FeedCity

RSS never had a big corporation acting as a benefactor, but to some extent Harvard did play that role, though it didn't have an ego when it came to this stuff, and it didn't behave like a tech corporation (good thing!), but it was at Harvard that the podcasting bootstrap cent...

Why does Apple invent their own proprietary plugs when everyone else does USB? Even if you don't like to speak ill of Apple, you know why they do it. They want to control who can make add-ons to their products in hardware, just as they do in software. I still buy their products, but I also buy products that use standards, so I can use them on lots of devices. Now, the same thing happens in software from other people and companies. They can choose to use what already exists, or invent their own. Example, I chose MP3 for podcasting, did not invent a new format. If I were to do a social web network, I would use RSS, I wouldn't invent a new format. I want interop. I want to create an open platform, I don't mind making money, but that's not why I do it.

Podcast: The Knicks won game 5.

Thinking (for a moment) of splurging on tickets for Game 7 at the Garden on Monday. I've been following the prices during the playoffs, never seen them this high. There's no guarantee there will be a Game 7, first the Knicks have to win tomorrow in Indiana. Courtside seats go for $27K each.

A somewhat obscure question about how feed readers should handle content:encoded elements in WordPress feeds.

I'm working on something that requires an endless stream of test posts. Sometimes when I start writing I end up something that should be published. Should I edit it? Nah. this shit is hard. when it's done it looks simple. but these piece must fit together. that's why it's s...

BTW, just for fun, a search for Ole and Lena jokes. 😄

And btw, that's why I wanted Chris Lydon to do interviews with people in his audience who are tripping out on all the new power they're getting from AI. How is it augmenting their work? I know Chris well enough that he probably thinks it's not for him, too technical -- but th...

I love this piece about Anthony Edwards and how the OKC's guard against him by double-teaming, so he can't have the ball, and that allows them to steal the ball more often from other Minnesotan ball-handlers, and also limits Edwards opportunities to shoot, but it does make it...

I asked ChatGPT to review my archive on the Knicks and to summarize my feelings about the team over the years. This is what they said. "Your sentiments toward the New York Knicks over the years appear to be a blend of enduring loyalty, cautious optimism, and occasional frustration. Your writings reflect a deep-rooted connection to the team, celebrating their victories and expressing hope during promising times. At the same time, you don't shy away from critiquing management decisions or expressing disappointment during less successful periods. This combination suggests a passionate fan who remains committed to the Knicks, appreciating their highs and thoughtfully analyzing their lows."

The Knicks are playing the Pacers tonight. Very pivotal. If the Knicks win, it becomes a best of three series, and two of the three games are played at home. Not necessarily so great for the Knicks, they do well on the road. The players say it has something to do with being able to focus on the game and not on family, that came from Mikal Bridges.

I feel like I should help Harvard, because Harvard helped me, and if you use podcasting or RSS, it helped you too. In 2002, I was ready to leave Silicon Valley, and RSS needed a safe place to be parked, or I felt the tech industry would keep trying to own it, and make it fa...

I never really had any opinion about the Indiana Pacers. Honestly I was surprised they even made the playoffs this year. And they did catch the Knicks with their pants down, after clearing out the reigning champion Boston Celtics in the second round of the playoffs this yea...

It was so predictable. Shortly after Pete Rose died, baseball rescinded his lifetime ban, and now he can be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

He had more hits than any baseball player ever.

A role model in so many ways, and like all heroes he had fatal flaws. You may think he set a bad example for kids, but I say the opposite. You don't give kids enough credit. What he taught was that a man with average athletic ability could will himself to achieve.

