us a lot. (And if there's any sanity we will get to teach them a thing or two as well.)",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:43:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21783"
},
"8": {
"text": "PS: I went to Bronx Science, which is an elite public school, like Stuyvesant. Neither they nor I discovered, while I was a student there, that I had a talent for tech, and my media hacking was seen as a social behavior problem. So I don't have a lot of faith in the idea of elite NYC high schools. However, the students taught each other a lot, and we created our own fun. Which is kind of what I'm getting at in this piece.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:50:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21784"
},
"9": {
"text": "PPS: In addition to teaching kids how to be great commercial developers, I'd teach them how to create open systems without lock-in. That's the equivalent of the scientific method for software design. Schools have an obligation to teach the idealism of art, not only the craft.",
"created": "Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:47:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21799"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "I'm on the web team",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:40:57 GMT",
"name": "imOnTheWebTeam",
"pgfnum": "21731",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/30/cable.gif\")
Any company that takes content off the web and puts it in a private silo is playing on its own team. There are lots of companies doing this, so there are lots of teams. I'm on the team that puts all the content on the web. That means that every bit can have an address. That means it can all be plugged into other applications. So our work multiplies. The value of ideas deposited on the web is much greater than ideas that are trapped in a silo. There are lots of people, companies, universities, libraries, open source projects and governments in \"web team\" space. It may seem naive for any single company to throw its lot in with us, but when you see the full picture, you see it's actually the other way around. What we create together can be much much bigger than anything a single company can do.",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 20:42:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21732"
},
"1": {
"text": "PS: Little Outliner is on the web team too. ;-)",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:33:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21733"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Ten-year Berkman Thursday reunion meetup on April 25",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:29:23 GMT",
"name": "berkmanThursdayReunion",
"pgfnum": "21718",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It's been 10 years since the Berkman-Thursday group started, and with it, blogging at Harvard. It all happened at the same time Facebook was booting up on campus."
},
"1": {
"text": "It was an informal group that met at Berkman Center every Thursday evening. Our goal was to boot up a blogging community at the university and in the surrounding community. It was the first university at the time to offer blogging. We needed a way to create a pulse, a weekly event that was open to anyone where you could learn about blogging, and we could learn from each other.",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:29:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21719"
},
"2": {
"text": "It evolved in a number of directions. New software came out of the group. We planned and succesfully ran the first blogging conferences in the US. We taught a lot of people how to blog. And the sessions themselves were a lot like blog posts. Someone comes in with an idea, talks about it, we ask questions and discuss it. We discussed the things we were writing on our blogs."
},
"3": {
"text": "The group continued running as a weekly seminar series until a couple of years ago."
},
"4": {
"text": "Now we're approaching the 10th anniversary and some of the members have expressed an interest in a reunion. I've asked for space at Berkman, and they got pretty excited about the idea, so we're having a Old Timers Day meetup on April 25 at Berkman Center at 7PM, 23 Everett Street."
},
"5": {
"text": "We'll talk about what we've been doing, what we learned, how life evolved in the last ten years, what we got right and what we got wrong, and what role the Thursday evening meetings played for us. I will also show off the software I've been developing, Little Outliner and other goodies. Some of them will already be shipping by the end of April. ;-)",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:32:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21720"
},
"6": {
"text": "There should be room for 25-30 people. I've set up an Eventbrite page.",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:34:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21721"
},
"7": {
"text": "http://berkmanthursday2013.eventbrite.com/",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:34:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21722"
},
"8": {
"text": "Hope to see you in Cambridge on April 25.",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:34:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21723"
},
"9": {
"text": "PS: Here's the archive of Scripting News for March 2003. You'll see a lot of the developments at Berkman recorded there.",
"created": "Sat, 30 Mar 2013 18:19:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21724"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "I'm not making blogging tools :-)",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:03:21 GMT",
"name": "imNotMakingBloggingTools",
"pgfnum": "21643",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "First, I really appreciate Mathew Ingram's writeup in Gigaom about what we're doing at Small Picture. If you haven't read it, and you're a regular here, go read it now. Lots of good stuff. ;-)",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:03:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21644"
},
"1": {
"text": "However.. (you knew that was coming)",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:04:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21645"
},
"2": {
"text": "We are not making blogging tools.",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:04:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21646"
},
"3": {
"text": "We are making software for creative people -- writers, designers and programmers. Inevitably that means it will connect to blogging systems, because blogs are fixtures in the world of 2013 and beyond. And it's certainly possible that one can create a blogging system using our backend (not released yet). But our business is not what his headline says it is.",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:04:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21647"
},
"4": {
"text": "Mathew is totally entitled to his interpretation.",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:05:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21648"
},
"5": {
"text": "And of course I'm entitled to comment on his interpretation. :-)",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:11:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21656"
},
"6": {
"text": "Why this is important?",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:05:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21649"
},
"7": {
"text": "1. Our product should not be evalutated based on its capability as a blogging tool.",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:06:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21650"
},
"8": {
"text": "2. We see blogging products as complementary to ours, not competitive.",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:06:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21651"
},
"9": {
"text": "3. I even made a proposition to vendors of blogging tools, and the offer is still open (and I will make it again, in new contexts as the software develops).",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:06:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21652"
},
"10": {
"text": "I want to make great editing tools, for writers, designers and programmers.",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:06:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21653"
},
"11": {
"text": "That's our mantra, at least one of them. ;-)",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:07:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21654"
},
"12": {
"text": "And finally thanks to Mathew for such a thoughtful and otherwise accurate piece.",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:07:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21655"
},
"13": {
"text": "PS: I can totally see why it's confusing, esp based on some of the things I've said. I will try to be more careful about that! :-)",
"created": "Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:16:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21657"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "Make a Twitter out of RSS",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:44:52 GMT",
"name": "makeATwitterOutOfRss",
"pgfnum": "21556",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "As developers rush to fill the Google Reader hole, it seems everyone is trying to reproduce Google Reader, almost verbatim. It's understandable. There are a huge number of fans of Google Reader who will be without Google Reader as of July 1. So when they tell you what they want, it's no surprise that what they come up with is basically, Google Reader.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:14:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21558"
},
"1": {
"text": "I think/hope they will be well-served.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:15:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21559"
},
"2": {
"text": "But there's an opportunity to do something different that might be equally interesting. Without asking users what they want, create a product based on a different hypothesis.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:15:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21560",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A famous platform vendor once asked me if the users were asking for ThinkTank, my first product, before I created it. He had a point. There were no users before there was a product. So they couldn't ask. Because they didn't exist.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:37:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21568"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "The hypothesis: What if Twitter were, in every way, open.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:16:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21561"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/28/rssTShirt.gif\")
What would that look like?",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:16:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21562"
},
"5": {
"text": "1. First, it would look like Twitter. There would be a box at the top of the page that asks What's Happening, and below that a sequence of new items from people you follow, in reverse-chronologic order.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:16:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21563"
},
"6": {
"text": "2. It would be easy to follow someone. When you're looking at their profile page, there would be a big easy to see button that says Follow. It would not say Follow in Product X or Follow in Product Y, etc. It would not open up a huge dialog with a list of products you could follow it in. It would say Follow. And when you click it you Follow that person. No questions asked.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:17:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21564"
},
"7": {
"text": "3. It's a web app. No synchronization among different clients. Supply an API if you like. But like Twitter it's always reverse-chronologic, and it doesn't remember what you haven't read. Yes, some users won't like that. They will use the other kind of RSS app, the ones that synch between clients. (See the first paragraph of this piece.)",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:20:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21566"
},
"8": {
"text": "4. No lock-in. That's where it gets tricky. But it's a different kind of tricky than the people cloning Google Reader will encounter. Over there, you have to synchronize news items among lots of possible clients. Here you have to let the user tell you where she stores her subscriptions (and that will determine who gets the message when the user clicks on the Follow button). Beyond that, every developer could experiment with different scanning possibilities, and different presentations, and different whatevers.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:18:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21565"
},
"9": {
"text": "This is my dream system. I would happily make components for it. I'm just one user, for sure, and you might have to think a bit more to do this one vs the straight Google Reader clone. But there's also more opportunity to innovate. And it won't just be a repeat of the last 8 years.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:23:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21567"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "Me, in 1996",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:43:18 GMT",
"name": "meIn1996",
"pgfnum": "21546",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A picture Tim Holmes dug up, taken at Apple in 1996, the night Steve Jobs returned from exile.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:43:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21547"
},
"1": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/27/dave1996.jpg\")
"
},
"2": {
"text": "I heard about the event by word of mouth and decided to drive down there to witness it. Walked right in, no security -- I even brought a date with me. ;-)",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:43:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21548"
},
"3": {
"text": "No gray in my beard. ;-)"
}
}
},
"8": {
"text": "An open note to tech press/bloggers",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:13:24 GMT",
"name": "anOpenNoteToTechPressbloggers",
"pgfnum": "21492",
"type": "blogpost",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "We just did a great rollout, the product is fantastic. This is going to move tech in a new direction. It'll create new standards. I'm absolutely sure of it.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:58:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21483"
},
"1": {
"text": "Yet, even with my track record as one who leads change in technology, the release of this software has gotten almost no note from leading tech bloggers and reporters.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:59:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21484"
},
"2": {
"text": "That's okay, because it'll happen without them. Last time I pushed something through, it didn't get support from the press either. And the time before that. We can make it happen without their help.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:59:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21485"
},
"3": {
"text": "I think they're comfortable with big software ideas coming from big companies. But I can't make change happen within the context of a big corporation. Too much second-guessing, too many strategy taxes, too many phony business models. So I choose to do it as an independent.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:02:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21487"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/27/bike.gif\")
I think software is like other creative arts -- music, architecture, cooking, even design of everyday things like bikes and clothes. It takes a relentless focus on the act of using, and what kind of effect you want to create. Learning from others, and stealing from the best. Only. ;-)",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:03:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21488"
},
"5": {
"text": "We can do it on our own but it would be easier if we got help from influencers and gatekeepers. So if you like anything that I helped bring about, blogging, RSS and podcasting and a few other things, please have a look at Little Outliner. It's a little product, yes -- but one with very big ambitions. ;-)",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:00:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21486"
},
"6": {
"text": "These are early days, the product is very simple, and well-documented. We went to great lengths to make it easy to understand.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:09:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21491"
},
"7": {
"text": "Helping users understand new relevant technology is what you do, after all.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:06:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21490"
},
"8": {
"text": "PS: I did not include comments on this post because this is the kind of thing that attracts a lot of trolls.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:29:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21493"
},
"9": {
"text": "PPS: To users, this is why you haven't heard much about Little Outliner in the tech press. There's nothing wrong with the product.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:29:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21494"
}
}
},
"9": {
"text": "Thinking like an outliner",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:25:42 GMT",
"name": "thinkingLikeAnOutliner",
"pgfnum": "21473",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/27/tales.gif\")
I'm sure Bob Stepno won't mind if I use his question/suggestion as an example of how outliners are different from most other programs.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:25:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21474"
},
"1": {
"text": "On our Q&A page, he asked how do you select-all in an outline. He was disappointed that when you press Cmd-A it only selects the siblings at the same level as the bar cursor headline. He felt it should select all the text in the outline.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:45:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21478"
},
"2": {
"text": "My answer was that like almost every operation in an outliner, select-all is scoped. When you select a headline, you are implicitly selecting all the headlines that are subordinate to it. So if you want to select everything in an outline, move the cursor to one of the summits, and do the select-all there.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:27:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21475"
},
"3": {
"text": "This is fundamentally different from the way a word processor or spreadsheet works, but it's exactly the way the Finder or Windows Explorer works, which are also scoped. When you select-all in a folder, it doesn't select all the files on your computer -- it just selects the files in the folder you're working in.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:28:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21476"
},
"4": {
"text": "Why does it work this way? Well, an outline can logically contain many documents, not just one. For example, I'm writing this blog post in an outline that contains all my posts dating back to March of last year. If I did a select-all here, I'd want it to select all the text in this post, not all the text in all posts. However if I wanted to select everything, I could do that, by putting the cursor on the top level headline, as illustrated in this screen shot.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:29:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21477"
}
}
},
"10": {
"text": "HTML 5 local storage FAQ",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:57:18 GMT",
"name": "usersGuideToLocalStorage",
"pgfnum": "21412",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/26/html5.gif\")
After a few thousand people looked at Little Outliner yesterday, it's clear that some users are uncomfortable with the idea of local storage. For many, apparently this is the first time they have encoutered this HTML 5 feature.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:17:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21414"
},
"1": {
"text": "I looked for a user-oriented FAQ on local storage but all I found were descriptions of the feature for developers. And for developers, there really isn't that much to know. I've put the details under this headline, you can expand it if you care.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:19:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21415",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "There's a new browser object called localStorage. It behaves like any other JavaScript object except it persists. That means the next time the user comes back to your site, the storage will still be there, exactly as it was last time they visited.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:19:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21417"
},
"1": {
"text": "In most browsers the object is attached to a single domain, so joe.userland.com and mary.userland.com will have different localStorage objects. Apparently Firefox is different, in that joe and mary share a localStorage object. There are reasons to do it either way. It would be nice if they all did it the same way. ;-)",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:20:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21418"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "So here are some answers to frequently asked question.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:22:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21419"
},
"3": {
"text": "1. Where is local storage stored? It varies from browser to browser. Some users have explored in the system settings folders on various operating systems and found the files. They look like they're SQL databases.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:22:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21420"
},
"4": {
"text": "2. How much space does it use? The per-domain limit is 5MB.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:23:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21421"
},
"5": {
"text": "3. When you clear the cache does local storage get cleared too? I don't know.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:39:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21425"
},
"6": {
"text": "4. Isn't local storage like cookies? Yes, it's very much like cookies, except cookies are limited to 4K, and local storage can go up to 5MB. The difference in size reflects the difference in times. When cookies were invented, in the mid-90s, computers had a lot less memory. Today it's not uncommon for a new computer to have a terabyte of disk space. 5MB today is like what 4K was back then. It seems silly to live in a world limited by the machines of the past. But cookies couldn't change without risking breakage, of the web itself. So local storage was a good answer. Also local storage is simpler to program than cookies, but not so much simpler as to make a huge difference.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:39:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21426"
},
"7": {
"text": "5. Isn't this a potentially dangerous feature? We are very responsible about our software, we just want people to make outlines and be happy and want to use the new stuff we come out with. This is a business for us. So we would never use it in a harmful way. Not only would it be against our interest, but it would be professionally unthinkable. That said, localStorage is a potentially dangerous feature, in the hands of a malicious website. This is something the browser vendors will probably have to address sooner or later. Probably sooner. ;-)",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:30:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21423"
},
"8": {
"text": "6. How can I get rid of what you stored on my computer? I can only answer for our product. If you delete all the text in your outline, that will get rid of most of what we store. There will still be an empty outline in local storage, and a count of the number of times you saved. That takes up about 140 characters, or coincidentally, the size of a tweet. If even this is too much to bear, we can add a way for you to delete that too. (I imagine someone will say that it is, so I'm already preparing to write the code.)",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:28:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21422"
},
"9": {
"text": "If you have other questions, ask them below and we'll try to answer them, the best we can.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:34:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21424"
}
}
},
"11": {
"text": "The magic of HTML 5 and S3",
"created": "Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:22:10 GMT",
"name": "somethingTechiesWillAppreciate",
"pgfnum": "21375",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "We just shipped a new product, promoted the hell out of it (with great results, thanks!), the site is getting huge traffic, but our server is as quiet as it was yesterday.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:22:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21376"
},
"1": {
"text": "Because this web app uses no server resources. ;-)",
"created": "Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:26:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21380"
},
"2": {
"text": "That's the magic of HTML 5 local storage, and static pages on S3.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:23:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21377"
},
"3": {
"text": "Thanks to the W3C and to Werner Vogels (for persisting in getting the ability to access the root of a domain from an S3 bucket). As a result, we get unlimited scaling with zero investment. Consider this an endorsement for both innovations.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:23:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21378"
},
"4": {
"text": "Now, that said, in future incarnations, we will have a server component, and scaling will be an issue. But for right now we can bask in the glory. ;-)",
"created": "Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:27:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21381"
}
}
},
"12": {
"text": "My new company, our first product",
"created": "Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:48:34 GMT",
"name": "myNewCompanyAndOurFirstProduct",
"pgfnum": "21371",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Good morning!"
},
"1": {
"text": "A quick note with some news."
},
"2": {
"text": "1. In December I started a new company, Small Picture, with Kyle Shank, a 28-year-old JavaScript developer."
},
"3": {
"text": "2. We've created a new product, Little Outliner. It runs in-browser. It's a continuation of the thread started by my desktop outliner products. It is in every way as easy, smooth and powerful as the earlier Mac and PC outliners. JavaScript plus HTML 5 is an amazing platform."
},
"4": {
"text": "3. Little Outliner is a new beginning. Our easy on-ramp. We want to re-introduce idea processing, and using outliners to create presentations, but this time the difference is networking. I think you'll be amazed at what we come up with in the coming months. I haven't been this excited about a product since we shipped MORE at Living Videotext in 1986. Not kidding."
},
"5": {
"text": "4. Working with a smart young dude like Kyle, who knows so much about the modern technologies, has been a real awakening for me. I've learned how to apply my craft in what is a very strange world. JavaScript is not like any language I've ever used. This product is very much the result of a creative partnership. As we grow we'll add other excellent developers. Like all my companies, Small Picture will create user-focused products, that offer choice, value, performance and interop with others. No lock-in here, other than what comes from happy users."
},
"6": {
"text": "Thanks for reading this far. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. We'll try our best to answer them quickly."
