About polls, I learned how they work and how much they are a Ouija board, where the reports are tuned up based on the pollsters assumptions about who are the real voters, and account for the limited people who can be polled. They're trying to estimate what millions of people will do by talking with a few hundred. So they read each others' work, and try not to be too far off the consensus. It's at best an art, at worst they're just press releases designed to get the ad money to flow in certain directions. Don't overlook that the money is flowing to the same businesses that are choosing which polls to report on. Most of what the news orgs report on, it makes it into a sport like the NBA or MLB, but there at least there's objective news to report on, you know -- the score of each game, how many runs were scored, who got injured, fired, traded. In politics, there is no objective news, and if there were, the journalists we have don't report it. There's a lot of inputs that are connected to the outputs, conflicts of interest everywhere. Even so, the top item on Memeorandum is about a poll in Iowa that says Harris is ahead. Iowa was never thought to be in play. Yes, I too am addicted. Endlessly fascinated. Maybe we'll survive next week after all? Hope.#

Heard on Facebook: Next week has been exhausting. Yes.#

Programming language design should follow the half of Postel's Principle that says be "conservative in what you send." There should be one way to do anything, not many. That way I can include your code in mine and vice versa. I can understand what you're doing. Tools can be developed that make it even easier to do things the only way they work. New programming languages if they really are necessary should strive to simplify the programming model, there should be less things for the developer to worry about, the more easily new ideas can be developed, the less attention you have to pay to how you'll do something over what it does. I actually don't support the other half of Postel, in everything but user interface where I do support it. I don't think in general software interfaces should be liberal with what they understand because that defeats the first half. They sort of zero each other out. #

See also: Rules for standards-makers. Language design and protocol design are the same thing. #

People may question my credentials as a language designer. I've designed a very innovative system that unfortunately the academics don't think is worth studying. It's utterly ridiculous. Who says you can only learn from systems developed at big companies or universities. I cover a lot of ground, it's true -- no one gave me permission to create Frontier, but I didn't feel I needed permission. Or funding for that matter. I think what happened is Apple positioned us as less significant than their system scripting language, and people just accepted that, when Frontier is a far superior system. Anyway, the ideas are there anyway, and you're welcome to learn from them. #

Must-read: “It’s extremely difficult for decent people to accept that there are some people who simply do not share their values about truth and basic human kindness. This is what the sociopath counts on.”#

Unfortunately the only place you can read this Dan Conover piece is on Facebook about the failure of the NY Times and Washington Post to adequately defend democracy. He says something I had not seen elsewhere. "We're not talking about HuffPo or Salon here. We're talking about the last two 'unique nationals' standing in American print journalism. Institutions with long and storied histories. Both took the same test at the same time, and both failed it." I'd add that all other journalism usually follows their lead, but that may be finally changing. #

Meanwhile, it's amazing that both CNN and MSNBC have gotten serious about covering the reality of Trump 2.0 after being very unserious for the last year. It's as if after rejecting Joe Biden, months later they realized they rejected the wrong guy.#

We now understand that the Republicans derive their power through division, setting groups against each other. We think the Democrats are the opposite, they are inclusive, everyone is welcome there. But that's not true. This NPR piece touches on it, gingerly, because it's the third rail in non-Republican politics. Because it's one of the divisions that's maintained by people who are mostly Democrats. If you want to know if you're part of the problem, measure your own feelings when you find out what it's about. And then listen, carefully to the words. It might be hard to hear because I think most people who do this don't think they do, or they're justified in doing it. They don't want to look here. But the pragmatic reason to focus on this is that in future elections, assuming we have them, if we can make an effort to not do this, we could get enough Republican votes to switch to make real change possible. They might even become our most vocal supporters. Winning in politics is done by focusing on common interests over division. #

The monthly archive for October has been saved. By the end of this month we'll know a lot more than we know now.#