I grew up with a Pete Rose ethos, why shouldn't I go for it all? I feel so sad that he couldn't have gotten the acceptance he so totally deserved. How could we not forgive him? He was Charlie Hustle! ❤️

A day away from the blog. Really enjoying the NBA playoffs, even though the Knicks are still in it. Nice turnaround after the first quarter for the Minnesotas. Still hoping for a finals between them and the Knicks. It'll be interesting to see how the Knicks change their lineup. Hopefully no more isolation-ball with Brunson. It's boring and doesn't work. Melo 2.0. Might make sense if he was LeBron, but he's not and LeBron's game is boring anyway. Let's do this well, win or lose.

I would pay extra for cable service to have no money go to Fox.

I should mention that you can follow my daveverse blog, which I write using WordLand, on Mastodon -- @scripting@daveverse.org. Mastodon preserves links and styling, and doesn't seem to have a size limit. I can edit my posts and you get the updates. So Mastodon kind of informally has become a blogging system, which I totally applaud. It checks a lot of the boxes on my textcasting manifesto. Slowly the world is starting to make sense.

A couple of little tweaks to Daytona. It now has a history menu which it saves in local storage. It's useful to be able to come back to a recent search. It remembers the last 50 searches this way. Also had to add a little hack that turns off other copies of Daytona when another one launches. Use a local storage trick, save a random string to a fixed location, and every second check to see if its value has changed. If it has, another copy of Daytona has launched, so I redirect to the home page of my blog.

Has Harvard considered opening a satellite campus outside the United States? If the Trumps keep making demands, like demanding that they stop admitting students from outside the US, the students the US government rejects could still go to Harvard, be taught by the same teachers, collaborate and socialize with other Harvard-quality students, without interference from Trump. I imagine there are a few countries that would be willing to help. If you want to really make a point, open it in China.

The Beatles

Personal computers

The web

Napster

AI

The Knicks got beat last night. And the game seemed so won. When Brunson sat down in the fourth period because he was in foul trouble, the Knicks and a huge run that put them up by 17 with less than 3 minutes remaining. My numbers might be slightly off. Then they brought Brun...

I mentioned Chris Lydon's weblog for the ears and got an email back, and this made me think some more. We need someone to do a canvas of how intellectuals use ChatGPT-like systems to advance their research and creativity, or just for learning or fun. It's the same kind of op...

Prompt: Draw me the cover of a fictitious magazine called RSS Land. On the cover a picture of a news room, and in small type along the right edge titles of stories. Make it interesting.

I turn off CNN when they start a segment on Jake Tapper’s book. The level of hypocrisy is intense. Who covered up what? Please. I remember Hillary's Emails. And weapons of mass destruction. And Trump may not be good for America but he's sure good for CBS. And on and on. They think we don't think. But their influence is getting close to nil. American news is one story at a time, debates between boring people saying the same bullshit over and over. Democrats who stumble over their words. An occasional glypse of Bernie or AOC. Something to get your bile up, and the next one and the one after that, but it doesn't work anymore. What Biden did or didn't do is no more relevant on CNN than it is on Fox.

MySQL, which I'm using for Daytona, has the idea of relevance in searches. Previously I had been showing results in reverse chronologic order. So now, a search for Matt Mullenweg gets the same results but prioritized by what MySQL thinks are the most relevant results.

I've been looking up all kinds of things now that my new Daytona search engine has access to my blogging going back to 1994. I just did a search for Mullenweg, and came up with this blog post by Matt in 2006 about the Feed Validator. The clarity is remarkable, and he's of course right. The people running the validator were actually promoting Atom over RSS, and were trying to tilt the table towards Atom. The goal was interop, not to give Google or IBM control of the syndication format of the open web. When you keep changing your mind about what to flag and what to pass you end up with a standard that's as murky as the tariff policy of the US in 2025. I think you have to assume that was the goal. They didn't like that RSS didn't fall apart when Atom came out. If there's no benefit in changing, people don't change.

How to understand Trump talking about tariffs. Remember how he talked about Covid. Same thing.

When I announced Chris Lydon's podcast in 2003, I called it a weblog for the ears. We didn't have the name podcasting yet.