},
"7": {
"text": "Dave WinerSmall Picture, Inc." } } }, "13": { "text": "It's an outliner!", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:25:16 GMT", "name": "itsAnOutliner", "pgfnum": "21096", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "On Monday of this week, somewhat quietly, we released the docs for the outliner we've been developing at Small Picture, Inc.", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:25:21 GMT", "pgfnum": "21097" }, "1": { "text": "http://smallpicture.com/outlinerHowto.html", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:25:41 GMT", "pgfnum": "21098" }, "2": { "text": "The docs are interesting, if you like outliners -- but also interesting because they illustrate something important about the outliner. It's very easy to include in a web page.", "collapse": "true", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:25:44 GMT", "pgfnum": "21099" }, "3": { "text": "There's a practice outliner right there on the docs page. Kind of subtle. ;-)", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:46:25 GMT", "pgfnum": "21105" }, "4": { "text": "It's written in JavaScript. Yet it's indistinguishable from the outliners we've been using, for many years, running native on Windows and Mac. This outliner runs in any HTML-5 compatible browser, on any OS.", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:26:16 GMT", "pgfnum": "21100" }, "5": { "text": "You install the software by reloading the page.", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:43:51 GMT", "pgfnum": "21104" }, "6": { "text": "Next Monday we'll show the next bit in our queue. And the Monday after that, the next one, etc.", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:27:21 GMT", "pgfnum": "21101" }, "7": { "text": "Our cup runneth over! (Finally.)", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:27:50 GMT", "pgfnum": "21102" } } }, "14": { "text": "Ignore the Bigco's", "created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:51:43 GMT", "name": "thisIsMarcosFirstTimeAround", "pgfnum": "21055", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "
![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/21/glue.gif\")
We have a problem to solve.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:51:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21056"
},
"1": {
"text": "How to create stable systems out of the Internet we have now.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:52:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21058"
},
"2": {
"text": "What we've created is far too fragile.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:52:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21059"
},
"3": {
"text": "It's nice that the Bigco's have their business models. But that's not the point.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:55:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21064"
},
"4": {
"text": "I want to connect my writing with yours, and have it be readable by people no matter what device they use, where ever they are, no matter what kind of net connection they have, today and 20 years from today.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:52:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21060"
},
"5": {
"text": "Ignore the ups and downs of the giants. They come and go.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:53:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21061"
},
"6": {
"text": "Very dramatic, but also very predictable, and mostly off-topic.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:54:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21063"
},
"7": {
"text": "The question is this: How do we work together to create lasting value?",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:53:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "21062"
}
}
},
"15": {
"text": "Google is no good at being evil",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:54:00 GMT",
"name": "googleIsNoGoodAtBeingEvil",
"pgfnum": "20945",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Google's motto is \"Don't be evil.\"",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:30:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20946"
},
"1": {
"text": "Paraphrasing HL Mencken's motto -- \"When somebody says 'don't be evil'-- they're being evil.\"",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:31:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20947",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "The literal quote: \"When somebody says it's not about the money, it's about the money.\"",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:41:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20952"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "Now, the thing to know about evil is there's good evil and bad evil.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:31:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20948"
},
"3": {
"text": "Unlike cholesterol, both are bad for you, but good evil is hard to pin on the purveyor. He makes it seem like someone else is the problem. Bad evil is the kind that comes with a bull's eye on your back that says \"Hit me -- please.\" Google does the latter kind.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:31:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20949"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/21/mrBurns.gif\")
It would have been so easy to ease the pain of Reader withdrawal by putting some effort into creating a scapegoat. Someone to blame for the trouble users are having. \"At least Google did xxx,\" their supporters might say. But their withdrawal has all the care and sensitivity of DuPont refusing to clean up a chemical disaster site. Sure it happens all the time, quietly -- but the death of Google Reader is not and could not be quiet. All the reporters and bloggers use it! And there's no one to blame but Larry and Sergey. Who end up looking like Mr Burns on The Simpsons.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:32:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20950"
},
"5": {
"text": "The fact that they're so bad at evil is encouraging. Maybe deep down inside they aren't. Maybe they truly don't see that the 1 or 2 million people, or how ever many use GR, are actual people, like members of their family, who liked Google, but now will have a hard time doing that when they associate the name with the pain of withdrawal they feel, from the void of news flow.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:35:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20951"
}
}
},
"16": {
"text": "Twitterquette",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:47:00 GMT",
"name": "twitterquette",
"pgfnum": "20830",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/20/mirror.gif\")
I've heard it said that it's impolite to talk about someone on Twitter without addressing your comment to them by using their handle, prefaced by an @. I disagree. If you're going to call someone an asshole, it's impolite to address it to them. If you're objectifying them, saying something you wouldn't say to their face -- then don't say it to their face dammit. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:33:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20831"
},
"1": {
"text": "I know because I'm sometimes on the receiving end of this.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:34:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20832"
},
"2": {
"text": "Oh that @davewiner, he's such an idiot.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:34:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20833"
},
"3": {
"text": "I would much prefer if they left the @ off it. Otherwise I have to look at that idiotic thing over and over until it scrolls off. If you think it's going to get a reply, no way. And if you think I give a shit, I don't. It's just annoying to see a bit of stupidity staying there, like a turd in a toilet that someone refuses to flush. So I usually just block em. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:34:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20834"
},
"4": {
"text": "Sometimes it makes sense to say something about someone you wouldn't want them to see.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:36:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20835"
},
"5": {
"text": "For example. The other day at lunch I was saying that Carmelo Anthony, the star of the Knicks, is never going to lead the team to a championship. I wouldn't want Anthony, a fine player, and a nice guy, to see that. I doubt if it would motivate him. And sheez it's not his fault he's in the same division as Lebron James (or for that matter occupying the same NBA as Lebron James). Even Kevin Durant, who is a great leader and player, and totally capable of being a champion, probably can't overcome the audacity and tenacity of the Miami Heat. At least not for the next few years.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:36:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20836"
},
"6": {
"text": "So I vote for leaving off the at-sign if you're saying trash about a celeb.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:39:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20837"
}
}
},
"17": {
"text": "A toast to the Chihuahuas!",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:57:59 GMT",
"name": "areWeAllGatekeepers",
"pgfnum": "20754",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/19/tacoBellDog.gif\")
When I was a fellow at NYU, I moderated a panel on the topic of Sources Go Direct. My panelists didn't buy it. So we wandered in an unsatisfying way (to me at least) around various ideas of what media is about.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:58:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20755"
},
"1": {
"text": "One of the speakers was Nick Denton, founder, publisher and ego of Gawker. Nick says that media is about gate-keeping. Your power and value is in what you let through and what you don't. He said that at the beginning of the blogging era, I had that power (me, as in Dave). He recounted a visit he and his partner made to Palo Alto, probably around 2001 or 2002 or so. They were running a startup called Moreover, and according to Nick, they wanted me to write about it on Scripting News. I didn't know.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:59:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20756"
},
"2": {
"text": "And I sure didn't want to be a gatekeeper! To me it's a silly idea, and antithetical to what blogging is about. I want you to say what you have to say and if I'm interested or when I'm interested, I'll read it -- and not because I have to or because there's nothing else to read. We were going from the time of scarcity to overload, and that's what I wanted. Not gatekeeping. Because look who's doing the gatekeeping, some miserable person who will be dead in at most 70 years and probably a lot sooner.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:01:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20757"
},
"3": {
"text": "I once wrote about how we're all barking, farting Chihuahuas pretending our will means anything. I was thinking about the wonderful character in the Taco Bell commercials. I guess he didn't sell burritos and tacos and challupas or whatever, but I loved the dog, and now that I think of him, I miss him too. I wish they'd bring him back. I'd trade the dog for a million bankruptcy attorney ambulance-chasing mesothelioma profiteers.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:08:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20761",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "\"The universe is so damned big. Billions and billions of galaxies. Every one of them filled with chihuahuas and captains of industry. None of them get out of it alive. What's it all about? Who knows? No one.\"",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:13:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20762"
},
"1": {
"text": "I was thinking of Bill Gates.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:13:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20763"
},
"2": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Nick is now a gatekeeper, I suppose -- and I guess he must have a soft spot for me, because anytime I want publicity from Gawker I seem to be able to get it. I wonder who he's turning down and why.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:03:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20758"
},
"5": {
"text": "And then I think of people I know who really are gatekeepers. And then I think of the great scene in The Godfather where all the bosses get together to tell Don Corleone to share his politicians with them. He says if you let my son come back to America you can have the politicians and judges. Now that I can get behind. An old man, in his final years, wants the comfort of his son, to drink wine with, and to tell stories to. What could be better than that! :-)",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:03:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20759"
}
}
},
"18": {
"text": "Time for a Hulu-for-News?",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:38:10 GMT",
"name": "timeForAHulufornews",
"pgfnum": "20729",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/19/houseOfCards.gif\")
On February 5, I wrote a piece called House of News, in which I suggested that the news industry might do a recalc along the lines of the one Netflix did, in deciding to give its users all the episodes of House of Cards, at once -- instead of emulating the old TV serial distribution system, the one that existed before the net.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:38:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20730"
},
"1": {
"text": "They did something remarkable, Netflix did -- that most companies can't seem to do. They viewed the world through the eyes of their users. And decided simply to give them exactly what they wanted.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:39:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20731"
},
"2": {
"text": "I wrote that piece before we knew that Google Reader would be shutting down in July.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:39:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20732"
},
"3": {
"text": "What we don't know is why Google shut it down. But one possible reason is that they are trying to give the news industry what it wants, and in doing so, not only not giving the users what they want, but willfully throwing out the work of the users, in building their own distribution system for news.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:40:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20733"
},
"4": {
"text": "As hobbled as Google Reader was, it was largely a creation of its users. They did the programming for themselves. They chose what channels of news they wanted to listen to, assembling a highly customized news flow and sharing their discoveries.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:40:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20734"
},
"5": {
"text": "If I could say one thing to the the execs of the news industry, it would be this. Stop viewing today through the lens of the past. View it from the point of view of the future. Look back to today and imagine how you could get to the future we all know is coming. And when you do that, I think you'll see that it's time for something new and Netflix-like. A news system where the users have even more power to shape the news that they will receive from you.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:41:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20735"
},
"6": {
"text": "It's long-past time to trust the users and just do what they want you to do. You will probably be surprised at how profitable that turns out to be. Imho of course.",
"created": "Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:43:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20736"
}
}
},
"19": {
"text": "Dear Mr Pierce",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:31:32 GMT",
"name": "dearMrPierce",
"pgfnum": "20651",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Over the weekend Charles Pierce took a swipe at my earlier piece about sources going direct.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:32:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20654"
},
"1": {
"text": "He has summarized my thoughts: \"Journalism is no longer an actual profession because everyone can do it because BLOGS!, that's why. Well, fine, that's an argument. But it's not a good one.\"",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:20:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20669"
},
"2": {
"text": "Nor does it in any way resemble what I said.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:34:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20656",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Or anything I have ever said or thought or even dreamed.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:21:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20670"
},
"1": {
"text": "And btw, how insulting to be called that superficial and that stupid.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:48:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20659"
},
"2": {
"text": "This is what I mean about reporters not listening to people outside their own profession.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:49:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20660"
},
"3": {
"text": "To Klein, he was condescending, but respectful, at least superficially. He didn't read Klein's piece either, or if he did, none of the meaning was reflected in his critique.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:50:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20661"
},
"4": {
"text": "My piece? Clearly he didn't even read it. And he didn't care how stupid it made him look, to be so dismissive and condescending without even bothering to find out what it was he was dismissing.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:51:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20662"
},
"5": {
"text": "Regardless, he's an entertaining and often insightful writer. But I'll always remember when reading him that I've seen some pretty sloppy thinking on his part, and it'll make me question the other stuff he says.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:52:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20663"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "To Mr Pierce: I love reading your stuff, and if your getting paid is what it takes for you to continue, I hope you continue to get paid for a long time to come. I hope that puts to rest any thought that I begrudge you your salary. :-)"
}
}
},
"20": {
"text": "Even more on Medium",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:16:36 GMT",
"name": "evenMoreOnMedium",
"pgfnum": "20551",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/16/cokeMachine.gif\")
A friend sent an email last week when I wrote yet another piece about Medium that I seem obsessed with it. Not really. I watch it. Not sure why.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:16:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20552"
},
"1": {
"text": "Why do I watch the Knicks? Certainly not because I hope they'll win. I'm just interested. Maybe I feel the same way about Medium. I'm invested in the Evan Williams story, having watched from almost the beginning, way before most other people in tech thought he was interesting.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:24:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20556"
},
"2": {
"text": "I remember once watching him talk on stage at a conference in Copenhagen. I had this instant visceral thought that he might be the Rupert Murdoch of this medium we were creating. I knew I wasn't that. I'm more of a creative guy, I eschew empire building. (But I do like an interesting word or phrase!)",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:18:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20553"
},
"3": {
"text": "Anyway, I was just reading this piece in the New Yorker. It's short and to the point, and asks an interesting question. Why doesn't Mitt Romney finally let his hair down a little. It's of course well-written, it's in the New Yorker after all. I thought to myself -- \"I bet this is the kind of writing they're looking for at Medium.\"",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:19:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20554"
},
"4": {
"text": "I'm more casual a writer. I think of blogging as a written form of fresco. Made of plaster with a little coloring. It hardens fast, and you move on to something else. I used to say \"we're just folks here.\" That's the kind of writing I aspire to.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:20:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20555"
}
}
},
"21": {
"text": "Email with Max Levchin",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:44:02 GMT",
"name": "emailWithMaxLevchin",
"pgfnum": "20516",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/17/salute.gif\")
A discussion began on Twitter about Google Reader between myself and Max Levchin, and at my request moved over to email. This is the discussion so far.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:44:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20517"
},
"1": {
"text": "Max wrote:",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:44:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20518",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "RSS has a decentralized pub/sub model; the format has been open and stable for a long time; the addressing scheme has no reliance on a specific client. How does the death of one, particularly good even, client, carry with it a threat to the whole ecosystem?",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:44:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20519"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "I responded:",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:44:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20520",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "They weren't just \"one client\" -- they dominated, in the way that MSIE dominated the browser space. And they did what MSIE did, once they gained dominance they froze development (that might have happened through competition) and stopped moving. Everything that was broken in GR became a feature of RSS. And all the things that should have happened, to mature the market, couldn't happen.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:45:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20521"
},
"1": {
"text": "Now maybe that's about to change for the better. I hope so. But I'm not encouraged. This is a market where, in order for it to flourish, there HAS to be cooperation among vendors. That's what Twitter proved. Because they control the whole user experience they were able to solve problems that the RSS market couldn't. First, because the vendors wouldn't cooperate, and then because Google took the whole market. So we are now locked into a single vendor -- Twitter.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:45:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20522"
},
"2": {
"text": "So the way it looks to me is that there are three possible outcomes:",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:45:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20523"
},
"3": {
"text": "1. GR's demise is also the end of RSS (which seems to me is Google's desired outcome, based on other things they did).",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:45:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20524"
},
"4": {
"text": "2. A market develops, but we're unable to get the new features into it that simplify the subscription process, so it has a chance re Twitter.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:45:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20525"
},
"5": {
"text": "3. A new dominant reader comes about, and if they're good then maybe something good happens."
},
"6": {
"text": "I don't think there's the slightest possibility of #3. People in tech are just too insular, they don't study prior art, or even study their competition enough to know where the problems are, much less what the potential solutions are.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:45:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20526"
},
"7": {
"text": "I think more likely is a mix between #1 and #2. A continued decline for RSS as an activity and more and more reliance on big companies that don't give a fuck.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:45:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20527"
}
}
}
}
},
"22": {
"text": "Getting .mobi files into Kindle/iPad",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:02:07 GMT",
"name": "howToGetMobiFilesIntoKindleOnTheIpad",
"pgfnum": "20495",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I tweeted that you couldn't do this, and got replies from a dozen or more people with ways to do it. And I'm happy to report at least one of them works.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:02:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20496"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. Use the email address that Amazon provides for your Kindle. It's on the Amazon site, poke around, you'll find it.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:02:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20497"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. The Kindle app shows up under Apps in iTunes. You can drag .mobi files into its Documents directory and they show up in the Kindle app.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:03:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20498"
},
"3": {
"text": "3. You can use Dropbox. It will report it can't open the files but if you look in the upper right corner of the screen there's a way to send them to a bunch of apps, for .mobi files this includes the Kindle app.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:03:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20499"
},
"4": {
"text": "There may be other methods, if you know of them, please add a comment below.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:04:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20500"
}
}
},
"23": {
"text": "One great thing about the demise of Google Reader",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:05:51 GMT",
"name": "oneGreatThingAboutTheDemiseOfGoogleReader",
"pgfnum": "20487",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/15/wickedWitch.gif\")
For a long time I wouldn't create a feed that couldn't be read by Google Reader. That was after an awkward period, when Google Reader started up, that it couldn't do a good job of reading Scripting News's feed.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:06:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20488"
},
"1": {
"text": "Think about that for a minute. Scripting News was the first feed. The specs were all written in such a way that Scripting News worked. It would be impossible, unthinkable that somehow the first feed could not be read by a reader from Google. But that's the way it worked. From day one, Google came in with the attitude of The Boss Man. We run this show. I always thought well fuck that shit. What's the point of creating something new if a big asshole company can come along and break you. On day one. Not even a Hello World from a Humble Newbie. Nahh. We're Google. You're nothin.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:06:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20490"
},
"2": {
"text": "Eventually I caved, and got rid of the features that Google couldn't handle.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:08:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20491"
},
"3": {
"text": "So here's the good thing -- I can put things into my feeds that Google Reader doesn't like.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:08:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20492"
},
"4": {
"text": "Not that I haven't already been doing that for a couple of years. ;-)",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:09:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20493"
}
}
},
"24": {
"text": "Waking up to the world around you",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:22:00 GMT",
"name": "wakingUpToTheWorldAroundYou",
"pgfnum": "20430",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It's always controversial to say that big tech companies make money by controlling the flows to and from users and charging others for access. But that is at least one of the businesses Silicon Valley is in. And it's definitely the business Google is in, so if you want to understand why they might do something to restrict or try to control the flow of RSS, that's probably part of the story, at least. (I'm bending over backwards to be conservative here.)",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:22:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20431"
},
"1": {
"text": "The thing to fear is that Google intends to control the news people can subscribe to, the same way Apple controls what apps you can buy for the iPad. And the way Twitter decides what clients can have access to our tweets.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:24:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20432",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "They've got a pretty nice interface for it, btw -- the magical Google Now. It knows what information you're likely to want to see, and shows it to you. It's really good.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:29:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20436",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "An example of how good/creepy it is. My friend Jen was coming to visit from SLC. Google Now told me her plane was 24 minutes from arriving at the gate at JFK. I had never told them what flight she was on. I didn't know what flight she was on. But they did. Probably because she uses Gmail or their calendar, and somehow connected me to that trip (or did they just guess!) and thought I might be impressed if they told me about her flight. I was!",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:32:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20439"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "But it's creepy, in two ways. One way most people see (it's snooping on what you do to figure out what you want to see). The second way: it's also deciding what you don't see.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:32:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20438"
},
"2": {
"text": "Centralizing this decision-making, for now, is the only way that works. But we're giving something up here.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:32:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20437"
},
"3": {
"text": "I love that the content of my river is not determined by any tech company. Do I think it will stay that way? It's possible that it might not. Even though I'm not running any Google software to manage it. (I run the aggregator on a Rackspace server, and the content is served from an Amazon S3 bucket.)",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:36:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20440"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "We broke free for a bit there with unrestricted flow from blogs and news orgs via RSS. There are people who would like to put the genie back in the bottle. They're not going to run press releases saying that. This is one of those cases where the reporters have to investigate to get the news.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:24:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20433"
},
"3": {
"text": "News people -- if your plan for the future includes free flow of news from journalists to readers, now's the time to take a look.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:26:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20435"
}
}
},
"25": {
"text": "If you're doing a new RSS reader...",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:38:08 GMT",
"name": "theIdealRssReader",
"pgfnum": "20430",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/14/computerLib.gif\")
Since I'm working on other kinds of software right now, and the RSS world is more fluid than it's been in a long time, it seems it might be a good time to share some things I learned in the first go-around.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:38:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20431"
},
"1": {
"text": "The main thing we learned is that subscription needs to be centralized to make the process as simple as possible for the user. That's one of the main reasons Twitter was such an effective competitor. The central server keeps an OPML file for each user. Each site with a feed links to that site with the URL of its feed as a parameter. When the user clicks a Subscribe link, a dialog appears confirming that you want to subscribe. If you say OK that's it, nothing more to do. The user never sees a URL. No browser has to cooperate (not that they would).",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:39:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20432"
},
"2": {
"text": "OPML should be a file type you can subscribe to. That makes it possible for the user to connect their account on the central subscription server to your aggregator. Also, this feature opens the possibility of a sort of super-curator, someone who manages a collections of feeds that people can subscribe to in a unit.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:51:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20436"
},
"3": {
"text": "Also in the argument betw mailbox and river type readers, why not do both? The same data can be viewed either way. Some times you may just have a few minutes to quickly skim the news, and other times you may be able to read feeds individually at a slower pace. I did something like this in the LBBS software in the early 80s. There was a river, and a hierarchic view. You could switch instantly between the two views, and stay on the same item. The same approach would work well for RSS (though I've never seen it done, if I were doing a new reader, I'd definitely give it a try).",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:40:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20433"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/14/rss.gif\")