I did the first demo of my new editor to a couple of developers I'm working with on our ActivityPub project, something I'm ever-more-excited about. Happy to say the demo was a success. They appeared to love the product, and for the right reasons. It makes WordPress into a fantastic writer's platform. This is what I love to do more than anything. People think I'm most interested in protocols and formats, but that's just part of it, and not the main part. I love making writing tools. I got interested in that in the late 70s working on editors for programming languages, then ran a company that made the same kind of editor, outliners, for writers, and then with Frontier went back to programmers. Now I'm trying something new. I want to create a whole category of editors. Editors where none existed before but should be there. The web. Instead what we have in 2024 is a lot of tiny little text boxes that hoard your writing making it pointless for developers to compete for writing tools that writers love. So writing on the web remains something that's not for writers. That's freaking stupid! Anyway right in the middle of all this is the perfect product, really a platform -- WordPress. It needs 100 great editors. I'm going to provide the first, and the toolkit to create more. Then Murphy-willing I'm going to create another editor, to show that it can be done. Then I'm going to kick back and smell the roses, a lifetime's work done, so now I can play. It's looking like the plan might just work.#

I voted today at the early voting place in Saugerties, NY. #

There should be a prize for developers who create the most interop. #

A few days I concluded that Trump doesn't think he's going to win. Now it seems he doesn't want to win.#

When we vote we are governing, not expressing ourselves or protesting. It's not just the first amendment, it's the whole thing. #

What Musk has been saying is cover for what the oligarchs did to the Soviet Union as it was breaking apart. Only the US has vastly more wealth. And unlike Trump, Musk understands how money works, presumably Putin does too. They want the entire flow of cash that's generated by the US economy to go through them. So "richest man in the world" doesn't begin to cover Musk's ambition. He wants "all the money in the world." Forget about any benefit from government, that's over. The health care system would fall apart. The situation with abortion is just the beginning. When Musk says it'll come back better after a few years, that's a lie. Something like that never comes back. We've encountered this before, when the Repubs were threatening default. #

Progress on the YouTube TV front. Thanks to all the responses, I've gotten F*cks News out of the startup position, but it still appears in the upper left corner of the 2-by-2 news multiview display, and thus is the default, and when I launch it I hear them talking which is not pleasant. Further I always have to see what their freaking chyron says, and the commercials from the Hitler-fanboi pillow salesman. Basically I want to be able to see what they're doing when I want to, but never have it forced on me. Help. #

The Major League Baseball season is finally over. The no-philosophy mess in the Bronx was near-swept by the infidels from California, on their home field no less, so we expect Jankee Estadium to be either haunted in perpetuity or torn down (latter solution preferable) and replaced with something more appropriate, hopefully very far away from Queens, maybe they'd consider moving to California too? Since the Jankees fans only sanction winning, I don't imagine too many would mind if they had to hate them from afar? And now NY baseball is united in our disrespect from the so-called Bronx Bombers, whose bombs were duds this year. Anyway the Mets did better against the Dodgers in the NLCS, and their star hitter wasn't injured when the lovable Metsies played them. The Mets scored far more runs and of course far more philosophy. And in a desperate attempt to win, when losing was already baked-in, two Janks fans were ejected for trying to interfere with a Dodger outfielder on a stinking foul ball! I mean if you want to try to steal the game, at least have the good sense to interfere with a home run? Not too smart. Oh well. At least the Janks were humiliated, a bright spot for baseball in the Big Apple. #

YouTube TV when it starts up, the station it automatically opens is Fox News. I posted this on various social webs and heard from people this is not their experience. #

"When your house is on fire there aren’t two sides." A few people misunderstood. In this analogy there are no arsonists. There is the house and there is fire. If you were reporting on this situation, you don't need to find out what motivates the fire, the only important thing is that if not checked it will destroy the house.#

I started to read Ben Thompson's email newsletter Stratechery this morning, it was about Trump on Joe Rogan's podcast, which I didn't want to listen to, because I am overdosing on Trump, again. I was surprised to see it begins with the story of podcasting, which has my name in it, which was gratifying. A lot of people will read that. I'm including a screen shot of the beginning because his newsletter is not something you can read without a subscription.#