Also a feed should have a way to tell readers \"I'm done\" -- no more updates, stop reading me. That would make it possible to do more things with RSS. I don't want to subscribe to a special feed about a specific event, knowing I'll have to remember to unsub. Better to let the feed tell the reader. This feature is documented in my microblog namespace and it's supported in my Radio2 linkblogging tool.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:42:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20434"
},
"5": {
"text": "There are lots of other ideas like this. I'll write them up as I remember them.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:43:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20435"
}
}
},
"26": {
"text": "Do you love outliners?",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:00:49 GMT",
"name": "doYouLoveOutliners",
"pgfnum": "20398",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/14/lisa.gif\")
I first started using an outliner in the late 1970s, on Unix. It was character-based, on a scrolling display. You'd type commands like 1,$p to show all the lines at the current level. You could view the subs of any headline, by typing the number next to it, and pressing Return. The basic operations were \"dive\" and \"surface.\" Moving things around was a little more difficult, but it was the best you could do with the computers of the day.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:00:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20399"
},
"1": {
"text": "The tools advanced through the years. Influenced by Visicalc, then Lotus 1-2-3. That's when the outliner got a \"bar cursor\" which points to a structure, much like Visicalc's cursor points to a spreadsheet cell. You moved the cursor around with the arrow keys, and expanded by pressing < and collapsed by pressing >. These keys were chosen as mnemonics, they looked symbolically like the operations they were performing.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:02:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20400"
},
"2": {
"text": "Pretty soon after that we got the mouse, so you could double-click to expand and collapse and also drag things from one place to another. This made stuff flow better. That's a key idea -- outlines are about flow, they make text fluid (i.e. able to flow).",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:04:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20401"
},
"3": {
"text": "Then came graphics, and with that bullet charts and tree charts. All of a sudden there was a production application for outliners, they could be made to do things more efficiently on a computer than could be done with ink, paper and scissors. The business exploded.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:05:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20402"
},
"4": {
"text": "All along, I have been writing code and prose with the outliner. These days I use it to narrate my work and to coordinate with the people I work with. It's an amazingly flexible swiss-army-knife-like super-adaptable tool.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:06:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20403"
},
"5": {
"text": "I've been doing a lot more with outliners in the last few months, in a project I've been working on with a new programming partner, Kyle Shank, at a new company we founded late last year, Small Picture. It has both a server side and a client side. Next week we will show the first bits of the client software. I think it will surprise people what it can do and how it does it. But this wouldn't be a good tease if I told you more about what it is. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:07:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20404"
},
"6": {
"text": "In the meantime, if you have stories to tell about how you love outlining, please consider posting them. I love outliners, but I love outliner users even more. They're such bright people and so incredibly powerful and creative. Software that enables powerful people.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:08:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20405"
},
"7": {
"text": "So much more to say and I hope to say it all.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:14:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20407"
}
}
},
"27": {
"text": "Google Reader's demise, part 2",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:00:11 GMT",
"name": "yourOutlinerStory",
"pgfnum": "20387",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/14/hope.gif\")
Last night we said goodbye to Google Reader, and that got a lot of traffic and a fair amount of hate, from people who love Google Reader and probably don't like to hear from someone who uses RSS who won't miss it (i.e. me).",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:00:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20388"
},
"1": {
"text": "I wanted to say that it's possible to use RSS without being dependent on Google Reader. And since GR is going away, that should probably be seen as good news, not bad.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:05:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20389"
},
"2": {
"text": "But it's not my problem. I'm not in the RSS Reader business any longer, and have no interest in returning to it.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:05:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20390"
},
"3": {
"text": "I don't doubt that people will be well-served by a newly revitalized market for RSS products, now that the dominant product, the 800-pound gorilla, is withdrawing.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:05:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20391"
}
}
},
"28": {
"text": "Goodbye Google Reader",
"created": "Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:36:35 GMT",
"fldisquscomments": "false",
"name": "goodbyeGoogleReader",
"pgfnum": "20378",
"type": "blogpost",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I won't miss it. Never used the damn thing. Didn't trust the idea of a big company like Google's interests being so aligned with mine that I could trust them to get all my news.",
"created": "Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:36:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20379"
},
"1": {
"text": "And besides, I didn't think the mailbox approach to news was right. Who cares how many unread items there are. I like the river of news approach and I have a very fine set of rivers that keep me well supplied with news and podcasts. Have a look.",
"created": "Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:41:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20383"
},
"2": {
"text": "http://tabs.mediahackers.org/?panel=dave",
"created": "Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:37:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20380"
},
"3": {
"text": "July 1 isn't that far away, but there's time to get it together. Next time, please pay a fair price for the services you depend on. Those have a better chance of surviving the bubbles.",
"created": "Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:37:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20381"
},
"4": {
"text": "PS: This message attracted comments some pretty sick comments, so I deleted the whole thread.",
"created": "Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:20:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20386"
}
}
},
"29": {
"text": "Charles Pierce is wrong about Ezra Klein being wrong",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:16:21 GMT",
"name": "charlesPierceIsWrongAboutEzraKleinBeingWrong",
"pgfnum": "20217",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/12/hope.gif\")
I'm a big fan of both Pierce and Klein. I love Pierce's irreverent writing style, and his political opinions match up pretty well with mine. I learn stuff by reading his columns in Esquire. Same with Klein. He's intelligent, and asks good questions, and backs up his thinking with information. It's sad that his way of working is so rare among political analysts these days.",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:50:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20218"
},
"1": {
"text": "But guys like Pierce (who criticizes Klein in his recent piece, more about that in a minute) only read other news people. The chances of either of them reading what I write are pretty close to nil, so the chances of them passing along a good idea that I might have are therefore also nil. This is embarassing, because the epiphany of Klein's that Pierce mocks happens to be one that I have been writing about for almost 20 years, over and over. Think of all the time everyone could have saved if they deigned to pay attention to people who don't do what they do. It's tragic that it took a smart guy like Klein so long to understand such a basic structural truth about how news, his own profession, has been working for the last 15 years. Gives you some idea about the power of the blinders this community puts on.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:51:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20219",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Upton Sinclair: \"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.\"",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:35:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20229"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "Now, in the past, any idea that didn't penetrate the haze of guys like Klein and Pierce would have very little chance of being heard by people like myself who might be interested. However, because we live in the times of the Internet and what Klein calls The Revenge of the Sources, I can go ahead and be heard without them listening. I call this Sources Go Direct, which means the same thing, but in a more positive less journalist-centered view. It's not revenge, it's more pragmatic. The old system didn't work. So we use the new one instead.",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:53:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20220"
},
"3": {
"text": "If you look at the mechanics of how a news story is created and flows, there are sources, a reporter, an editor or two, a production and design group, a printing press or web site, a delivery system and finally readers. In the past I have been a source, and I still am, because reporters can and sometimes do quote my blog. I wish they would do it more. I am also an avid reader. I am not, and never have been, and don't want to be, a reporter or an editor or any of the other things. I do write publishing systems, and have created some of the software that these guys probably use.",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:55:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20221"
},
"4": {
"text": "Pierce incorrectly thinks that every act of journalism is done by reporters. Look at the list of people in the paragraph above. There are lots of other roles. The sources aren't covering a fatal crash on Sunday night on Route 128 (his example). Instead they're writing, on their blogs, about the things they know about. Perhaps they were involved in the crash. Perhaps they witnessed it.",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:56:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20222"
},
"5": {
"text": "In software, lots of stuff gets created that isn't on the radar of people like Pierce or Klein. They have very limited focus. They look to big rich companies with lots of employees for technology innovation. Makes sense, because they're employees of big rich companies. Of course that's what they understand. But if you look at the history of software (and very few people do) you'll notice that the big ideas almost never come from those places. If you understand the process of software, you'd understand why that's so.",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:58:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20223"
},
"6": {
"text": "So while I admire both Klein and Pierce for their work as news people, boy would it be great if they looked outside their close-knit little community. Klein is a pioneer in his field for noticing Sources Go Direct first among his peers. But the idea was available to him long ago. And Pierce, a very flexible thinker when it comes to politics, has no flexibility in thinking about media, no ability to see things from other peoples' point of view, as demonstrated by his piece about Klein. And that's so important, and has been important for a very long time.",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:00:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20224"
},
"7": {
"text": "I've met Pierce's attitude many times, from all kinds of ink-stained pros, some very accomplished. The arrogance is impressive, but they're still wrong. I don't care how many Pulitzers you have. The news process has been reorganizing for quite some time. You may not choose to see it, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:08:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20225"
},
"8": {
"text": "PS: Do I think either of them will read this piece? Nah. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:33:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20228"
}
}
},
"30": {
"text": "What comes after Facebook?",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:11:25 GMT",
"name": "whatComesAfterFacebook",
"pgfnum": "20054",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It's pretty obvious what comes next, via extrapolation -- from past turns of the wheel in software.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:11:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20055"
},
"1": {
"text": "What comes next is an easy way for the generation of people who grew up on Facebook to create their own social networks, accessible only by the people they want to share it with.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:11:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20056"
},
"2": {
"text": "A somewhat easier to use version of what AWS is today will be the platform.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:14:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20059"
},
"3": {
"text": "And Harvard dropouts of the day will create AMIs their friends will configure cleverly.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:14:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20060"
},
"4": {
"text": "The art in this new way of doing things will be clever twists on \"share.\"",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:12:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20057"
}
}
},
"31": {
"text": "A business model for movie theaters",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:50:36 GMT",
"name": "aBusinessModelForMovieTheaters",
"pgfnum": "20047",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/09/heavenWaitBig.gif\")
I'd like to have a film festival for my friends.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:50:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20048"
},
"1": {
"text": "So I'll give you a list of 20 movies, Mr Movie Theater Owner, and one night every other week, you'll play one of them, and I'll guarantee a certain number of tickets sold. Above that, we'll split the revenue.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:50:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20049"
},
"2": {
"text": "That way we get to watch old movies in a theater setting, with popcorn and restrooms, and then we can all go out to dinner after and talk about the movies and why we like them so much. Maybe we could even get one of the actors or the director to join us.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:51:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20050"
},
"3": {
"text": "Movie theaters should be hubs for social activity. Watching a movie at home or on a laptop or a tablet isn't the same as watching it in a theater. And most of the great movies aren't showing in theaters now.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 21:52:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20051"
}
}
},
"32": {
"text": "Medium shows more",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:01:13 GMT",
"name": "mediumShowsMore",
"pgfnum": "20012",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I watched the Evan Williams interview with Jason Calacanis at the Launchfest conference in SF, and that gave me a better idea of what he's thinking about with his new company, Medium. The next day we learned that Evan Hansen is now working for Medium. Evan was the longtime editor of wired.com. Highly respected guy.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:01:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20013"
},
"1": {
"text": "What is Medium doing? My guess -- if you were to draw a line and at one end put blogging tools and at the other put BuzzFeed, SB Nation and Huffington, that Medium is on that line, and closer to the right than the left.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:03:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20014",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/08/diagram.gif\")
",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:03:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20015"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "Medium's strength appears to be the elegance and HTML 5-ness of its editorial tools. It feels nice using their editor. Like the content networks, being able to create content there is invite-only. But I'm assuming at some point it will be open to everyone, the way Tumblr or WordPress are.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:03:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20016"
},
"3": {
"text": "An advantage Medium is likely to have is a connection to Twitter, which doesn't have a blogging system, and has recently had success with Vine. Twitter giving Medium a boost is good business, for the owners of both companies. ;-)",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:06:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20017"
},
"4": {
"text": "I'm very interested in where all this is going, keeping an ear out and listening.",
"created": "Sat, 09 Mar 2013 01:09:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "20019"
}
}
},
"33": {
"text": "What I learned from jury duty",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:17:50 GMT",
"name": "whatILearnedFromJuryDuty",
"pgfnum": "19920",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/08/trex.gif\")
I got called for jury duty this week, Wednesday and Thursday. In NYC, you go for two days, and sit and wait for a trial. Then they herd 75 citizens of New York County into a courtroom and winnow us until there are 14 left -- 12 jurors and two alternates, and the rest go back into the pool. If you make it through two days without being selected, you go home and resume your life. Otherwise you're a juror. But the education process begins the minute you sit down in the waiting room.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:18:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19921"
},
"1": {
"text": "This time I made it as far as a courtroom, but I wasn't chosen as one of the initial group of 24 to be interviewed, but I was required to stay, to wait for the selection to be final. I got to relax while watching my fellow citizens go through the process, where each of the sides, prosecution first, then defense, asks questions to see if you'd be a good juror.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:20:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19922"
},
"2": {
"text": "It was an eye-opener. The judge had explained a few of important points: 1. The defendent, accused of burglary, is innocent until proven guilty. 2. The standard of proof is high. You had to be certain the person had done what he was accused of, beyond a reasonable doubt. Otherwise -- innocent. 3. The burden of proof is on the state. The defendent can remain silent, and you can't use that fact in coming up with a decision.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:22:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19923"
},
"3": {
"text": "Some jurors didn't seem to understand any of this. They would agree with all ideas when the judge explained it, but when asked a question: \"If you think there's a decent chance the person committed the crime, what would your verdict be?\" Many of them said something like this: \"Well, it would depend on the evidence.\" You could see the frustration with the lawyers in the room. It's as if you were teaching someone how to enter a command on a computer. \"First you type some characters then you press the Return key.\" They would say they understand, but still not be able to enter a command.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:24:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19924"
},
"4": {
"text": "What would you think if the accused did not speak in his own defense, would that make you think he's guilty? Yes, some said.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:05:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19967"
},
"5": {
"text": "In the end they had to go with jurors who were pretty hazy on the decision-making process, what the rights of the accused are, and how jurors are supposed to think about the crime and the evidence and testimony. I was reminded that it was like this on the jury I served on. Some people just didn't get that there were rules to innocence and guilt. That it isn't like a family, where you live in a fog of who-did-what-to-whom-when, that in the end we will make a decision, and based on that, this person will go free, or go to jail.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:01:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19966"
},
"6": {
"text": "Jury duty is all about teaching us what it means to be a juror. There's a lot to learn, and the education system or television or our parents, or whatever, didn't do a very good job.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:58:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19964"
}
}
},
"34": {
"text": "HTML 5 localStorage demo",
"created": "Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:50:19 GMT",
"name": "html5LocalstorageDemo",
"pgfnum": "19894",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "One of the neatest features in HTML 5 is localStorage.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:50:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19895"
},
"1": {
"text": "It lets an app store as much as 5MB of data on the local machine.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:50:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19896"
},
"2": {
"text": "I wanted to understand how it works so I wrote a demo.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:51:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19897"
},
"3": {
"text": "http://scripting.com/misc/localStorageDemo.html",
"created": "Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:51:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19898"
},
"4": {
"text": "View source if you want to see how it works.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:51:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19900"
},
"5": {
"text": "Hope you find it useful. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 07 Mar 2013 23:51:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19899"
}
}
},
"35": {
"text": "My first github repo",
"created": "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:38:53 GMT",
"name": "myFirstGithubRepo",
"pgfnum": "19838",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I've been working almost exclusively in JavaScript for the last few months.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:39:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19839"
},
"1": {
"text": "It's been a very uplifting and interesting experience. HTML 5 running in the browser with JS is an incredible platform, with lots of unexplored potential, and very few limits. I haven't been this excited about a platform in a long time. And have been having a blast programming it.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:39:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19840"
},
"2": {
"text": "A lot of new stuff will be showing up in the coming months. Along the way you're probably going to think I'm teasing, and you'll be right, but there's no way to release as much stuff as we are going to, without doing it in stages, learning as we go, and letting that influence the next steps.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:40:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19841"
},
"3": {
"text": "Anyway, here's a beginning.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:42:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19842"
},
"4": {
"text": "https://github.com/scripting/utils.js",
"created": "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:42:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19843"
},
"5": {
"text": "It's a small number of date and string functions in JS patterned after Frontier verbs.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:42:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19844"
}
}
},
"36": {
"text": "Have you met your users?",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:33:13 GMT",
"name": "haveYouEverMetAUser",
"pgfnum": "19809",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Last summer I went back to Madison, and part of the trip was a tour of the Computer Science building, where I had been a graduate student many years ago. The building had changed in many ways, and in others, not at all.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:33:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19810"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. The outside was exactly the same.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:34:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19811"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. The mainframes were gone, replaced by labs of personal computers.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:34:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19812"
},
"3": {
"text": "3. The basement was divided up in a totally different way than it was before. The two rooms I spent most of my time in were gone.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:34:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19813"
},
"4": {
"text": "4. And most important, the most exciting idea -- there's now a computer store in the front of the building.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:35:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19814"
},
"5": {
"text": "I was excited because I assumed that this meant that computer science students were actually meeting users, and learning how they think. But no, they staff the store with employees, just like any other store. My guide looked at me with what I imagined was puzzlement. Why would they want their students to work with users.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:35:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19815"
},
"6": {
"text": "Me, I'm always thinking about users, what I can and can't get them to do. What I can get away with, and how can I make them tell other people about my software, and even better, get them to get others to use it. ;-)",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:36:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19816"
},
"7": {
"text": "There are frustrations, both ways. But if you see software development as a performing art, as I do, inevitably you're going to be judged by them. They will determine your success or failure.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:37:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19817"
},
"8": {
"text": "And over the years, I've found this is the hardest point to make to the developers I work with.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:38:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19818"
}
}
},
"37": {
"text": "Why Windows lost to Mac",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:30:40 GMT",
"name": "whyWindowsLostToMac",
"pgfnum": "19729",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "First, understand that this is a blog post, a highly prejudiced thing, completely determined by one self-important person's experiences.",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:30:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19730"
},
"1": {
"text": "I'm a hypocrite too. :-)",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:31:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19731"
},
"2": {
"text": "Anyway, I lived through this.",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:31:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19732"
},
"3": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/03/04/whiteMacLaptop.gif\")
I was a Windows user in 2005, when I had to get a Mac because I was supporting people who used my OPML Editor app on the Mac, as well as Windows. It didn't seem right that I couldn't see what the updates looked like on the Mac, even if it was open source software, and not generating any money for me. So I bought a $1000 white plastic laptop in the Apple store in Toronto. It was the first time I had been in an Apple store.",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:31:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19733"
},
"4": {
"text": "It's a long story why I was so uninterested in using Apple products at the time. I had been an early Mac developer, shipping a product in 1984, and continuing to develop through the mid-90s. But when my product, Frontier, became available on Windows in 1998, I switched to Windows. Windows machines performed much better than the Macs of the day, and Apple had a new strategy every four months. I was very happy to get onto the safe ground that Windows offered.",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:33:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19734"
},
"5": {
"text": "Back to 2005, the first thing I noticed about the white Mac laptop, that aside from being a really nice computer, there was no malware. In 2005, Windows was a horror. Once a virus got on your machine, that was pretty much it. And Microsoft wasn't doing much to stop the infestation. For a long time they didn't even see it as their problem. In retrospect, it was the computer equivalent of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl.",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:34:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19735"
},
"6": {
"text": "Anyway, that's why when I read Gruber's and Arrington's discussion about why the Mac won, I was once again amazed about what a fog we all live in, and how little grasp there is of other people's experiences. I don't doubt that for these guys malware didn't make a big difference. Maybe I was the outlier, maybe not many other people thought it would be nice to take a vacation from fighting the viruses. And then the vaction became permanent. (As it did for me. I dabbled in PCs after getting the white laptop. But I bought basically every bit of hardware Apple has offered since then. And I made most of my friends do so too.)",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:36:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19736"
},
"7": {
"text": "We don't do well at sharing experiences on the net about these subjects. The flamers pretty much control discourse, or have in the past. I think that's one reason our grasp of history is so hazy. A lot like the great movie, Fog of War. See it if you want to understand more about the tech industry.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:38:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19737",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
}
}
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "February",
"name": "february",
"type": "include",
"url": "http://static.scripting.com/orlando/world/dave/2013/03/08/archive027.opml",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Don't slog away at the end of the day",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:38:25 GMT",
"name": "dontSlogAwayAtTheEndOfTheDay",
"pgfnum": "19324",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/28/mrNatural.gif\")
Here's one of the fundamental rules of programming.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:38:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19325"
},
"1": {
"text": "You're at the end of your day, you've gotten a lot of stuff done, and you have one more thing to get right before the feature is complete, and you're searching for the answer, trying all kinds of ideas, thoroughly confused, not wanting to get up until it's done, just slogging away and not getting it. Finally, you give up after a couple of hours of spinning your wheels, eat some dinner, watch a little basketball, have a glass of wine, read a little and crash for the night.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:38:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19326"
},
"2": {
"text": "Get up the next morning, make some coffee, read the news, roll up your sleeves and start over with the problem.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:40:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19327"
},
"3": {
"text": "Five minutes later it's done.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:40:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19328"
},
"4": {
"text": "Happens every damned time.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:40:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19329"
},
"5": {
"text": "The problem isn't intractable. It's just as difficult as all the other problems you solved the previous day. It just came after your mind shut down. So you might as well quit work a couple of hours earlier.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:41:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19330"
},
"6": {
"text": "Programming isn't like digging trenches. The amount of work you get done is not directly proportional to the amount of time you work. Also believe it or not your mind is solving problems while you sleep. That's why the answer is apparent first thing in the morning. Even after 30 years of programming, I'm still learning this lesson.",
"created": "Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:42:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19331"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "Why you should learn to code",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:29:56 GMT",
"name": "whyYouShouldLearnToCode",
"pgfnum": "19186",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I actually do think people should learn to code, at least a little -- just as you learn a little chemistry, biology and math in school. Learning how to program is imho easier than those things, but then I have a natural ability to program, so what do I know. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:30:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19187"
},
"1": {
"text": "But I don't like the way people at code.org are pitching it. And I don't like who is doing the pitching, and who isn't. Out of the 83 people they quote, I doubt if many of them have written code recently, and most of them have never done it, and have no idea what they're talking about.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:31:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19188"
},
"2": {
"text": "If I were encouraging young people to learn to play basketball, at least I would have had the experience of playing a little myself when I was younger, and having watched a lot of it recently. I'm in awe of basketball players. How fast they charge at the basket with such reckless abandon for their own safety. They fall on hard wood at high speeed. That must hurt! But they get right up and play as if nothing happened. But there are plenty of basketball players to talk about basketball. So why aren't there very many programmers who can talk about coding? If I were a young person looking at this, I'd wonder what was up with that. They're telling me what a wonderful career it is. Where are the people who do it, and what do they have to say?",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:32:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19190"
},
"3": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/27/clyde.gif\")
Which brings me to the second problem I have with the way they pitch it.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:33:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19191"
},
"4": {
"text": "Suppose I said you should learn to play basketball because you can make a lot of money doing it. I wonder how Chris Bosh would feel about that. Or if I said you should learn to create music for the same reason? I bet will.i.am would have a problem with that. You don't learn an art to make money -- you learn it because it's fun and satisfying. Because it's what you were meant to do. You do it because you like it so much that it's what you want to do every day of your life. Because you want to get really good at it. To perfect your art, and achieve a greater goal. Imagine telling young people they should learn to do something because \"To compete in a global market, our students need high quality STEM education including computer science skills such as coding.\" Okay. I'd run away from that as fast as I can.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:33:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19192",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I like what Bill Gates said: \"Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.\" It's very true, and a good argument for students in all disciplines learning at least a little programming.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:11:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19207"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "These people don't themselves know how to do what they want you to do. So what they say makes no sense. It won't make you rich, but it will make them rich. And if you do it, they won't listen to you. And even worse, if you do what they want you to do, you'll be tossed out on the street without any way to earn a living when you turn 35 or 40. Even though you're still a perfectly good programmer.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:46:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19204"
},
"6": {
"text": "It's a shitty system, and it needs to be fixed. And we have to get these spokespeople who don't know anytihng about what we do to stop speaking for us. To get out of the way. What we need to do, as programmers, is start helping young people become really good at what we do, so they can do it even if there are a lot of carpetbaggers trying to redefine it. (What's a carpetbagger? You should study a little history too!)",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:36:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19195"
},
"7": {
"text": "To be clear, you should learn to code if:",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:37:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19196"
},
"8": {
"text": "1. You love writing and debugging and refining and documenting and supporting code.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:37:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19198"
},
"9": {
"text": "2. You love to see the working result of your labors.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:37:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19197"
},
"10": {
"text": "3. It excites you to empower other people (your users and other developers).",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:45:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19210"
},
"11": {
"text": "4. You have modest financial needs.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:37:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19199"
},
"12": {
"text": "5. Don't mind spending a lot of time working by yourself.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:37:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19200"
},
"13": {
"text": "6. Don't mind being misunderstood.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:37:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19201"
},
"14": {
"text": "Primarily you should do it because you love it, because it's fun -- because it's wonderful to create machines with your mind. Hugely empowering. Emotionally gratifying. Software is math-in-motion. It's a miracle of the mind. And if you can do it, really well, there's absolutely nothing like it.",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:38:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19202"
},
"15": {
"text": "I wrote a piece about programmers in 1997. \"Successful programmers know how to ask questions, and they know how to ask the right question. You can't go forward until that happens. A programmer is a rigorous scientist determined to coax the truth out of the ones and zeros. There's the beauty.\"",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:14:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19209"
},
"16": {
"text": "BTW, I also think every student should learn to be a journalist and a lawyer and an accountant too. That way you'll be able to blog with authority. And will know when you're getting screwed. And keep your taxes down like rich people do. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:39:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19203"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "Good software design is ageless",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:49:00 GMT",
"name": "goodSoftwareDesignIsAgeless",
"pgfnum": "19108",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A comment from Michael Markman: \"I'm an older dog than Dave Winer -- by about a decade. And I've managed to learn this new trick: move one finger, the pointer moves. Use two fingers and the window scrolls.\"",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:13:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19113"
},
"1": {
"text": "Necessary recital: I'm 57 and have been developing software since I was 18.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:09:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19109"
},
"2": {
"text": "He's wrong. I would have been just as upset about the feature-removal at 25 as I am today. It has nothing to do with age. And as a software designer, something that I've been doing for a long time and know quite well, I can tell you why it's bad to remove features. I learned it the hard way, by doing it.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:16:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19115"
},
"3": {
"text": "I once shipped a product for the Apple II and IBM PC. When we made the Mac version we started a new codebase, largely because of the new way of doing UI. We wanted to ship before we had all the features ported and debugged, so we did. The users saw this as taking features out of the product, even though technically that isn't what we did. They were angry about the removal. I bet a lot of them were my age at the time (28), that is, younger than Michael and myself. And they were right to be upset. We called both products ThinkTank. They expected when they opened the box (software shipped in boxes back then) they would get the same thing, but translated to the Macintosh. They didn't. So they concluded that we had removed features.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:10:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19111"
},
"4": {
"text": "Key lesson: Users don't see things from the same perspective as we do.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:13:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19112"
},
"5": {
"text": "And users build up processes that designers know nothing about. They work around the limits of our software by using other features to emulate the ones they wish were there. When we play with the mix of features, we break them. Why would you want to do that to someone who was smart enough to buy your product, and might buy an upgrade someday. Don't you want your users to be successful? Isn't that why you're making software. All these are reasons why anyone, not just Apple, should strive for continutity for users. I suppose there are times when you have to break users. But to break them for aesthetic reasons, when it's totally optional, that's a sign of bad things to come. A company that has decided willfully not to value their users.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:18:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19116"
},
"6": {
"text": "I'm reminded of this many times every day, as I work around the missing scroll-arrows feature. I remember it used to be there. A sin that's hard to forgive. And it's an important one to observe, because more and more the designers at big tech companies are, for some reason impossible for me to understand, sabotaging their own products by removing features that users depend on. It's becoming more commonplace. And it's a trend that will make users seek out stability as a desired feature.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:33:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19119"
},
"7": {
"text": "People do switch for stability, btw. I switched from Windows to Mac, at considerable expense, because at the time Windows was infected with malware and the platform vendor wasn't fixing the product. I could switch again, if the Mac becomes too unstable and another platform appears to be rocking less.",
"created": "Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:35:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19120"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "The Sequester",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:10:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19070",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "We're in constant Congress-induced crisis mode in the US.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:10:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19071"
},
"1": {
"text": "It's gotten so routine, I don't even pay attention anymore. I suspect a lot of other people do the same.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:11:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19072"
},
"2": {
"text": "I kind of hope the Republicans don't back down, and let the sequester happen, and then the voters may finally see the connection between what they do and what the Congress does. I think our Red State fellow citizens have been using their vote for entertainment purposes. To watch the assholes they elect stick it to the rich and sophisticated \"elites\" in the big east coast and west coast states. But when the cuts hit their communities just as hard as they hit ours, they may think again. I hope they do.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:11:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19073"
},
"3": {
"text": "We need to run this country a little more like a business. We have to think these things through. We want Medicare and Social Security, and we don't mind paying for them, but somehow we want them cut at the same time? Hello. That's no way to run an economy.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:12:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19074"
},
"4": {
"text": "Whatever. I'm beginning to think maybe the cynics are right and this is all just sleight-of-hand, to keep us distracted while the real action is somewhere else. Yeah, that's probably it.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:13:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19075"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Watching Marco's Magazine",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:04:00 GMT",
"name": "watchingTheMagazine",
"pgfnum": "19061",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I've been watching Marco Arment's publishing venture, called The Magazine, with interest and a little puzzlement. It looks like a high wall around writing, the kind of wall that was natural before publishing got cheap, first with laser printing and page layout software, then with the web and blogging.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:04:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19062"
},
"1": {
"text": "When I started blogging, with DaveNet, in 1994 -- people in the tech industry who read it thought for sure it was just a demo, and eventually I would charge a fee. Something like the $495 per year that Esther Dyson and Stewart Alsop charged for their tech industry newsletters. I told everyone that I would never do that, but they still seemed to believe I would eventually charge.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:05:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19063"
},
"2": {
"text": "But I didn't and I never would for this simple reason. I was having so much influence with the free and openly published email/web essays that it made no sense to limit the flow. I also never thought of my writing as my bread and butter, so in fairness, I could afford to give it away because it was a by-product of my real work, not the work itself, which was writing software.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:06:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19064"
},
"3": {
"text": "So maybe I wasn't so smart, just had my center in a different place. Whatever, I was sure I wouldn't charge, and in the 19 years since, I never have.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:07:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19065"
},
"4": {
"text": "Now Marco has changed his policy, and the articles appear on the web in addition to being in his iOS-based magazine app. It's a complex scheme that allows readers to point to articles to share them on the web. But you can only read one article for free per month. I don't see why this is a major difference from having an absolute and impenetrable paywall. One time, when I click on a link, I get to read the article. Every other time, I'll get an ad to buy a subscription, I guess. As a linker, I wouldn't like to send my readers to ads for a publication. I might read an article and think it essential for everyone to read, but wouldn't share it.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:08:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19066"
},
"5": {
"text": "I am the kind of person who, when I read an article, if I make it all the way to the end, I'm pretty likely to forward it to all my followers. I have this systematized, with software that makes it super-easy. I also will forward a link to articles that I want to remember to read. I figure if it's important enough for me to want to read later, then it's important enough for the people who follow me to get that link so they can read it too. My linkflow is a sort of memory system. I use it the way some people use Marco's Instapaper, or Readability, or the way they used to use del.icio.us, or any of a dozen other tools that remember links to look at later.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:09:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19067"
},
"6": {
"text": "But because sharing links is such a central part of my reading process, I almost never read articles that can't be shared. It means I've never read an article that's published in Marco's Magazine. It's not out of principle. Maybe he's right. If so, eventually I may have to give in. I don't subscribe to the WSJ or the NYT either, although I have at times been tempted to go for the NYT plan. If it were simpler and if I believed I could easily unsub I probably would.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:11:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19068"
},
"7": {
"text": "Anyway, I'm still watching. I suspect he will find equilibrium with full sharing on the web. The pull is just too great. I bet that most good writers want to influence with their writing more than they want to be paid for it. Everyone likes a small paycheck, but if it interferes with the purpose of writing, that creates a conundrum. I think that long-term the desire to influence will win-out.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:13:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19069"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "Young folk and greatness",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:44:40 GMT",
"name": "youngFolkAndGreatness",
"pgfnum": "19056",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I was once a very young man with some talent, and luck and perhaps intuition that led me to a place where, at 25, I had arrived somewhere that few people did. Everywhere I went people reminded me what a miracle I was. But there were other people my own age who were even more miraculous, richer and more accomplished. This brewed a soup of emotions that were pretty intense -- pride, arrogance mixed with jealousy and anger.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:44:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19057"
},
"1": {
"text": "We were all difficult to be around, maybe I was more difficult than most. But because I could make \"magic\" happen with the computer, this was somewhat tolerated. It wasn't until I was in my mid-40s that things began to settle down. I realized that while my life might have been different from most people, more elevated in some ways -- I was actually a pretty ordinary person. I learned that the more I could make my actual life normal, the closer to happy I would become.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:55:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19060"
},
"2": {
"text": "I'm still able to work the stuff that people who don't know call magic, but I realize now as I did then, that it isn't magic at all. There's a process to creativity. All you have to go by when you're younger is intuition, and the feedback of others who say your talent is without precedent, unless you have coaches who help give you a sense of perspective, who give you a safe harbor to create within, and while giving you positive feedback when your work is excellent, keep reminding you to seek balance. Enjoy your youth, in a physical way. Enjoy the simple everyday pleasures of living. Do not believe the accolades. Strive to do better, and keep your eye on the long arc of life, not just the here-and-now.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:48:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19058"
},
"3": {
"text": "We, as a society, make a big mistake when we pump the egos of our young talented people. Love everyone, not just the rich. Don't believe that people are prodigies, they aren't. When people create something you like, tell them! But don't think they're gods.",
"created": "Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:51:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19059"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "Era of the big man is over",
"created": "Sun, 24 Feb 2013 18:57:58 GMT",
"name": "eraOfTheBigManIsOver",
"pgfnum": "19033",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "This is a basketball story, but not really.",
"created": "Sun, 24 Feb 2013 18:58:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19034"
},
"1": {
"text": "There was a time when bigger was better. If you worked at the biggest company you were smarter, more powerful, better looking, knew what was happening.",
"created": "Sun, 24 Feb 2013 18:58:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19035"
},
"2": {
"text": "You could see over our heads.",
"created": "Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:01:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19039"
},
"3": {
"text": "But that was then. Now it's about being fast of feet and mind. Thinking not just where the puck is going but how to replace the puck with something better.",
"created": "Sun, 24 Feb 2013 18:59:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19036"
},
"4": {
"text": "That's why the Lakers are the past and the Rockets are the future.",
"created": "Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:00:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19037"
},
"5": {
"text": "Think small picture, not big.",
"created": "Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:00:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19038"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "Apple arguing with iTself on my iMac",
"created": "Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:35:23 GMT",
"name": "appleTesting",
"pgfnum": "19047",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I just plugged my iPad into my iMac and launched iTunes.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:35:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19048"
},
"1": {
"text": "A dialog appeared saying there's a new version of iOS for the iPad. Would I like to download and iNstall it. Yes.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:35:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19049"
},
"2": {
"text": "A few seconds later a dialog appears saying there's a new version of iTunes. Same question. Yes.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:36:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19050"
},
"3": {
"text": "I think you can see where this is headed. :-)",
"created": "Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:40:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19053"
},
"4": {
"text": "Some piece of software says that I can't install a new version of iTunes unless I quit iTunes. So I try to quit. Then I get a dialog wanting to confirm that I want to quit iTunes while my iPad is being updated with the new version of iOS. Either way, no or yes, gets me more dialogs. I can't get out of this loop any way other than to force quit all the software that's running that's orchestrating this Kafkaesque madness.",
"created": "Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:36:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19051"
},
"5": {
"text": "Somewhere Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave. (Or at least rolling his eyes.)",
"created": "Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:38:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19052"
}
}
},
"8": {
"text": "Vanity Fair led me back to Pulp Fiction and to a great blog",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:57:45 GMT",
"name": "myFavoriteBloggers",
"pgfnum": "14399",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Warning: Spoilers ahead! :-)",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:41:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14408"
},
"1": {
"text": "I spent the day in Cambridge yesterday. One of my stops was the Shorenstein Center, where I was interviewed as part of a project to understand the transition of journalism to the Internet. At one point I was asked who were some of my favorite bloggers. I said I don't like that kind of question, because I think it misses the point of blogging. I gave an example.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:57:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14400"
},
"2": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/21/juliaWolfBig.jpg\")
1. On Tuesday I read an article in Vanity Fair about the making of Pulp Fiction.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:59:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14401"
},
"3": {
"text": "2. That caused me to watch the movie again. I hadn't seen it in a long time. I wasn't sure if I had even seen it more than once.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:59:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14402"
},
"4": {
"text": "3. Great movie.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:59:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14403"
},
"5": {
"text": "4. Near the end of the movie there's a scene with Wolf, Vincent and Jules at the junkyard. Wolf is going to breakfast with a delicious young babe who owns the junkyard where they had disposed of a car that was used in a crime. I wondered who the babe was.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:00:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14404"
},
"6": {
"text": "5. When the credits rolled I noted her name. Googled her. Found she has a blog.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:01:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14405"
},
"7": {
"text": "6. Spent the next hour reading it. She's a great writer. It's 20 years later. She's done a lot of living. And blogged about a lot of it. She reads books and watches movies and keeps a log of them.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:01:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14406"
},
"8": {
"text": "That story illustrates perfectly for me why blogs are so valuable. It's not that any single person has a blog, or is famous for it. It's that blogging is available to anyone who wants to blog. Not everyone does. But with Julia Sweeney I hit blogging paydirt. An attractive person who turns out to have something to say. Nice.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:02:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14407"
},
"9": {
"text": "PS: Kathy Griffin was in PF too.",
"created": "Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:49:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "19011"
}
}
},
"9": {
"text": "Do you use your own product?",
"created": "Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:14:35 GMT",
"name": "doYouUseYourOwnProduct",
"pgfnum": "14392",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36518280/misc/imac.gif\")
The \"Lion\" version of the Macintosh operating system removed what was, to me, a very important feature -- the arrows at either end of scrollbars. I found this out when I bought a new laptop, which I'm using now to write this piece, and discovered the omission. I wrote a blog post about it at the time, and was told by Mac advocates not to worry that I would discover better ways to do the same thing. That didn't happen, but since I don't use the laptop that often, I muddled along without the arrows.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:14:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14393"
},
"1": {
"text": "Then, late last year, I updated my Mac desktop to the latest model. It has a nicer screen, is a little slimmer, has a faster CPU, faster disk, etc. This time I couldn't side-step the missing scroll arrows. And since this is my main work machine, muddling along meant less productivity. More lost trains-of-thought as I have to locate the scroll thumb and delicately move it up or down small amounts to get the text to scroll by two or three lines. The scroll arrows are always in the same place, and you click once to move by one line. No care required.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:17:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14394"
},
"2": {
"text": "Finally, last week, I decided it was time to actually find the \"better way\" the people spoke of earlier. Only to discover it didn't exist. After hearing from lots of users in the comments, the best approach people have come up with is to use the arrow keys on the keyboard. But that's no answer. If I have to lift my hand of the mouse, find the keyboard, and find the arrow keys (does it even have arrow keys, I never use them).",
"created": "Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:19:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14395"
},
"3": {
"text": "All this makes me wonder if the people at Apple actually use Macs, and if they do, do they hate themselves? Certainly someone there must have depended on the arrows as a way of fine-tuning the vertical position of text on the screen? As I do.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:21:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14396"
},
"4": {
"text": "So a few times every day I lose my train of thought because I use a new Mac instead of an old one. I can't figure out for the life of me why they would take features out of their products. I would say it might be to get us to leave their platform and use Windows, but they're playing even worse tricks on their users.",
"created": "Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:25:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "14398"
}
}
},
"10": {
"text": "Dinner in Cambridge on Wednesday?",
"created": "Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:29:32 GMT",
"name": "dinnerInCambridgeOnWednesday",
"pgfnum": "18933",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I'll be in Cambridge, MA on Wednesday, staying overnight and am free for dinner, so let's have a meetup!",
"created": "Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:29:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18934"
},
"1": {
"text": "I posted an item on the Berkman-Thursday list (awkward because this is a Wednesday night event, but it's the people that matter, imho, not the day).",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:30:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18935"
},
"2": {
"text": "Some possible items for discussion.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:34:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18937"
},
"3": {
"text": "Hey what do you guys think of Jeremy Lin? I love that he came from Harvard."
},
"4": {
"text": "I've been programming in JavaScript in the browser for the last few months. Would be happy to share observations."
},
"5": {
"text": "I'm coming to meet with some folks at Shorenstein and at MIT, and am working on a super-secret project which I might leak about if properly incentivized."
},
"6": {
"text": "Hey I don't want to make a big deal of this, but I remember fondly the discussions we used to have way-back-when in the Old Country with the Sad Beatles and all that.",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/18/sadBeatles.jpg\")
"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "I hear they tore down our building. How can something like that happen."
},
"8": {
"text": "One more thing. I heard that Bombay Club is closed. That, and climate change, is enough to cause one to lose hope, I think. But the Red Sox have won the championship, so that's something. I can't imagine what their fans will do now without the curse to lament.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:35:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18939"
},
"9": {
"text": "Anyway, if there's enough interest we'll pick a restaurant, and post the details here before Wednesday night.",
"created": "Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:36:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18940"
}
}
},
"11": {
"text": "Dear NYC Journo Brain Trust",
"created": "Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:03:18 GMT",
"name": "dearNycJournoBrainTrust",
"pgfnum": "18816",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I sent this email to some friends yesterday and realized it should probably be a blog post.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:03:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18817"
},
"1": {
"text": "This idea came in a roundabout way..."
},
"2": {
"text": "1. Google Reader has been sputtering lately."
},
"3": {
"text": "2. Causing some users to be nervous."
},
"4": {
"text": "3. They reach out to developers they know who care, including me. Asking if I can offer any help."
},
"5": {
"text": "4. The only help I can offer is my mind. My programming resources are going elsewhere, and this is not the kind of job a person or a small team can approach. Because while news looks easy and simple, there are millions of feeds, and all must be read every so often or else the system doesn't work. It means you need fairly real capital to make this happen."
},
"6": {
"text": "5. Either Google is or isn't going to continue to subsidize the news reading activity. Either way it's not good to be so dependent on them."
},
"7": {
"text": "6. So I approach some famous tech companies, get a hearing, and am told there might be money available for this, but no interest in doing it as a service. Makes sense. I don't want to do it either."
},
"8": {
"text": "7. It is suggested that perhaps a university or library might want to do this. To which I say -- not likely, for many reasons."
},
"9": {
"text": "8. Then, after sleeping on it -- I have one of those AHA moments."
},
"10": {
"text": "9. Why isn't this something a news org jumps on. It's their business. And for crying out loud -- do it with a revenue model. No paywall. Just charge the users for the service. Make this a market. Let's start building in a non-fragile way."
},
"11": {
"text": "I don't know what to do with this other than give the idea to people who might have some influence at the news orgs. Forward it where ever you like."
}
}
},
"12": {
"text": "Posterous archive received",
"created": "Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:46:08 GMT",
"name": "posterousArchive",
"pgfnum": "18811",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I was able to download my Posterous archive.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:46:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18812"
},
"1": {
"text": "http://static.scripting.com/dave/daveWinerPosterousArchive.zip",
"created": "Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:46:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18813"
},
"2": {
"text": "I'm busy with other projects, but wanted to be sure I could find this if I find time to move it to another location.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:48:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18814"
},
"3": {
"text": "I took a brief look inside, and it looks fine. The posts are stored as RSS 2.0 items. Shouldn't be hard for any experienced blogging software developer to work with this.",
"created": "Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:49:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18815"
}
}
},
"13": {
"text": "Tesla v NY Times",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:08:08 GMT",
"name": "teslaVNyTimes",
"pgfnum": "18685",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A fascinating conflict is brewing between Elon Musk the founder of Tesla Motors and John Broder, a reporter for the NY Times who reviewed the Tesla Model S.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:08:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18686"
},
"1": {
"text": "Margaret Sullivan, the NY Times public editor has a good summary of the dispute, so far.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:48:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18784"
},
"2": {
"text": "Some obvious observations.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:09:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18687"
},
"3": {
"text": "1. The whole thing is good for Tesla. I hadn't seen the original review, but after seeing Musk's initial review-of-the-review, I became interested. Someday I might buy a Tesla as a result of the increased interest. It'll take a number of events like this to get me to buy, but a car is a big purchase, so it seems it should take a lot of work to close the deal.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:09:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18688"
},
"4": {
"text": "2. Before this, the most memorable thing I had heard about the Tesla was from Evan Williams who said it was the iPhone of cars. That made sense to me, and Williams saying it made a difference. I believe he understands what makes an iPhone nice. And cars are not designed like iPhones, but it might be nice if they were. :-)",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:11:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18689"
},
"5": {
"text": "3. Had it been any publication other than the Times, they wouldn't have had Margaret Sullivan to rep the news side of it. This is possibly a big deal. I have been impressed with Ms Sullvivan's work so far, after being very irritated by her predecessors. They didn't seem to rep the public. Mostly they explained why the Times insiders were right all along and the public was wrong.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:11:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18690"
},
"6": {
"text": "4. Even though I'm a fan, I think public editors should be from the public, not journalism. And a publication of the stature of the Times should have many of them. The rule is they could put something on the Times website, adjacent to the articles they're commenting on, and they could say whatever they need to say to create balance. They wouldn't have indefinite terms, and it would be possible to fire them, but only if they breached ethical standards themselves.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:13:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18691",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Some stories need lots of public editors, and maybe the public editors should be given anonymity. An example is the run-up to the war in Iraq when all the publications carried the same wrong story. Another, more recent example is the telling of the life story of Aaron Swartz. I knew Aaron, and I read many of the stories, shaking my head at the awful reporting. You can forgive Aaron's friends for distorting the truth, perhaps -- they were grieving. But what were the reporters' excuses? If they were emotionally tied to the story they should have been excused. The purpose of a news publication is to tell the truth, especially if it's unpopular. The Times has a public editor because it wasn't living up to this ideal, and they knew it, and presumably wanted to do something to fix it. But it's too big a job for just one person.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:27:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18696"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "5. All pubs should have someone like Ms Sullivan. Over the years, I've had a number of disputes that cut to the integrity of reporters at major publications, like the one Mr Musk has with the Times. None of them have had public editors, and none of them ever resolved the issue one way or the other. One even threatened to sue me for libel if I didn't stop saying they were doing something wrong (a British publication). Imagine if a software company threatened every user who reported a bug. I told them to go ahead. At least it would have raised the issue in a way they would have had to respond to.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:15:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18692"
},
"8": {
"text": "6. Just like all software has bugs, all publications have breaches of integrity. The question isn't whether or not you have them, you do. The question is what you do when someone raises an issue.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:18:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18693"
},
"9": {
"text": "7. I've long felt that each blogger who values his or her reputiation should have a panel of \"rabbis\" who will respond to public integrity challenges. If my rabbis say I have to address a certain issue, then I will. If they say it's not an issue, I can go about my business without responding. This would do a lot to increase confidence, and also protect us from troll-like accusations. I think it's possible the same system could work for publications too. Sort of a shared public editor function, for organizations that don't have the resources to hire one of their own.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:18:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18694"
},
"10": {
"text": "8. It's possible that Musk is a troll. It's also possible that Broder made it up. I don't expect Sullivan to say either of these things unless it's so obvious as to be indisputable. And it won't be. She will tell us what both sides say and will look at the data herself. She'll look at what others say, and will suggest that while Musk has a fine product he has probably engaged in a little self-promotion here. And that the Times can and should have some new policy for testing cars. We will get a decent list of sources to examine ourselves, and we will, as always, make up our own minds.",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:21:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18695"
}
}
},
"14": {
"text": "Mac scrollbar woes",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:56:40 GMT",
"name": "macScrollbarArrows",
"pgfnum": "18683",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/15/magicMouse.gif\")
It's been a few months since I got my new iMac and with it was forced to switch to Mountain Lion. I've more or less made my peace with everything except this -- the arrows on the scroll bars are gone. This means what was once an automatic operation that required almost no thought now requires me to swtich gears, locate the thumb and move it different amounts depending on how long the document is. When I first observed this, people said not to worry -- you'll get used to the new way of doing things. But the New Way so far has not revealed itself. So please, do tell, what's the recommended fast way to get the current window to scroll just a little in one direction or another, using the mouse? I have a Magic Mouse, of course. I've tried all combinations of gestures, and nothing seems to do it. Is there a howto somewhere?",
"created": "Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:56:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18684"
}
}
},
"15": {
"text": "Why Rubio looked silly",
"created": "Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:31:59 GMT",
"image": "http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/13/polandSpring.gif",
"name": "whyRubioLookedSilly",
"pgfnum": "18608",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/13/polandSpringBig.gif\")
Last night Marco Rubio gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union in a studio. He looked silly and uncomfortable before the awkward moment when he reached for the bottle of Poland Spring. That just sealed it.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:32:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18609",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/13/rubio.gif\")
"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "He should have been at a podium, with a charged-up Republican-loving crowd ready to cheer every one of his cheap and misleading characterizations of the President. They should have a big APPLAUSE sign to give people a cue. Or pictures of hated Democrats offscreen behind his head to get the crowd going at the right moments.",
"created": "Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:33:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18610"
},
"2": {
"text": "Certainly they can find an auditorium or airplane hangar somewhere in Washington and enough out-of-power partisans or out-of-work actors to fill the room. You gotta wonder who's planning these things.",
"created": "Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:34:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18611"
}
}
},
"16": {
"text": "Central Park after the snow",
"created": "Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:57:04 GMT",
"name": "centralParkAfterTheSnow",
"pgfnum": "18434",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/09/snowyParkLake.jpg\")
",
"created": "Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:57:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18435"
},
"1": {
"text": "If you like, there are more pictures of the park after the storm on Flickr.", "created": "Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:58:53 GMT", "pgfnum": "18436" } } }, "17": { "text": "Understanding the Dropbox API", "created": "Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:02:13 GMT", "name": "understandingTheDropboxApi", "pgfnum": "18396", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "
![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/07/newAccordionGuyBig.gif\")
For the sake of argument suppose the developer of a document-based app written in JavaScript running in the browser wanted to open and save files from and to the user's Dropbox folder. What's the best way to do that, given the new APIs that Dropbox has been releasing?",
"created": "Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:02:20 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18397"
},
"1": {
"text": "I see they have a Chooser. It looks like this can only be used to open files, not save them. Is that true?",
"created": "Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:04:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18400"
},
"2": {
"text": "It seems where Google wants you to use Google Docs to access their Drive space, Dropbox could build around an independent developer community that's potentially larger and more diverse than Google's. Is this their intent? Or will they create apps to compete with Google's?",
"created": "Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:04:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18401"
},
"3": {
"text": "What are developers doing? What's the best way of following new announcements in this area? If you are working on browser-based apps that integrate with Dropbox, please feel free to post a comment. I'd love to learn more.",
"created": "Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:05:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18402"
}
}
},
"18": {
"text": "Page preview in a Bootstrap modal",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:35:49 GMT",
"name": "pagePreviewInABoostrapModal",
"pgfnum": "18356",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I'm trying to do a modal dialog that does a preview of a web page in a modal dialog in Bootstrap 2.0.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:35:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18357",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "And having the damndest time figuring out how to even get started! :-(",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:36:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18358"
},
"1": {
"text": "Is it an iFrame? If so, how do I specifiy the size of the iFrame and the size of the modal.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:36:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18359"
},
"2": {
"text": "It's a complete mess.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:37:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18360"
},
"3": {
"text": "I'm going to narrate my work here.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:37:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18361"
},
"4": {
"text": "Looking for guidance...",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:37:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18362"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "Here's an example..",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:13:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18366",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "http://modalwithwebpage.blorkmark.com/",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:13:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18367"
},
"1": {
"text": "I'm trying to present the contents of render.scripting.com inside a modal dialog.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:13:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18368"
},
"2": {
"text": "How do I set the height and width properties for each of the things to get get a reasonable display.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:14:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18369"
},
"3": {
"text": "This is obviously a very simplistic example. Ultimately I want to preview presentations in this format.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:14:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18370"
}
}
}
}
},
"19": {
"text": "The guy at the gas station",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:27:17 GMT",
"name": "theGuyAtTheGasStation",
"pgfnum": "18349",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "There's a gas station at the corner of Sand Hill Road and Sharon Park Drive in Menlo Park. I used to live on Sharon Park, so I'd drive by the gas station pretty much every day. I was also a smoker then, Marlboro Lights, at least two packs a day, sometimes more. I had a thing where I'd never buy a carton, figuring that kept me conscious of how much I was smoking. It didn't really work. The gas station that sold the cigarettes was only a few blocks away. A two-minute drive, at most. \"Two packs of Marlboro Lights, please\" that was something I said at least once a day. Sometimes more than once.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:27:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18350",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "View Larger Map" } } }, "1": { "text": "
![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/07/nemo.gif\")
One day I went into the gas station to buy some smokes, and the guy behind the counter couldn't seem to find them or hear me, or whatever. I must have said three different times \"Two packs of Marlboro Lights, please.\" He was sweating. Really confused. At first I took it as a sign of disrespect, anger rose, but I tried to hide it. After what seemed an eternity of not getting what I wanted, something clicked for me. \"This guy is having a hard time.\" That's very different from \"He's giving me a hard time.\" I realized he wasn't my problem, and I wasn't his. He had problems, but they had nothing to do with me. So I stopped, took a big breath, smiled, and waited. He brought me what I asked for, I gave him the money. I smiled and said \"Have a great day.\"",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:29:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18351"
},
"2": {
"text": "He smiled back and said he was sorry. I said no worries man. (Or something like that.) I smiled again and turned to leave.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:32:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18352"
},
"3": {
"text": "I always think of that day when I get into a tight spot with someone, a friend sometimes, a person in a store or on the subway, in an airport. This is a person who is trying to do his or her best, given the circumstances, and for whatever reason, having nothing to do with me, is having trouble. I'm going to try to make it easier for them.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:32:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18353"
},
"4": {
"text": "The point of this story is -- nothing. I just thought it was time to write it. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:33:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18354"
},
"5": {
"text": "Have a great day!",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:36:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18355"
}
}
},
"20": {
"text": "Thanks to Jeff Atwood",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:06:01 GMT",
"name": "thanksToJeffAtwood",
"pgfnum": "18335",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I tried to fit this into a tweet and I came close but couldn't quite squeeze it in.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:06:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18336"
},
"1": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/06/discourseStaff.gif\")
I was glad to see Discourse, released today. It's open source discussion software. Jeff Atwood, the developer, is one of the best programmers around, and he really knows discussion software. Too often people stop moving the ball forward when they achieve success. I don't know why. Do great directors hang it up after their first hit? Basketball players? Rock stars? Why should creative people in tech be any different.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:06:22 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18337"
},
"2": {
"text": "I think we're about to see a wave of technically excellent software in a lot of different categories. Feels that way to me. More software like Discourse that can be hooked into everything else, and we'll be looking at a lot of new opportunity for everyone.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:07:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18338"
},
"3": {
"text": "I think we're on the cusp of some exciting times.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:10:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18340"
},
"4": {
"text": "Thanks Jeff. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:09:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18339"
}
}
},
"21": {
"text": "Kids are scientists",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:26:03 GMT",
"name": "kidsAreScientists",
"pgfnum": "18327",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A great episode of This American Life about children as scientists.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:26:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18328"
},
"1": {
"text": "A little girl on her first airplane ride, after takeoff asks an adult when will they get small? She had seen planes take off at the airport, and after they took off they all got small.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:26:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18329"
},
"2": {
"text": "Children are scientists. Even things you'd think were obvious, like gravity -- are mysteries to children. But they are born investigors and practitioners of the Scientific Method. That's something we all understand at birth, it seems.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:27:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18331"
},
"3": {
"text": "There's a wonderful story in there about a child discovering Jesus and Martin Luther King.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:32:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18334"
},
"4": {
"text": "When I was a kid I used to watch a daily kids show. The kids would have lunch, and before they ate they would say together \"God is great, god is good and we thank him for this food.\" I came from a family where we didn't talk about god, so it was a strange concept. I figured God was one of the people who worked at the TV station and brought the food in.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:28:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18332"
},
"5": {
"text": "I tried to remember when I learned that God wasn't a stagehand, but I couldn't remember that part.",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:30:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18333"
},
"6": {
"text": "Update: Just remembered another one, also about TV. I didn't get laugh-tracks. I kind of figured out that there are millions of people watching, and so many are laughing, that a very small portion of the laughs leak back through the TV network and come out on everyone's sets. It never occurred to me that there was either a studio audience laughing or (more likely) a tape that was played when the producers thought there should be laughter.",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:22:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18341"
},
"7": {
"text": "I also thought everyone who was on TV immediately became a millionaire. People seemed so excited about being on TV, I figured they must be making a lot of money. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:25:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18342"
}
}
},
"22": {
"text": "House of News",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:59:48 GMT",
"name": "restructuringNews",
"pgfnum": "18269",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/03/houseOfCards.gif\")
I just got through watching the series House of Cards and believe it or not, it leads me to a set of observations about news, and where it should be now, and the changes called-for are long overdue.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:59:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18270"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. I'm a fan of modern TV series, as many people are. I love The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Deadwood, The West Wing, Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, Homeland, Mad Men. There are so many, and they're great.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:00:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18271"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. I love watching them as I would read a book, at my own pace.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:02:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18272"
},
"3": {
"text": "3. This is a theme of modern media. It's why Napster was such a breakthrough. All of a sudden instead of being programmed, I could do the programming myself. Same thing with the travel industry, vacation rentals, retail, love -- everything. By now the pattern should be obvious to everyone. The users do the programming now. It creates new interest in, and demand for, creativity. THe fear of the entertainment industry was a fear of change. There was never a reason to be scared of irrelevance. Creativity is more in demand now that it ever was.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:03:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18273"
},
"4": {
"text": "4. It's as if the Netflix management had a come-to-jesus type off-site and the chairman said to his people -- what do our customers really want and let's see if we can give it to them. The result was House of Cards. Exactly on the terms that the users have been demanding since Napster. Entertain us, but we want to do the programming ourselves. We will do the programming ourselves, whether you like it or not. It's our time, our lives, our way of appreciating each other.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:05:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18274"
},
"5": {
"text": "5. Did it work? Yes. Was it as great as the others? It showed promise at the beginning of being as epic as The Wire or West Wing, but it trailed off into ridiculousness. That's okay. Homeland did that too. Will I pay for Season 2, if there is one? Yes I will, without a doubt.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:08:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18275"
},
"6": {
"text": "6. And get this, I didn't just pay for it, I signed up for $8 a month. I had been a longtime Netflix customer, but late last year, I unsubbed. But they got me back. And the deeper I got into House of Cards, the more they got me back. I'll give them another year, let's see what they come up with.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:09:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18276"
},
"7": {
"text": "7. Now what does this have to do with news?",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:10:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18277"
},
"8": {
"text": "8. Everything. News needs to do the same recalc. Come-to-jesus and let's figure out what it is that the customers want, exactly, and give it to them, no compromises -- and see what happens. It's what you're doing anyway, as you pretend the pre-Internet news distribution system still exists.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:10:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18278"
},
"9": {
"text": "9. When you do that, you'll see very clearly that what the news industry needs is a cooperative venture that's external to all the news orgs, as Hulu was to the entertainment divisions of the networks, and boot up a new distribution system. Twitter and Facebook have shown you how to do it, although it wasn't necessary to wait this long -- you've now waited long enough. The new system will look like Twitter. You have to be present everywhere your news is in demand. The news industry should have a system tailored to the realities of news, the way Netflix has moved to become the HBO of the Internet age. We need news like that too.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:11:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18279"
},
"10": {
"text": "10. News orgs should also bring bloggers in-house, not to write for their pubs, but to co-locate intellectually. I wrote about this in an earlier piece, where I suggested the NYT do this. I did not mean to say that they should publish the bloggers in the paper or on its website. Just house them on premises. I'm thinking about serendipity. Overhearing elevator conversations. Eating lunch in the same cafeteria, waiting in the same line for the coffee cart. Inevitably the two cultures will influence each other and this would be good for both.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:20:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18280"
},
"11": {
"text": "11. Same thing with users and the flow of news. Use the same follower model that Twitter uses. Have USA Today compete with a random group of bloggers located nowhere in particular. We will develop new tools that let people combine news in a multitude of ways. The same way we want to program our entertainment, we must be able to program our news flows.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:22:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18281"
},
"12": {
"text": "12. Twitter is being very cooperative by closing off channels of innovation to developers. You can harness that energy immediately by zigging to their zag. Unlike movies, which are best viewed serially, news allows for much more varied types of flows. Some people believe this can happen to video too, but much more has been possible with news for the last decade.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:23:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18282"
},
"13": {
"text": "This thread will continue.",
"created": "Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:24:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18283"
}
}
},
"23": {
"text": "House of Cards",
"created": "Sun, 03 Feb 2013 17:38:02 GMT",
"name": "houseOfCards",
"pgfnum": "18186",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Back in November I signed off Netflix. I wasn't using the service, had probably watched two or three movies in all of 2012, and it bothered me that I was paying $8 a month for something I wasn't using. I put off resigning because I figured it would be a pain. I had to call them to do it, but it wasn't as difficult as it had been years ago to get off AOL or MSN.",
"created": "Sun, 03 Feb 2013 17:38:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18187"
},
"1": {
"text": "But then I started hearing about House of Cards. It was getting a huge rollout. On the web and in podcasts. It's exactly the kind of show I like, political drama, a series, and it all came out at once. I am definitely one of those people who likes to watch shows quickly, in a serial fashion. I watched the first few seasons of The Wire that way, and have worked my way through a bunch of other series since then, watching episodes the way I'd read a novel.",
"created": "Sun, 03 Feb 2013 17:39:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18188"
},
"2": {
"text": "They got me. I turned my Netflix account back on. They didn't toss any of my data. I'm not surprised, but I'm also not necessarily happy about that. I just watched Episode 7. Took a break to watch a David Fincher movie I hadn't seen in a long time -- The Game. Loved it even more this time than I did the first time. The story is very moving. If House of Cards is as emotionally grabbing as The Game it will be a huge winner.",
"created": "Sun, 03 Feb 2013 17:40:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18189"
},
"3": {
"text": "One thing that's missing from House of Cards, that you get from other serial dramas like Breaking Bad or Homeland, is the ability to discuss it with people online. It's tough because people are either a few episodes ahead or behind. I don't want spoilers, and I don't want to be a spoiler. We need to invent new communication systems, where only people who have made it through Episode X can discuss with others who have made it exactly that far.",
"created": "Sun, 03 Feb 2013 17:42:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18190"
},
"4": {
"text": "Update: Conclusions after watching all 13 episodes. No spoilers. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 06 Feb 2013 02:13:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18290"
}
}
},
"24": {
"text": "How am I doing?",
"created": "Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:46:38 GMT",
"name": "howAmIDoing",
"pgfnum": "18050",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/02/01/koch.gif\")
The death of Mayor Koch is not a surprise. At 88 he had become frail. Now come the memorials. Let's hope they don't lose their perspective. Ed Koch was no saint. He had a sharp tongue, and over his many years in public life he made many enemies. But he was also much loved in NY. Before Koch, the city was drifting in a post-Robert Moses funk. It was dirty and unsafe and in many ways just didn't work. Koch did much to turn the city around. And he didn't apologize for being a New Yorker. When he asked \"How am I doing?\" don't think it wasn't with much irony. What could possibly stop a New Yorker from telling you how you're doing. And it's not usually going to come with a hug or a pat on the back, although Koch was the exception, on the boardwalk in Coney Island or in the subway under Manhattan, people told him to keep up the good work. We appreciated what he was doing for the city. NY is and was and always will be a tough place, on a personal level. But it's a place of symbols. Koch was us, and the reflection wasn't so bad. We have a sense of humor, a sense of what-the-fuck. Somehow we'll get through this, and a feeling that it can be better if we work together, dammit. Koch embodied that for his generation.",
"created": "Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:46:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18051"
}
}
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "January",
"type": "include",
"url": "http://static.scripting.com/orlando/world/dave/2013/02/01/archive025.opml",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Developing developers",
"created": "Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:41:23 GMT",
"name": "developingDevelopers",
"pgfnum": "18007",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I've had the privilege to work with a number of young devs over the years, and helped develop their skills. When it really clicks there's a lot of learning going on, all around. And the combination of a graybeard and young turk as a devteam has a lot of things going for it.",
"created": "Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:27:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18008"
},
"1": {
"text": "It's probably a lot like Mike Woodson working with Carmelo or Ray Felton or JR Smith. Only the older programmer can still do it, if the mind is willing. It's like directing movies as well as basketball.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:39:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18039",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I know NakedJen who loves both basketball and movies will understand this. :-)",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:30:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18012"
},
"1": {
"text": "BTW, when NJ came to visit in December, I knew she loved movies, but I had no idea about basketball. How did that happen?",
"created": "Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:39:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18040"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "In tech, however -- we set those young talented people out to conquer the world on their own. Their coaches, unlike basketball players, aren't developers. So they don't know what to tell them.",
"created": "Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:28:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18010"
},
"3": {
"text": "No wonder we make so little progress from generation to generation.",
"created": "Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:31:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18013"
},
"4": {
"text": "I'd really like to change this.",
"created": "Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:29:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "18011"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "NYT open newsroom to bloggers",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:27:50 GMT",
"name": "ifTheNytHadCojones",
"pgfnum": "17956",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/30/soccerball.gif\")
The NYT just announced that they're opening up their newsroom to a few tech startups. It's a fun idea, but also a safe one. If I were starting something I wouldn't want to put my office in the NYT. That's a gimmick. Running a startup is noisy and messy and sometimes involves firing people, and major disappointments, and you really want to hide the messy stuff from reporters. Even small companies, real ones, care about the press they get. Which leads me to conclude there aren't going to be many heavy duty companies in the group they pick.",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:27:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17957"
},
"1": {
"text": "Then it hit me. The Times could do something not only courageous, but revolutionary for news. Give the space to bloggers. Qualify them the way you're qualifying the startups. Show us your blog. We'd like to read it. If we think it's interesting (and don't go for safety) and there's a reason it could benefit from locating both in midtown and/or the NYT offices, and we think the work you do would be stimulating for us, here's some space for six months.",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:30:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17958"
},
"2": {
"text": "They will never do it, but if they did, with their hearts in it, the NYT and news in general, would change much faster than it is changing. In my opinion, for the better. They won't do it because it's competition and they're scared they'll end up doing what bloggers do. But the sooner they do more of what bloggers do the sooner they can get on with it. That means not worrying what their sources think of them, and report the news like real people instead of people in an ivory tower. Get out there and do it. And if you aren't doing it, then bring it in.",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:31:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17959"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "A joke Rudy Kiesler might have told",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:06:15 GMT",
"name": "aJewishchineseJoke",
"pgfnum": "17907",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A rabbi, walking down the street in NY, sees a sign."
},
"1": {
"text": "Moishe Teitelbaum Chinese Laundry."
},
"2": {
"text": "Puzzled, he goes inside. An old Chinese man stands behind the counter."
},
"3": {
"text": "\"Do you own this laundry?\" the rabbi asks. Yes."
},
"4": {
"text": "\"And your name is Moishe Teitelbaum?\" Yes."
},
"5": {
"text": "\"If you don't mind my asking, how did you come by such a name?\""
},
"6": {
"text": "\"When I came through Ellis Island, the man before me said his name was Moishe Teitelbaum."
},
"7": {
"text": "\"When my turn came, the man asked my name and I said Sam Ting.\"",
"collapse": "true",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Rudy Kiesler was my grandfather. He came from the Old Country.",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:18:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17910"
},
"1": {
"text": "This joke first appeared on Scripting News in 2000.",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:06:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17909"
}
}
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Javascript w/o curly braces",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:55:17 GMT",
"name": "javascriptWoCurlyBraces",
"pgfnum": "17878",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Python doesn't have curly braces and semicolons because it considers the structure of the source code syntactically significant. We have something similar working with Javascript. Because I edit my code in an outliner, I have the curly braces and semicolons added as the text is generated from the outline. The result is a cleaner looking JS code, and less syntax to worry about.",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:55:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17879"
},
"1": {
"text": "Here's a screen shot of what the code looks like w/o the CBASs. And the same code in a web page, after they have been generated. As you can see it's functional.",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:59:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17882"
},
"2": {
"text": "This is possible because JS is consistent about its use of structural symbols. And the structure of the language maps well on outline structure. Not perfectly, but enough to make it worth using.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:01:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17883",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "The difficult construct is if-then-else. All other statements have a single summit but it has two.",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:10:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17884"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "It's not ready for other people to use yet but it will be soon, Murphy-willing! :-)",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:57:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17881"
},
"4": {
"text": "Update: This capability is now available in the worldoutline software, released today.",
"created": "Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:39:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17902"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Vine is interesting",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:52:11 GMT",
"name": "vineIsInteresting",
"pgfnum": "17876",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I was on the subway last night coming home from a Nets game in Brooklyn and I thought to take out my iPod and do a Vine video between two stops on the 1 train. It came out great! I couldn't wait to share it when I got out of the subway and had a net connection. But when I got out, it was gone. Whoa. That sucks. But it is a really interesting way to tell a story. Consider this a bug report. ;-)",
"created": "Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:52:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17877"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "Beautiful software",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:31:24 GMT",
"name": "beautifulSoftware",
"pgfnum": "17841",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Jason Pontin of Tech Review asked a challenging question on Twitter today. What's the most beautiful software?",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:31:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17842"
},
"1": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/28/mona.gif\")
I answered his challenge with a podcast. I felt the idea needed verbal explanation. I offered three examples. Two written by others, and one I wrote myself. In every case it's the reflection of the software from another person that makes the beauty evident. That, to me, is what art is. It is in the experiencing of it.",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:32:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17843"
},
"2": {
"text": "If the Mona Lisa hung in a locked closet where no one could see it, it would not be art. Anything that evokes a response from an observer is art. And the beauty is a function of the experience. Beauty isn't intrinsic to the thing itself, as I illustrate in the story I tell.",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:24:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17848"
},
"3": {
"text": "So here's the podcast.",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:34:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17844"
},
"4": {
"text": "http://static.scripting.com/myReallySimple/2013/01/28/davecast2013jan28.m4a",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:34:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17846"
},
"5": {
"text": "Dave",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:34:17 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17845"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "The best commercial ever!",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:03:50 GMT",
"name": "thisMightBeTheBestCommercialEver",
"pgfnum": "17781",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:03:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17782"
},
"1": {
"text": "I bet they play this one in Colorado and Washington State. :-)",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:11:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17783"
},
"2": {
"text": "Yah man!!",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:11:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17784"
}
}
},
"7": {
"text": "This is a test",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:57:41 GMT",
"name": "thisIsATest",
"pgfnum": "17777",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "For the next sixty seconds this station will conduct a test of the emergency blogcast system.",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:57:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17778"
},
"1": {
"text": "Here, have a nice bagel!",
"created": "Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:58:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17779",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/28/bagel.gif\")
"
}
}
}
}
},
"8": {
"text": "What early software was influential?",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:13:40 GMT",
"name": "whatOtherSoftwareWasInfluential",
"pgfnum": "17694",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "On Thursday I wrote a piece about MacWrite and MacPaint, two pieces of software that influenced much if not all the software that followed. There are many other examples of seminal software products. In most cases, the products are not the first of its kind, as MacWrite was not the first word processor, but for whatever reason, put enough of the pieces together to lead the way to the future. It's not always obvious in the moment, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:34:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17695"
},
"1": {
"text": "They don't, for some reason, study these products in computer science. They fall between the cracks of \"serious\" study of algorithms and data structures, and user interface and user experience (which still is not much-studied, but at least is starting). This is more the history of software. Much like the history of film, or the history of rock and roll.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:36:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17697"
},
"2": {
"text": "In film, the movies of the 1930s were unusually influential. Probably because it was the first decade of sound.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:38:26 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17698"
},
"3": {
"text": "In popular music, the sixties and early seventies were seminal. The music of a very small number of artists and bands took music in a new direction.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:38:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17699"
},
"4": {
"text": "It seems to me that the 1980s were like that for software. Before that, serious people dismissed the idea that ordinary people would use computers. You know, the clip from the Steve Jobs movie where fictitious Woz says no one will ever use this stuff. People believed that (not Woz, he's always been a visionary and an inclusionist, the movie did him a disservice). To be a believer meant being lonely. That is, until we all read Ted Nelson's book! So, if we were to make a list of art that led to the popular use of computers, Nelson's work would surely be in there. As would Woz and Jobs, and Bill Atkinson, Randy Wiggington and Susan Kare, who pioneered a little thing like graphic icons. Made a huge difference, and influenced software design for all who came after.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:39:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17700"
},
"5": {
"text": "And Unix, sparse, bare-bones and character-based was also hugely influential. In the commercial software world it lay dormant during the 80s, mostly used in academia. But the seed was planted. If you got a compsci education in the late 70s or 80s you used Unix. And then, in the early 90s when networking boomed, it was Unix it boomed around. It became the server platform. The web basically is Unix with a somewhat friendly interface slapped on it (said with a bit of irony). I never thought users would tolerate http:// but it shows how wrong you can be (an idea always worth considering).",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:43:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17702"
},
"6": {
"text": "Other obvious products of the 80s whose influence are still felt today (and remember this is my list, not anyone else's): Visicalc, Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel in spreadsheets. The popular word processors and databases of the day. PowerPoint. The Finder. Hypercard.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:41:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17701"
},
"7": {
"text": "I had to start a separate paragraph for two long-gone and much-missed products: Think C and Turbo Pascal. I used the former, for quite some time, to develop serious software. It did something no one thought was possible -- instant compiles of huge C programs. This was a barrier that was broken by Turbo Pascal a few years earlier. Proves one of the fundamental rules of good software design -- always revisit your assumptions as time goes by and Moore's Law continues to change the rules of hardware. What you couldn't do a few years ago might work perfectly well today.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:47:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17703"
},
"8": {
"text": "As I played around with this idea, I started thinking of people whose opinions I would value on this, and then realized this was turning into a software Hall of Fame, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Something that the movie business doesn't do and should imho -- go back twenty or thirty years and recognize the films they missed when they were new, but turned out to be seminal. Honor people who you didn't know were great when they made their early contributions.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:50:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17706"
},
"9": {
"text": "I would ask people like Woz, Ray Ozzie, Dan Bricklin, Mitch Kapor, Joel Spolsky, Marc Canter, Michael Miller (former editor of PC and InfoWorld and a walking encyclopedia of software), Jon Udell, Chuck Shotton (people you might not have heard of but who have great depth of knowledge). Robert Carr and Greg Stikeleather. I'd love to ask Brendan Eich what languages influenced the design of Javascript. Or ask TBL what software he was using in the years leading up to the web. What software was Jimmy Wales studying before he figured out that we needed a global open encyclopedia? What led Adam Curry to come up with the idea for the \"last yard\" -- the idea that led to podcasting? Who else? Here's a chance for us graybeard programmer types to help put things in perspective.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:51:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17707"
},
"10": {
"text": "For my programmer friend who wanted to know about MacWrite and MacPaint, I suggested watching James Burke's great Connections series, which I've written about previously. Every \"invention\" is more of a synthesis of ideas that were floating around. This is the brilliance that makes change possible. If we had our priorities straight we wouldn't honor the lone inventor (an idea that I don't think even exists) rather we'd celebrate the synthesizer, the Rolling Stones, who loved the music of American blues musicians and figured out how to make it relevant to everyone, but never forgot their roots. Just one of a billion examples.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 13:57:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17708"
},
"11": {
"text": "Perhaps we're ready to give up the mythology of tech innovation, and start studying how forward motion really happens.",
"created": "Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:00:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17709"
}
}
},
"9": {
"text": "MacWrite and MacPaint, a coral reef",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:43:05 GMT",
"name": "whatAboutMacwriteAndMacpaint",
"pgfnum": "17636",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/24/macwriteLarge.gif\")
I was talking yesterday with a programmer friend who is 28. I wanted to use an example, but first wanted to be sure he knew about it. I asked if he knew what MacWrite and MacPaint was. He said no.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:12:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17637"
},
"1": {
"text": "Now this is very smart, well-educated guy. He has a computer science degree. Asking whether he knew about MacWrite and MacPaint, imho, is like asking a person with an English lit degree if he's heard of Shakespeare. In other words, we have to work on this. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:13:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17638"
},
"2": {
"text": "Anyway, I figure a fair number of people who read this blog are like my friend. You might not know about these two seminal products, and you should.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:14:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17639"
},
"3": {
"text": "MacWrite and MacPaint were the only two apps that shipped on the original Mac when it was released on January 24, 1984.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:14:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17640"
},
"4": {
"text": "The Mac was a new platform. It didn't run Apple II software or IBM PC software, or even software from its cousin, the Lisa, which shipped from Apple a year earlier. The Mac platform was a completely clean slate. So if you bought a Mac in January or February, or even March or April -- all you could do with it was write with MacWrite and paint with MacPaint.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:15:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17641"
},
"5": {
"text": "They were not very powerful. Each could only open one document at a time. The menus were short. They were limited but they were also something of a miracle, because very few people had ever used a graphic app before. They had graphic menus, worked with a mouse, and they used a lot of pixels, for the day at least. It felt amazing to use these apps. Like driving a very sleek and fancy car. That is, compared to the tools that we were using before.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:17:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17642",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/24/macPaintLarge.gif\")
"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "More important, they served as example-ware for the developers of the day. If you were working on Mac apps, as we were at Living Videotext, if you wanted to see how to do something, you could always look at one of these two apps for an idea.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:18:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17643"
},
"7": {
"text": "Had the Mac shipped without MacWrite and MacPaint, it's kind of doubtful that there would be a Mac today. Or it might exist but there would be little consistency among the apps. The window I'm typing this blog post into now looks an awful lot like the window we typed into in MacWrite, 29 years ago.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:18:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17644"
},
"8": {
"text": "Software evolves like a coral reef. I've written about this many times. Something happens, a ship sinks, some fish live in the wreck. Their predators come there too, because there's food to eat. Then they die and their skeletons form a new structure for life to cling to. Eventually you have a thriving ecosystem. No one uses MacWrite or MacPaint today, but in a sense we all do, all the time.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:20:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17645"
},
"9": {
"text": "Someone who is planning on spending a career making software should know all they can about these two very important apps.",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:21:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17646"
},
"10": {
"text": "PS: When I write these pieces I feel like Tom Hanks in the final scene of Cloud Atlas. No spoilers. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:39:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17647"
}
}
},
"10": {
"text": "Quora is a blogging platform?",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:18:39 GMT",
"name": "quoraIsABloggingPlatform",
"pgfnum": "17652",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/23/accordionGuy.gif\")
I just heard that Quora is repositioning as a blogging platform. That's (might be) very cool.",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:18:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17653"
},
"1": {
"text": "Hopefully that means that they're going to support the APIs that blogging platforms support. That would include the Blogger API and the MetaWeblog API. And of course we'll be looking for the RSS feeds as well.",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:19:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17654",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Update: They do have RSS feeds. Here's one.",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:31:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17662"
},
"1": {
"text": "Update: I created my own blog on Quora. It was easy.",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:40:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17663"
}
}
},
"2": {
"text": "I wonder who they're aiming at. Here are some of the choices.",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:19:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17655",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "WordPress",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:20:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17656"
},
"1": {
"text": "Tumblr",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:20:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17657"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Uhh that might be it. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:20:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17658"
},
"4": {
"text": "If you have any more info please post a comment here.",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:20:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17659"
},
"5": {
"text": "Thanks!",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:20:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17660"
},
"6": {
"text": "PS: I suggested just this move in May 2012.",
"created": "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:23:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17661"
}
}
},
"11": {
"text": "Preserving the early blogosphere",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:10:15 GMT",
"name": "maintainingTheEarlyBlogosphere",
"pgfnum": "17457",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "A story in a list.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:17:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17458"
},
"1": {
"text": "1. I love archive.org. It's essential. Without it, we would have absolutely no record of the early sites that are gone. Hooray for Brewster Kahle. No sarcasm. He should get a Turing Award. Researchers of the future will praise him, and rightfully so, for having the foresight and will to provide an archive of so much of the early web.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:17:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17459"
},
"2": {
"text": "2. If you want to see how necessary it is, spend a few minutes clicking on links from the archive of this blog from the 1990s. Most of the items I linked to are gone. The only way to see the content they once pointed to is to go to archive.org.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:17:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17460",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I picked one random month, June 1998. Very depressing. All the links to DaveNet pieces in that month, for example, are broken. Oy. After a little investigation it's clear why. Umpteen migrations later, and in all that a dependency on .htaccess files. However S3 does not understand .htaccess files. Oh well. Not easily fixable in a few minutes. But the data is still there. You just have to know where to find it.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:49:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17469"
},
"1": {
"text": "Who's the best? It looks like the NY Times. All their links still work. They have some amazing future-thinking people there, and they mean business. Good work.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:09:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17471"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "3. However, sometimes that doesn't work, because the archive is imperfect. Sometimes the sites had bugs, and saw the archive.org crawler as a denial-of-service attack. A large number of UserLand-hosted sites are missing from archive.org for that reason. It was our fault, but in our defense, we were fighting fires with a very small staff and a company that was perpetually running out of money. Yet, we had as one of our goals to preserve the content we were hosting. Luckily most, but not all of our sites are still accessible at their original addresses. (See #6 below to learn why, it's not an accident.)",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:19:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17461"
},
"4": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/22/appleMusiciansBig.gif\")
4. As the blogging art progressed, we realized we should be creating static content. That would make it easier to archive. So we were able to find a home for the Radio UserLand community, with Matt Mullenweg. He has a similar problem for WordPress sites, and Matt is young, and likely to be around longer than I am, so it made sense to trust him with this content. It's not by any means an ideal solution, but it's good enough. And I do trust Matt. He has a good heart and sees a big picture. I think he values history as much as I do.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:21:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17462"
},
"5": {
"text": "5. We had a scare with the RSS 2.0 spec. It went offline in a server upgrade at Harvard a couple of years after I gave the spec to them, hoping it would survive longer there than on UserLand's servers. I learned a lot from the experience of trying to future-safe it. It's been at its current location for almost ten years. So I'm fairly optimistic that it will survive for a while longer. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:23:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17463"
},
"6": {
"text": "6. I am hosting a large part of the archive from UserLand and scripting.com. Jake Savin, a former UserLand guy is hosting the other large part, out of the goodness of his heart, and respecting our early mission to produce a record. Both of us are looking for a way to make this stuff much more safe than it currently is.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:26:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17464"
},
"7": {
"text": "7. Not to be dramatic or anything, but no more than 40 days after I die, and probably much sooner, all of the content I'm hosting will disappear. That's just not acceptable. What was the point of trying to save it if that's the best we can do. (And after I'm gone it isn't my problem anymore.)",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:27:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17465"
},
"8": {
"text": "8. I'm looking to create new art for long-lived websites. I see this as more of a financial and organizational problem than a technical one. From a technical standpoint, the best approach are static files served by any software capable of serving folders of static files. I like Apache. The domains should continue to work.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:28:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17466"
},
"9": {
"text": "9. More people would then create new content in this format, so that there will be no need to archive the sites. There should be the idea of content that's designed to survive as long as the web survives. This is especially important for sites that are trying to create a record. Government and news sites. Researchers who want their work to be built on in the future. Writers who think their ideas might be meaningful in a future context. Basically, anything that isn't completely ephemeral. We complain that the UGC companies aren't doing a good job of preserving their archives. But the awful truth is that no one is. The web is very very fragile. We can and should be making an investment in making it stronger and more resistent to damage.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:30:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17467"
},
"10": {
"text": "10. Right now the archive of the early blogosphere is in an unknown state. There were sites at Blogger, Movable Type, we hosted some at EditThisPage.com, and weblogs.com. I would like to see all of it safe and ready for future readers and researchers. Not as museum exhibits (this is what an ancient blog looked like) but as literature that's available to anyone at any time. There probably were some great writers back then, and there certainly is history that we have already lost that can be resurrected. But every day that gets harder. We should do something about this.",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:32:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17468"
},
"11": {
"text": "I am mentioning this now because it's a long-term objective. I hope to be around for a while to work on this with others, hopefully younger people, who have a longer horizon than I do. I'm not looking for anything like a quick solution, because this is a problem that took many years to create. But I want to start making things better, one step at a time. I will go to conferences, if necessary -- but only conferences that are about preserving the early blogopshere. I am in favor of preserving everything, but one person can't take on everything. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:02:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17470"
}
}
},
"12": {
"text": "Outage theater",
"created": "Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:22:59 GMT",
"name": "outageTheater",
"pgfnum": "17467",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It appears Twitter is down.",
"created": "Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:23:05 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17468"
},
"1": {
"text": "This is like using candles or hanging out at a camp fire?",
"created": "Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:23:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17469"
},
"2": {
"text": "If you have anything to say, leave a comment here, or on Hacker News.",
"created": "Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:23:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17470"
}
}
},
"13": {
"text": "Two post-season TV ads",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:31:46 GMT",
"name": "twoTvAds",
"pgfnum": "17416",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Football post-season ads are grand.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:31:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17417"
},
"1": {
"text": "Two ads during the NFC championship, one from Apple, the other from Google. Both are selling the same product. One wins, the other a loser.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:32:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17418"
},
"2": {
"text": "Apple has a protagonist playing ping pong with the Williams tennis sisters. They're very pretty. The ad is selling a feature of an iPhone that lets you tell it to STFU because you're sleeping. Aha. You're having a sexy dream with the Williams sisters. Do Not Disturb.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:32:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17419"
},
"3": {
"text": "A mom reading to her baby daughter on a couch. The little girl is having a fantasy, involving the tablet computer. Completely unnecessary. At the end of the ad you see that the mom is reading the story from a tablet. Nexus. What? Not Apple. Fuck.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:33:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17420"
},
"4": {
"text": "Apple is ceding the high ground to Google.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:34:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17421"
}
}
},
"14": {
"text": "Doc on life as a race",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 20:58:01 GMT",
"name": "docOnMarathons",
"pgfnum": "17405",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Yesterday at Aaron's memorial in NYC, Doc Searls said:",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 20:58:10 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17406",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "When you're young you think life is a sprint.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:00:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17412"
},
"1": {
"text": "When you're older you see it's a marathon.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:01:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17414"
},
"2": {
"text": "And when you're mature you see it's a relay race.",
"created": "Sun, 20 Jan 2013 21:01:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17415"
}
}
}
}
},
"15": {
"text": "We expect too much of geeks",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:32:07 GMT",
"name": "weExpectTooMuchOfGeeks",
"pgfnum": "17396",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I've been a developer since I was 19 years old. That's already 38 years. I went to Silicon Valley when I was 25, and immediately met the most powerful people in the Valley. It was like that then, and still is -- if you're bright and young, male, strong, assertive, confident and optimistic, you can have access. Probably a lot like sport, basketball, baseball, etc. If you're young and think you're hot shit, and there's some reason to believe you are, you can go far, very quickly. This has been going on for as long as I've been in tech, and long before that.",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:32:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17397"
},
"1": {
"text": "Computers are amazing things, they really are, in ways most non-technical people aren't even aware of. For example, when I learned about the process of bootstrapping compilers I was blown away. Still am actually. I tried explaining it to everyone I knew who wasn't a programmer. The only person who got it, sort of, was my uncle, a mechanical engineer. He could see using a hammer to make a hammer, so what's the big deal. How about using a specific hammer to make itself? How about that! His eyes glazed over. Yours probably are too. But ask someone who has made a real life compiler and see how mystical they get.",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:33:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17398"
},
"2": {
"text": "So we programmers in a sense are a secret society. Until you learn the handshake you aren't one of us. And we can be pretty arrogant about it. Until the computer kicks our ass. Or the market. Or users. Then we learn really quickly that what we learned in school was just the beginning. That when we thought we understood everything that was just the arrogance of youth. It's functional. Because how else could you take on the world if you understood how huge and complex and fucked up the world actually is! :-)",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:36:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17399"
},
"3": {
"text": "This is when depression sets in. All of a sudden you see that you are not all-powerful, you can't handle everything the world throws at you. But then what do you do if you've told everyone you can deal with it, that you'll come out on top? When I got to that point, which I remember very clearly, I felt I couldn't possibly face failure. I was locking up the office of Living Videotext one night, knowing the next day I would be firing half the company, and having no idea how we were going to bail it out. Yes, you can get lower than that. But between the two paths, one up and the other down, there wasn't much margin for error.",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:37:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17400"
},
"4": {
"text": "When young people risk it all, it would be nice if there were people who understood what they're going through, who could offer some perspective. Even better, if there was an oldtimer around when the world is telling you you're a god and can do no wrong, to tell you that's bullshit, to kick you in the butt, in a friendly way, tell you you're a mortal human being, and you need to understand that life has its ups and downs, and you're going to be around for a long time, and this is just the beginning, part of the learning process, and while it looks like everything is great now, or falling apart, or whatever emotion is driving you at this moment, let's go for a walk, get a burger, see a movie and hang out for a bit, watch a game, and notice all the other stuff that's going on.",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:40:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17401"
},
"5": {
"text": "Whew. That took a lot to write.",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:42:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17402"
},
"6": {
"text": "The other thing we all can do, if we love the product of technical minds, is stop thinking it's magic. There is magic in computers, but the magic isn't in the programmer or the tech writer or the visionary -- it's in the whole thing. The miracle isn't any one person, rather it's that humanity can collaborate to create something much greater than any one of us. Then we can all have an accurate perspective on our role in it.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 16:42:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17403",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
}
}
},
"16": {
"text": "Repubs and the Beetlejuice football players",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:35:14 GMT",
"name": "beetlejuiceFootballPlayers",
"pgfnum": "17382",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "There's a group of football players in the wonderful Tim Burton movie Beetlejuice, one of whom delivers a great line, which goes as follows. \"Hey coach, I don't think we survived that crash.\" I don't to spoil it any more than I have to, but it's funny in the context it's delivered in. :-)",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:35:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17383"
},
"1": {
"text": "I was reminded of this line when I read about the House Republicans finally realizing that they are the minority party. It's as if Cantor said to Boehnoer \"Hey boss, I don't think we survived the election.\"",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:36:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17384"
},
"2": {
"text": "Now maybe we can resume having some semblance of government, the voters having spoken, and finally the Republicans having heard.",
"created": "Sat, 19 Jan 2013 14:36:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17385"
}
}
},
"17": {
"text": "Why I write",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:32:43 GMT",
"name": "whyIWrite",
"pgfnum": "17316",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I get a fair amount of grief for writing my blog and pushing links through my feed and to Twitter. It's been this way since before I started blogging. There are always people around who question your motives, and who project their own nasty theories about people on the easiest target to find. Often that's the most vocal and visible person, esp one without affiliation. There always seems to be one person who has a bone to pick with me, sometimes lots of people.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:32:46 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17317"
},
"1": {
"text": "There are many reasons I write, but probably the least of it is for fame or fortune. I don't make much money writing, I actually spend money to write. And if I wanted fame there are much more direct ways to go about it. In fact over the years, I've done things to limit my fame, because I don't like being famous.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:34:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17318"
},
"2": {
"text": "I write to express myself, and to learn. Writing is a form of processing my ideas. When I tell a story verbally a few times, I'm ready to write it. After writing it, I understand the subject even better.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:36:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17319"
},
"3": {
"text": "I send links to Twitter and to my linkblog feed because I want to share them, and because I want to remember them. By linking to them they get into my archive where I can search. This way instead of hunting around for an article, trying to remember where it was or how I got there, instead I just scroll through the archive. As a by-product, I share it. Some people like this. I assume the people who don't like it know how to unsub.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:36:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17320"
},
"4": {
"text": "I also write to create a record. In my programming work I've gotten a lot more disciplined about this. I have a rule that I can't make a change to my most mature products, the ones that are being used by others, without posting a worknote. It's a rule I don't have any trouble keeping, even though at the beginning, it was like a New Years resolution, it felt like a chore. Now it's a habit as ingrained as brushing my teeth or taking my meds or getting exercise every day. I don't feel right if I don't do it -- so I do.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:38:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17321"
},
"5": {
"text": "I write to keep up the connection with people I care about. That way when we meet, they have a clue what's going on with me. I really like it when people I care about blog too, so its reciprocal.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:39:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17322"
},
"6": {
"text": "I write to put a stake in the ground, so I can, over time, debug my prediction process, and hone my understanding of how things work. If you point to something I wrote ten years ago that turned out wrong, I don't feel ashamed. I take the opportunity to learn. By explaining my process then, I have a chance to debug it later. Why did I think desktop publishing was a bad idea? I don't know -- because I didn't write about it. But I do know why I thought the iPhone was a bad idea. This process helps me get smarter over time.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:40:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17323"
},
"7": {
"text": "I write to give people something to react to. So you think the iPhone was a winner from Day One. Great. Tell me why. Maybe I'll change my mind. It's happened more than once that a commenter here showed me another way of thinking about something and I eventually came around to their point of view. And even if I don't change my mind, it's helpful to understand how another person, given the same set of facts, can arrive at a different conclusion.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:42:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17324"
},
"8": {
"text": "Update: Another reason I write, which I remembered after publishing -- I develop writing tools. If I didn't write, I couldn't do that. I wouldn't be able to test them, refine them, and get new ideas for new tools. Writing and my software development process are integral. I couldn't do one without the other.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:32:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17345"
},
"9": {
"text": "And maybe I write because I'm narcissistic. It's possible. You know it's hard to tell, because the only experience we have is our own. I don't know what you think, unless you tell me, and then I have to decide if you're being honest about it, or being honest with yourself. And I try not to worry about that so much. Because whether you're honest or not is something for you to deal with, and if there is a god, for he or she to judge you on. It's not my problem, thankfully. Because there are now 7 billion people on the planet. If we were to make each person's honesty our business, we'd have no time to live! :-)",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:43:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17325"
},
"10": {
"text": "So when someone gets on a soapbox and starts trying to rev up a crowd to hate me, and when they lie to do it, I have to learn not to give that any weight. What I do now is ask a friend to have a look and tell me what they see. Since the ranting isn't about them, they won't take it personally. If they say it's something I should pay attention to, I would -- but they never do. The most recent time it happened, a friend came back and said the person is a sadist. But my mind still circles around the abuse. I have a hard time not thinking about it. So what do I do? Write about it, of course. Now it's on the web, and hopefully out of my way.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:45:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17326"
},
"11": {
"text": "One more thing. I remember being at a conference, chatting with someone and I saw at the other end of the room someone who had been a friend but had started trashing me on the Internet. I excused myself and walked over to the guy and sat down next to him, and asked why he was doing it. He started repeating the nonsense he was saying online. But I didn't think he really believed it, so I pressed him and asked why he was really doing it. He said he had cancer, and was in chemo, and was in a lot of pain. I felt sick myself in that moment. I said you know that's terrible, but it's no reason to do and say things that hurt me, and make me feel bad. We all have our struggles. Me too. He agreed, and we're friends again, but now when I see him online, I can't forget how used I was, and why, and the pain comes back, his pain and mine. This really sucks.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:54:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17329"
},
"12": {
"text": "Anyway, I don't know why people do this. I don't think I will ever be immune to it. But I find that having good loyal friends helps make it a bit more tolerable.",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:57:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17330"
}
}
},
"18": {
"text": "NBA All-star Results",
"created": "Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:55:55 GMT",
"name": "nbaAllstarResults",
"pgfnum": "17316",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/16/othermonopolyguy.gif\")
I was talking with a friend the other day, and remembered I had learned this lesson a while back, but don't think I had ever blogged it.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:08:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17257"
},
"1": {
"text": "In Silicon Valley, when I was coming up, it was common practice to pay everyone you could with stock. They were go-go times, like now, but we weren't raising the kind of money people raise now. Vendors wanted to participate in the boom, so often you could work out deals for stock from people who printed your packaging, or did contract work. I'm still okay with that, however, not for lawyers.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:09:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17258"
},
"2": {
"text": "In a way it's counter-intuitive. Why wouldn't you want your lawyer to be incentivized for your success?",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:10:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17259"
},
"3": {
"text": "The answer is, sure it's great -- when incentives are what it's about. But maybe the company won't be the shooting rocket everyone thinks? Maybe there are tough times ahead? Could happen. And then you'll have one shareholder with a huge advantage over everyone else. He or she will have set up the company. If there's any kind of shareholder action, the lawyer is going to have a big advantage over everyone else.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:14:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17261"
},
"4": {
"text": "So pay your lawyer in cash, not stock. Keep them on your side. Everyone will be happier.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:13:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17260"
}
}
},
"21": {
"text": "Gamify the NY Times",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:33:44 GMT",
"name": "gamifyingTheNyTimes",
"pgfnum": "17245",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/16/monopolyMan.gif\")
The word gamify is kind of weird but nice.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:33:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17246"
},
"1": {
"text": "It means to take something that isn't a game and give it game-like features.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:03:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17254"
},
"2": {
"text": "Twitter is gamified because it shows you how many followers people have.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:34:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17247"
},
"3": {
"text": "It seems the NYT could benefit from a little of that.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:35:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17248"
},
"4": {
"text": "How might it work?",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:35:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17249"
},
"5": {
"text": "1. Everyone starts out with 10 free article reads per month. As it works right now.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:35:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17250"
},
"6": {
"text": "2. When I tweet a link to a piece on the NYT site, I get my own code, so they can tell that a hit came from me. For every 100 clicks, I get another free read.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:36:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17251"
},
"7": {
"text": "3. That way we can put aside all that michegas about 99 cents for 8 weeks, which seems pretty crass, because I'm a veritable flow machine for the Times. Or at least I would be if they would gamify. :-)",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:37:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17252"
},
"8": {
"text": "What do you think?",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:37:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17253"
},
"9": {
"text": "PS: They can give us twice the reads for traffic generated for competitive articles, ones where they want to beat out the WaPo, BBC etc. And when the NYT gets their own Twitter-like system, which they will have to do someday if they want to stay independent, they can offer triple-points there, to encourage use of that system.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:05:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17255"
}
}
},
"22": {
"text": "We should retire Aaron's number",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:45:41 GMT",
"name": "weShouldRetireAaronsNumber",
"pgfnum": "17214",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "When a great baseball or basketball player leaves the game they retire his or her number. That means the jersey hangs from the ceiling, or there's a plaque at the stadium, and no player on the team ever wears that number again.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:45:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17215"
},
"1": {
"text": "Babe Ruth's number, 3, is retired. Michael Jordan's too (23). Jackie Robinson's number, 42, is retired for all baseball teams.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:52:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17219"
},
"2": {
"text": "On the web, retiring a number would mean the website is permanently registered, and the content is preserved so it lasts as long as the web does. That means the contents of aaronsw.com will be there forever. It will never become a porn site, or a landing page, or whatever.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:46:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17216"
},
"3": {
"text": "Right now there is no way to do this. Isn't that strange. We could fix it if we want. The Internet is just software. It would be a small but worthwhile hack and could set a precedent for future memorials.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:48:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17217"
},
"4": {
"text": "Something to think about!",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:49:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17218"
},
"5": {
"text": "Update: There's an active Hacker News thread on this topic.",
"created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 14:38:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17220"
}
}
},
"23": {
"text": "Aaron Swartz was curious",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:48:17 GMT",
"name": "aaronSwartz",
"pgfnum": "17153",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Like everyone else in the part of the web that I exist in, I've been reading lots of stuff about Aaron Swartz over the last few days. The stuff written by professional reporters are mostly vain attempts to explain something they don't understand. Even the ones who have been covering tech for a long time miss what's important. Imho.",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:49:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17155"
},
"1": {
"text": "I read one piece, written by Aaron himself and published in Fast Company yesterday, that really nailed it, about who he was. It was in the form of an email he had written to Ronald Lemos of Creative Commons Brazil, explaining, among other things, his involvement with RSS.",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:50:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17156"
},
"2": {
"text": "He said he had been writing web apps, after visiting Philip Greenspun's web class at MIT, and trying to make reading news sites more automatic. Sounds about right. That's the frustration I was dealing with too, but I didn't know Aaron at the time. He says that then, when the RSS 1.0 effort became visible, he immediately wanted to be involved. That's when our paths crossed for the first time. You can read all about it in the archive of the RSS-DEV mail list on Yahoo Groups. Here's the first message Aaron posted. It was the second message of the group.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:51:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17159",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "To the extent that I participated, it was to express my dismay that this format was incompatible with what we were using. I didn't think they should call it RSS, because that would add confusion. Of course that's ancient history. But people have asked why they don't see my name on that spec. That's why.",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:53:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17160"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Aaron explains that what made him unique was that he was curious.",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:54:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17161",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "\"When I was a kid, I thought a lot about what made me different from the other kids. I don't think I was smarter than them and I certainly wasn't more talented. And I definitely can't claim I was a harder worker -- I've never worked particularly hard, I've always just tried doing things I find fun. Instead, what I concluded was that I was more curious -- but not because I had been born that way. If you watch little kids, they are intensely curious, always exploring and trying to figure out how things work. The problem is that school drives all that curiosity out. Instead of letting you explore things for yourself, it tells you that you have to read these particular books and answer these particular questions. And if you try to do something else instead, you'll get in trouble. Very few people's curiosity can survive that. But, due to some accident, mine did. I kept being curious and just followed my curiosity.\""
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "After spending a lot of time in the last few days reading about his intellectual explorations, I'd agree. He nailed it. That is what made him unique. And that's of course a great thing. The world would be a better place if more people were driven by curiosity. Too many people accept things as they are. Aaron wanted to know why things worked the way they did, and wanted to see if there were other ways that might work better.",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:54:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17162"
},
"5": {
"text": "Amen and right on Aaron, who now belongs to eternity. We'll try our best down here on earth to remain curious and keep following where it leads.",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:55:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17163"
},
"6": {
"text": "Thanks! :-)",
"created": "Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:55:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17164"
}
}
},
"24": {
"text": "Adoption, not invention",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:47:31 GMT",
"name": "adoptionNotInvention",
"pgfnum": "17071",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Lots of stuff gets invented that never makes a difference.",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:02:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17087"
},
"1": {
"text": "Invention isn't the important moment with any format or protocol.",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:41:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17074"
},
"2": {
"text": "The moment that's important is adoption. If it got adopted then we call it \"good enough\" and go on.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:48:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17083"
},
"3": {
"text": "In RSS, the moment of adoption came when the NY Times published feeds in RSS 2.0 format in 2002. That got the users going, and gave other pubs something to shoot at. Blogging software already supported the format. We were off to the races.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:44:57 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17079"
},
"4": {
"text": "Also, a lot of the early users were reporters and editors, which drove the need for other pubs to get on board. If all the users had been in some other profession, the uptake might not have been so quick or large",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:50:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17085"
},
"5": {
"text": "It wasn't an act of invention, or even design -- it was adoption and then uptake that make RSS as a format significant.",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:46:15 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17080"
},
"6": {
"text": "Technologists and reporters should understand this is a process, not a moment.",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:46:33 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17081"
},
"7": {
"text": "Hopefully that sheds some light on a subject that now seems to be interesting to people, which imho is a good thing.",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:46:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17082"
},
"8": {
"text": "And obviously all this is just my own opinion. Like a guy whose been around a sport for a long time and thinks he understands what makes it tick. Not presented as anything other than that. :-)",
"created": "Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:52:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17086"
}
}
},
"25": {
"text": "Online grieving",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 12:17:36 GMT",
"name": "onlineGrieving",
"pgfnum": "17066",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "When I went to my grandmother's funeral, in Rockaway, in 1977, I was surprised at how people were laughing and exchanging gossip. It was a family event. She died young, at 66, so the family was still pretty large. My grandfather was there, even though they were divorced. I knew her pretty well, and I don't think she would have approved all the laughter. But dead people are dead. A funeral can be the place where that fact sinks in for the first time, and people are entitled to express themselves however they want. As long as it doesn't interfere with others expressing themselves, in their own ways.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:41:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17068"
},
"1": {
"text": "When my uncle died, her son, many years later, I waited a day before writing about his passing. He had been a character on Scripting News, my blog. My uncle, along with Dan Gillmor and Jamis MacNiven, were the first people to use my Manila blogging software while it was in development in 1999. I often pointed to his site, and wrote about his adventures in Jamaica. But when he died, I didn't feel I was ready to write about it publicly for a bit of time. Probably because he was so close in age to me, just ten years older. A role model for me. And someone whose death hit me hard. I wanted to learn something from it before writing about it. At first I was just dazed. Stunned. Speechless.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:43:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17069"
},
"2": {
"text": "Then, when my father died, a number of years after that, I wrote about it the day it happened. It was one of the pieces I am most proud of. Short and simple, and deeply truthful. I don't read it very often but when I do, I am reminded of the sadness, of the letting-go, of feelings that had been long held inside, becoming part of the past. In an instant. No longer issues. My father loomed large in my life. But I was ready to write about it because his death was a long time coming. We got a chance to talk about it, me and him. It still haunts me. But I didn't need a lot of time to process it, before I could say what I had to say.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:45:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17070"
},
"3": {
"text": "In family, and online, I've come to respect the way people grieve is different for everyone, as it was for people at my grandmother's funeral, so many years ago. Everyone has a different process, and it could be different every time depending on who-knows-what. Death is something that I find impossible to understand. That's why it's so damned frightening. Maybe it's no more unpleasant than taking a trip. Maybe god is merciful and death is a pleasurable release full of spritual oxytocin. There are reasons to believe this might be so. Maybe death is something that's impossible to experience, much as we have no memory of existence from before conception? Death is a mystery, a horrifying one, if you love life. All the more horrifying if someone reaches a place where death is a choice they make. I find it especially hard to reach any conclusions about that.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:48:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17071"
},
"4": {
"text": "When I was young, the father of the kids across the street, one winter day, killed himself in the basement of the house, with a gun. His son discovered the body. I've had a whole lifetime to process that event, and you know what -- I still don't have any wisdom from it. I don't understand, and my guess is that I never will. And it's hard to find anything meaningful to say about something you have no appreciation for.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:56:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17072"
},
"5": {
"text": "I knew Aaron Swartz, not very well, but I did know him. I spent a fair amount of time yesterday reading his blog. Aaron was a voracious reader. And he really could write. And his ideas were good. I don't think enough people read his blog. Maybe more will do so now. And to repeat an oft-repeated theme here, maybe we can do something to make sure that his blog remains online as long as there is a web, which hopefully is quite a long time.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:58:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17074"
},
"6": {
"text": "What good can come from his death? I think we have to set more reasonable expectations for our brilliant young people. It's true that Aaron was smart, and had a great capacity to learn. But he was just 26. And for many of the years we knew him, he was much younger. He was very much his age, emotionally, even if he had knowledge beyond his years. To expect so much of such a young person probably puts too big a weight on shoulders that aren't prepared for it. I feel that there's a connection between Aaron's suicide and the suicide of Ilya Zhitomirskiy, one of the founders of Diaspora, and Gene Kan, who was one of the developers of Gnutella.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 12:00:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17075"
},
"7": {
"text": "I've had to deal with my share of death in my life, and one message I get from every one of them, approached from any direction, is that the dead are dead. Expressing love for their memory, support for the person, doesn't have much value, because they are not here to receive it. If you want to do something to honor a loved one's memory, be loving and kind to people who are still alive. That's the best thing you can do, always, every day.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 12:07:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17077"
},
"8": {
"text": "PS: The shortened URL for this post is http://2ea.r2.ly/. A message?",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:49:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17083"
},
"9": {
"text": "PPS: I didn't put an image on this post because people have been very harsh about a smiley on a previous post that mentioned Aaron's death.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:54:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17084",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "This is part of what I mean about not judging people's way of expressing grief.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:56:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17085"
},
"1": {
"text": "In some cultures funerals are drunken celebrations with songs and sex. Life-affirming parties to honor a friendly soul who liked to have a little fun every once in a while.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:57:55 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17087"
},
"2": {
"text": "But the Internet that has gravitated around Aaron's soul is a very stern and gray one. Even puritan.",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:58:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17088"
},
"3": {
"text": "No matter. If I feel a sentence needs a smiley, then I'm putting a fucking smiley on it and if you don't like it fuck you. :-)",
"created": "Sun, 13 Jan 2013 13:57:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17086"
}
}
}
}
},
"26": {
"text": "RSS history",
"created": "Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:18:50 GMT",
"name": "rssHistory",
"pgfnum": "17059",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "People are asking about the history of RSS today because of Aaron's passing.",
"created": "Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:18:54 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17060"
},
"1": {
"text": "In April 2004 I put together a timeline of the various specs that led to RSS 2.0 being published on the Berkman Center website in 2003.",
"created": "Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:19:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17061"
},
"2": {
"text": "http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rssVersionHistory.html",
"created": "Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:20:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17062"
},
"3": {
"text": "Hopefully this adds some light! :-)",
"created": "Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:20:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "17063"
}
}
},
"27": {
"text": "The path to static nirvana",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:52:53 GMT",
"name": "aFunnyThingHappened",
"pgfnum": "16974",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "If you're using the new static sites feature on S3 here's something to watch out for.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:53:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16976"
},
"1": {
"text": "I decided over the holidays to move scripting.com to a static site running on Amazon S3.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:53:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16977"
},
"2": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/10/accordionGuy.gif\")
It went pretty well, though uploading a folder with a huge number of files is something that we don't have good tools for with S3. But eventually I got it all up there, using a Firefox plug-in, called S3Fox Organizer. I had been using it for years, but forgot about it when I switched to Chrome last year. If you're managing large static S3 sites it's nice to have it around.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:54:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16978"
},
"3": {
"text": "Then at the end, I had as a loose-end to do the same for www.scripting.com. I wanted to have it simply redirect to scripting.com from an S3 bucket. I thought this would be a simple matter, but it turned out to be impossible, leaving me in a tough bind that I'm still in.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:55:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16979"
},
"4": {
"text": "The reason I can't do it:",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:56:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16980",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "1. Amazon rightly requires that bucket names be unique.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:56:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16981"
},
"1": {
"text": "2. Someone has a bucket named www.scripting.com. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:57:11 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16982"
},
"2": {
"text": "3. Therefore I can't have a bucket named www.scripting.com, even though I registered the domain, a long long time ago. No one has ever had it but me.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:57:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16983"
}
}
},
"5": {
"text": "I haven't tried to figure out who it is, but I probably should, and ask them nicely if they could give it up.",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:58:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16984"
},
"6": {
"text": "Right now I have a dynamic server running on EC2 doing the remap. But www.scripting.com gets a lot of traffic. It's the primary name the site went by until I became a fan of shorter names. :-)",
"created": "Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:58:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16985"
}
}
},
"28": {
"text": "Spike Lee -- see Django -- please!",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:42:23 GMT",
"name": "spikeLeeGoSeeDjangoPlease",
"pgfnum": "16943",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I'm a movie fan, but I am a software guy. Spike Lee is a movie guy and a basketball fan. I know what he thinks about movies and basketball from Twitter, which happens to be the kind of software I make. So I make software that guys like Lee use, and I love movies that guys like Lee make. That's something we have in common.",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:42:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16944"
},
"1": {
"text": "As a software guy I encourage people to use software. I'm never going to judge a piece of software without using it. There may be software I don't like but not software I don't like that I haven't used.",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:45:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16946"
},
"2": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/09/django.gif\")
That's why I wish Spike Lee would go watch Tarantino's movie, Django Unchained. Yes, they say \"nigger\" a lot. I find myself using the word in my inner conversation a lot after watching the movie (in my head it's Samuel L Jackson's Django character saying it). I don't dare say it out loud, cause I'm white, I guess. I think that kind of sucks, btw. Why can Patti Smith whose music I love sing a song with nigger in the title, but it's not cool for Tarantino or me to use the word? I don't get it.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:46:08 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16947",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "I honestly don't understand what the problem is. I'd like to understand. Maybe it's that Spike Lee would like to do a movie about slavery but can't get it funded? Surely he doesn't think no movies about slavery should be made? I can't get behind that idea. I think a lot of the BS in this country going on around the Tea Party and all the gun zealotry is all part of the legacy of slavery. We're still living in the country that was founded on slavery. Even right here in New York. (A lot of people don't know that the slave trade came through NYC.)",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:47:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16948"
},
"4": {
"text": "You know Mississippi is still a shit state. Maybe if more people see the movie they'll understand why it's such shit. It's because their ancestors treated human beings as property. It wasn't that they used a disrespectful word. It was something much worse.",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:48:38 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16949"
},
"5": {
"text": "Tarantino is an artist who communicates with audacity, but also with a wink. I saw Inglorious Basterds and laughed at the idea of a bunch of Jewish vigilantes in the American Army in World War II in Nazi Germany. I esp liked that Hitler liked Tarantino movies. And you know what -- I'm Jewish, and while I don't want to try to compare the pain my people feel around those events to the feelings of blacks have around slavery, there is something to be said for looking at these events with more of our senses, from different points of view, and thinking about them in ways different from the ways our ancestors taught us to think about them.",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:49:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16950"
},
"6": {
"text": "I just don't support the idea of not listening to the artist because -- because what? I don't even understand what the issue is.",
"created": "Wed, 09 Jan 2013 20:51:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16951"
}
}
},
"29": {
"text": "A new wordpress.com reader?",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:01:00 GMT",
"image": "http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/08/accordionGuy.gif",
"name": "aNewWordpresscomReader",
"pgfnum": "16862",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "It's been about a year since wordpress.com released their RSS reader functionality.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:01:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16863"
},
"1": {
"text": "Here's a screen shot of the reader taken earlier today. And here's a link to the Matt Mullenweg post where he says a new version is shipping this week.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:01:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16864"
},
"2": {
"text": "If you have an account on wordpress.com, this link should take you to the reader.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:10:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16871"
},
"3": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/08/accordionGuy.gif\")
It'd be interesting to speculate on what might be in a new reader.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:02:03 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16865"
},
"4": {
"text": "1. I have subscribed to several feeds but only one appears to be updating today. That should change after I publish this post, since I am subscribed to this feed.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:03:45 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16866"
},
"5": {
"text": "2. Their UI says that you can subscribe to a blog, but that's confusing -- I have feeds that are not in any way associated with a blog. How can I subscribe to them? (I assume they will accept the URL of a feed, in addition to a blog.)",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:04:16 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16867",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Update: You can enter a feed URL.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:13:59 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16872"
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "3. There's a ton of whitespace on the reader page. It's nice to have a little space between items, but it's also nice to get some news on the page too! (Sorry for the sarcasm.)",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:04:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16868"
},
"7": {
"text": "4. Is there a way to import or export an OPML subscription list?",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:05:36 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16869"
},
"8": {
"text": "5. I would, if I were them, strip the markup from descriptions. When I'm skimming, the markup is disruptive. The goal should be to have every post take exactly the same amount of vertical height, and not very much. They human brain is great at skimming, if you set things up the right way.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:08:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16870"
},
"9": {
"text": "6. This is what my ideal for a reader looks like.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:15:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16873"
},
"10": {
"text": "7. BTW, I like that they did a river of news, and not a mail-oriented reader. It's the right way to go, imho.",
"created": "Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:16:18 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16874"
}
}
},
"30": {
"text": "AP challenges Twitter with feed ad",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:56:42 GMT",
"name": "apChallengesTwitterWithFeedAd",
"pgfnum": "16829",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I have a lot of thoughts about this development, but first -- to note it.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:56:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16830"
},
"1": {
"text": "AP is now running its own ads in its Twitter feed, to its 1.5 million followers.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:57:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16831"
},
"2": {
"text": "The first ads are for Samsung. They don't use Twitter's ad platform. Twitter is sure to object.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:57:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16832"
},
"3": {
"text": "A few questions follow from this.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:57:40 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16833"
},
"4": {
"text": "1. How did the AP get 1.5 million followers? Did Twitter promote their feed? If so, it seems Twitter has a legitimate right to the revenue flow from their ad feed. Do they have a contractual right to it?",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:57:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16834"
},
"5": {
"text": "2. What happens if Twitter shuts them off as they did with developers? What might a shut-off look like when it comes to a content feed? For developers it meant that their API calls were not handled.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:58:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16835"
},
"6": {
"text": "3. What do other content companies plan to do here? Do you all think of Twitter as another channel for your content flow? Do you have plans to monetize it? Do you envision your paywall, if you have one, ever extending to your Twitter feed?",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:59:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16836"
},
"7": {
"text": "4. Why is there a picture of a frog on the AP's Twitter page? :-)",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:03:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16840"
},
"8": {
"text": "Now, my ready-made answers.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:00:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16837"
},
"9": {
"text": "1. Don't put ads in your feed, instead think of your feed as a flow of ads pointing to your content. Put ads on the pages you point to from your feed.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:00:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16838"
},
"10": {
"text": "2. Don't depend on Twitter to be a common carrier. They are a media company, like you. You're using a competitor to connect with your readers. This is not a healthy situation.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:00:35 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16839"
}
}
},
"31": {
"text": "I couldn't watch",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 02:14:29 GMT",
"name": "iCouldntWatch",
"pgfnum": "16811",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/06/screen.gif\")
I made a point to sit down and try to watch a Sunday morning news show today, but I couldn't make it through five minutes. It's not that I was bored, it wasn't boring. They were just freaking me out. These people have lost their minds. I've never seen it this dysfunctional. It was like watching a very drunk person get behind the wheel and drive away, down Highway 1 north of San Francisco. A windy road 1000 feet up a sheer cliff. At the bottom of the cliff, rocks and sea. Make a wrong turn at the wrong moment and everything goes. Isn't there someone who can take the keys out of their hands? It's so weird.",
"created": "Mon, 07 Jan 2013 02:14:34 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16812"
}
}
},
"32": {
"text": "The TWC iPad app",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:16:12 GMT",
"name": "theTwcIpadApp",
"pgfnum": "16804",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Is anyone else using the Time-Warner iPad app?",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:16:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16805"
},
"1": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/06/santaCoke.gif\")
It's surprisingly useful, because it turns your iPad into a remote for the cable box. The remote it comes with is the usual piece of junk. Mine is worse than usual because about half the keys don't work. So to get to channel 48, I have to enter 5 then a 0 and click the downarrow twice. I've learned how to find the most important channels this way, but I can't believe I'm actually willing to do this.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:16:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16806"
},
"2": {
"text": "Then I got the iPad app, and have set up my favorites, and I can just click on the name of the channel I want to go to and the iPad sends a message to TWC's mainframe in the cloud, which then sends a message to my set top box to switch to the channel I just clicked on. It all happens in an instant. Pretty cool.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:17:53 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16807"
},
"3": {
"text": "But last night it stopped working. I get a tune error message at the top of the screen when I try to switch to any channel. Here's a screen shot of the error on my iPod. Same app.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:19:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16808"
},
"4": {
"text": "Really sucks. I'm putting this out there in case anyone else is having problems or knows what box I have to kick to get this working. I have already recycled the power on everything in sight.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:19:25 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16809"
}
}
},
"33": {
"text": "Clyde makes Knicks games hum",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:10:29 GMT",
"name": "clydeMakesTheKnicks",
"pgfnum": "16784",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/06/frazier.gif\")
You know how I say there's room for something between a tweet and a blog post? Like this one. A simple idea worth a few words, but not too many.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:10:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16785"
},
"1": {
"text": "I like watching Knicks games on MSG because one of the guys calling the plays is an ex-NBA superstar, and a really smart guy, who takes his job very seriously -- Walt Frazier.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:11:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16787"
},
"2": {
"text": "His narrative, I realized watching the game last night, is what goes through the mind of a player on the court. And because he's so smart and cares so much, it's quite a narrative. He loves the sport, and he loves the players, and he loves great basketball. And while the nature of the job isn't to be overly critical, if you listen carefully you can hear what he doesn't like. In a word, lackadaisical play, a term he uses more than he should. :-)",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:11:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16788",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "What Clyde doesn't like:",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:25:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16791",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "1. Cross-court passing.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:25:56 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16792"
},
"1": {
"text": "2. If you don't play D.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:26:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16793"
},
"2": {
"text": "3. Lazy players.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:26:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16794"
}
}
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "But it's all good. Thanks Clyde for making it real.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:13:12 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16790",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
},
"1": {
"text": "\"They're still paying homage to JR for his antics.\"",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:31:44 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16797"
}
}
}
}
},
"34": {
"text": "Stop bullshitting",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 15:03:10 GMT",
"name": "stopBullshitting",
"pgfnum": "16723",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "This is the best piece you'll read all day, maybe all year.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 14:35:41 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16724"
},
"1": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/06/daveWinerLinkedToMe.gif\")
When people are near death they start telling the truth. I know this from experience. I got to hang out with my father for a full week when he was in hospice in the week before he died. He was never a big truth-teller. He used to say \"Don't truth me and I won't truth you.\" But that week was different. He had a bunch of things he wanted to get off his chest. He didn't go so far as to forgive anyone, or say things that would make him vulnerable or embarassed. A lifetime of holding back on these things doesn't break in a week, no matter how close you are to death. And it wasn't his fault. He grew up into a world that told men that they had to be strong. And any emotion other than anger would scare the people around him. That such a person would grow a hard impenetrable shell is no surprise.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 14:35:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16725"
},
"2": {
"text": "I've had the near-death experience myself, twice -- once when I was very young, and once a little over ten years ago. I suppose it's a reason some people find me hard to accept. But it's also the reason, I think, that the people who love me, do. If I presented an image of who they want to see, or who I think they want to see, then it's the image they love, not the person. Now that does not mean you should tell people what you think all the time in every context. But you can change, and apologize and forgive, at any time, without asking anyone's permission, and without fear of offending. Even if you come in a package that most people don't associate with change, regret or forgiveness.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 14:43:29 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16726",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": ""
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Don't miss the opportunity to clean house and have a great rest of your life, even if you haven't narrowly escaped death.",
"created": "Sun, 06 Jan 2013 14:47:24 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16727"
}
}
},
"35": {
"text": "Dynamic forms into Javascript objects?",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:40:52 GMT",
"name": "dynamicFormsIntoObjects",
"pgfnum": "16633",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "I have a JavaScript question today.",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:41:02 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16634"
},
"1": {
"text": "I have a form with lots of input elements whose names I can't hard-code into the JavaScript. I have to be prepared for anything that might be there.",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:41:13 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16635"
},
"2": {
"text": "On a certain event I want to grab the values of all the input elements and put them into a JavaScript object, each as a property, with the name of the input becoming the name of the property.",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:41:39 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16636"
},
"3": {
"text": "I can get a nodelist of all the input elements in the form, as follows:",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:42:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16637",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "var inputs = document.getElementById (\"myDialog\").getElementsByTagName (\"input\");",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:12:48 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16622"
}
}
},
"4": {
"text": "Now, I have a global called myValues that I want to get all the values from the inputs into.",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:43:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16639"
},
"5": {
"text": "This is what I think the loop should look like (but it doesn't work).",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:44:42 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16641",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "for (var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++) {",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "myValues [inputs [i].name] = inputs [i].value;"
},
"1": {
"text": "}"
}
}
}
}
},
"6": {
"text": "I've looked at various Stack Overflow pages, of course.",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:46:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16643"
},
"7": {
"text": "Any help much appreciated!",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:46:50 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16644"
},
"8": {
"text": "Update: It works. :-)",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:14:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16661",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Here's the actual test app.",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:14:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16662"
},
"1": {
"text": "http://prefstest.blorkmark.com/",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:14:49 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16663"
},
"2": {
"text": "I think the mistake I was making was initializing appPrefs to [] when it should have been {}.",
"collapse": "true",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:14:58 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16664",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/04/objectdump.gif\")
"
}
}
},
"3": {
"text": "Still getting my wobbly JS sea legs to settle down. :-)",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:15:32 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16665"
},
"4": {
"text": "Thanks for all the help!!",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:15:52 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16666"
}
}
}
}
},
"36": {
"text": "Recreational marijuana in the US?",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:32:44 GMT",
"name": "recreationalMarijuanaInTheUs",
"pgfnum": "16614",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/04/bud.gif\")
It's now 2013 and I hear that marijuana is legal in two states.",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:33:19 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16615"
},
"1": {
"text": "If you're in Colorado or Washington, what's it like?",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:33:37 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16616"
},
"2": {
"text": "Do you see people smoking in public places?",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:33:51 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16617"
},
"3": {
"text": "Have any stores opened?",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:34:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16618"
},
"4": {
"text": "Any unforseen consequences?",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:34:14 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16619"
},
"5": {
"text": "Really curious to know what legal marijuana is like...",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:34:21 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16620"
},
"6": {
"text": "Do tell! :-)",
"created": "Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:34:31 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16621"
}
}
},
"37": {
"text": "Discuss on Twitter? No.",
"created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 23:41:26 GMT",
"name": "discussOnTwitter",
"pgfnum": "16610",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "", "collapse": "true" } } }, "38": { "text": "Medicine is stuck in the 20th century", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:17:02 GMT", "name": "medicineIsStuckInThe20thCentury", "pgfnum": "16583", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "At 57, I see doctors pretty regularly. They take blood, listen to this, look into that. I don't do nearly all they want me to do, but I would like to do more. I understand there's a connection between how I feel and look, and how long I'll live.", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:17:16 GMT", "pgfnum": "16584" }, "1": { "text": "I would do more of it, if it integrated with the rest of my life better. Having to wait for returned calls when ever I have to do something with my doctor's office -- so wasteful. Makes me avoid doing things with them. Why can't we use the new communication tools.", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:23:57 GMT", "pgfnum": "16588" }, "2": { "text": "While various professions and industries have changed the way they communicate, doctors and their staff have not. For example, there's an app for the iPad from my pharmacy. When it's time to re-order prescription drugs, I don't have to call anyone, or wade through a voicemail tree, I just click a few buttons on a couple of screens, and the meds are waiting at the pharmacy down the street.", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:18:31 GMT", "pgfnum": "16585" }, "3": { "text": "But if for some reason they have to talk to the doctor, it all reverts to faxes and phone tag. The contrast is stark. The doctors themselves probably don't have to deal with it, but they do have to pay for the human beings who implement all the steps manually, when they could do it with websites and email. And their patients have to deal with it too. BTW. :-)", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:02:22 GMT", "pgfnum": "16598" }, "4": { "text": "I'm sure there are doctors that use the new communication tools. Does yours?", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:03:42 GMT", "pgfnum": "16595" } } }, "39": { "text": "Making web archives safe", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:24:00 GMT", "name": "makingWebArchivesSafe", "pgfnum": "16578", "type": "thread", "subs": { "0": { "text": "This is an important subject.", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:24:17 GMT", "pgfnum": "16580" }, "1": { "text": "I just moved scripting.com, a site that goes back to 1995, from an Apache server to an S3 bucket. In the process we generated a zip file that contains everything. It seems to me that archive is a piece of history.", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:24:17 GMT", "pgfnum": "16581" }, "2": { "text": "What university is ready to receive such a gift?", "created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:24:18 GMT", "pgfnum": "16582" }, "3": { "text": "BTW, I try not to discuss stuff on Twitter. With its 140-char limit, hard to express anything complex or subtle.
— Dave Winer .& (@davewiner) January 3, 2013
![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/03/arnoSchmidt.gif\")
Background: I have a famous great uncle from Germany who was an author and translator. His work is studied in universities. My mother ended up with (paper) copies of all his books from his own collection. We went on a search for a university that would add them to their collection, and found one, and now we're fairly confident we did the right thing for Uncle Arno's legacy."
},
"4": {
"text": "But with digital stuff, who is going to make a big deal out of receiving a zip archive, when anyone's copy is exactly the same as all the others?"
},
"5": {
"text": "In other words, how can I make this bit of history safe? I have no clue."
}
}
},
"40": {
"text": "What to do with archives?",
"created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:07:09 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16575",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "My mother's uncle, Arno Schmidt, was a published author in Germany. It's a long story how she ended up with a small collection of his books, but a couple of years ago she decided she wanted to donate them to a university. I've been interested in archives, so I volunteered to help.",
"created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:07:23 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16576"
},
"1": {
"text": "I wrote a blog post, got some interest, and in the end we donated the books to Portland State University. They had a scholar there who studied my uncle, so we felt we did a good job of finding a home for his writing.",
"created": "Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:10:07 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16577"
}
}
},
"41": {
"text": "Seek the geek",
"created": "Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:08:24 GMT",
"name": "seekTheGeek",
"pgfnum": "16570",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "Yesterday, the first day of the new year, I walked through Times Square to see what aftermath of the big party. The square was more or less empty, except for a few bits of random glitter blown about by sanitation workers, not much was going on.",
"created": "Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:08:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16572",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/02/seeTheGeek.jpg\")
",
"created": "Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:08:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16571"
}
}
},
"1": {
"text": "So I had a chance to look more carefully at the incredible array of light shows in the square. One of them apparently had some image detection software, it tuned into me, and put my picture on the billboard for all to see. In a variety of ways! Wow.",
"created": "Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:09:43 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16573"
},
"2": {
"text": "We're getting pretty close to Minority Report stuff. I shot a picture and showed it to some friends. Everyone found it confusing. Who took the picture, they wanted to know. Me, of course. See if you can figure it out. Then watch the video on Vimeo that explains.",
"created": "Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:14:06 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16574"
}
}
},
"42": {
"text": "Moving scripting.com to S3",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:11:21 GMT",
"name": "movingScriptingcomToS3",
"pgfnum": "16558",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "With the new static sites feature in Amazon S3, it should now be possible to host scripting.com in an S3 bucket.",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:11:27 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16559"
},
"1": {
"text": "This is my first project of the new year. We hope. Knock wood. :-)",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:11:47 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16560"
},
"2": {
"text": "I have a script that will upload all the files from scripting.com, some dating back to 1994, to the bucket.",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:12:01 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16561"
},
"3": {
"text": "I would like to, if possible, preserve the creation and mod dates on the files. Through all the transitions over all the years, I have managed to do that because my scripts have been careful to transfer this metadata along with the actual data.",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:12:30 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16562"
},
"4": {
"text": "Now I'm trying to figure out if this is possible with S3. I see how you can associate metadata with a file as you upload it. However I don't see a way to transfer the modification and creation dates. If anyone has a clue, the help would be much appreciated.",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:13:04 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16563"
},
"5": {
"text": "PS: I know scripting.com is down for most people now. Unfortunately this transition has not been without glitches. And there are broken images too! Still diggin.",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:14:00 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16564"
}
}
},
"43": {
"text": "Happy New Year!",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:02:22 GMT",
"name": "happyNewYear",
"pgfnum": "16555",
"type": "thread",
"subs": {
"0": {
"text": "![\"A](\"http://static.scripting.com/larryKing/images/2013/01/01/glitter.jpg\")
",
"created": "Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:02:28 GMT",
"pgfnum": "16556"
}
}
}
}
}
}
}; //7/9/15 by DW