The people who are alive right now are the first to create knowledge that we know in advance will be part of LLM databases. So far we've heard from the resisters, the ones who don't want any part of this. But what about people who want to create knowledge in the maximally useful form? Are there any howto's for this? A busy writer's guide to creating human knowledge? #

It appears Trump expects to lose.#

If the Washington Post already had their endorsement written when is it going to leak?#

Listened to Charlemagne tha God for the first time on the New Yorker podcast. I agree with everything he said. Really glad that people with clear mind and purpose are using our medium to do the good we hoped for. Best part was where he quoted Obama agreeing that things don't change when you elect a new president. Change can't come that fast unless we bring a substantial majority of other Americans with us. The vote isn't a way to make change, it isn't a way to express yourself, it's your role in governing our country. It's not the First Amendment or the Second Amendment, it's the whole Constitution. It's the most power every one of us gets. Even the president doesn't have the power of our votes. You don't get a specific result from your vote, that would be the fascism that we're trying to avoid. It's the consenus that build that makes the difference. And Obama is too modest because he made at least a couple of big changes. First, everyone has a right to health insurance now because we elected Obama. That's no small deal, coming from someone who has depended on health insurance to survive, a couple of times. And second, we stirred the racial pot in this country in a positive way. Not to say we got peace and love as a result. Because there are a lot of white folks who don't want that pot stirred. But that was change nonetheless. The only way we get there, and I've said this many times, is by working together. Blame is powerless. Acceptance is powerful. #

I bet Bezos wishes he owned Twitter instead of Musk.#

Will there be Nazi flags at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally?#

Lots of Yankees fans at the Garden yesterday to see the great Knicks team of last year show up for the first time. The game in Boston on Tuesday was disheartening. It's a new team with the core of last year's team. And when the fans started roaring when there was nothing happening on the court, last night at the (NY) Garden, it was because the Yankees had scored in the World Series game 2794 miles away in Los Angeles. This is the inconvenience of being a Knicks fan who hates the freaking Yankees. We have to share an NBA team. The Knicks are much more like the Mets than that other team. That's why it's so incredible to see the 2024 Knicks be able to manage both ends of the court, and completely shut down a team that last year beat them in playoffs, the Pacers, just like last year, but better. A validation of everything. Now the team has to stay healthy. But, even if they don't fly the Nazi flag at Trump's rally tomorrow, you know that they want to, and some of them probably brought them. It's a funny time for the Garden. The owner of the Garden btw is James Dolan. We try to overlook that he owns the Knicks and he seems to be cooperating by staying out of the our faces. But he is known as a vile man to the people of New York.#

BTW if you're thinking why don't we just go for the Nets. As I've said here many times, there aren't actually any Nets fans to speak of in NY. That was the huge self-parody Kevin Durant did when he claimed there was some kind of rivalry between the Nets and the Knicks. Really unfortunate unforced error he could have just asked a few people where are all the Nets fans. #

So when the Dodger hit the walk-off grand slam last night, half of me was ecstatic because the Yankees were beaten, but oops, but I hate it even more that the freaking Dodgers won. This World Series is unique in that I desperately want both teams to lose. What do you do with that??#

Tonight's song: Unbroken Chain.#

Maybe political parties should have strongmen, that might have prevented us from having one as the head of the government. #

I just changed the header graphic for my blog from the 1969 Mets, to the 2024 Supreme Court. They're Americans too, and I have a feeling they're going to be on the train to Aurora or Springfield before too long, if the worst happens. #

What a sad situation. What started with the open web in the 90s is now owned by billionaires, who, looking for new worlds to conquer have adopted a fascist buffoon as their frontman. It was never supposed to be owned by anyone.#

Podcast: WordPress is too valuable to overlook. #

When your house is on fire there aren’t two sides.#

If only voters understood that government isn't a TV show.#

Last night I was surprised to see Wolf Blitzer reporting, on CNN, on all the worst things Trump has said, with supporting video. On CNN, one of the worst sanewashing sources for our would-be despot. I can't imagine what happened there. Or maybe I can. Is it possible that the owners of CNN who might have gotten an education and possibly studied a little history from teachers who remembered WW II, and understood that Trump's lines are straight from Mein Kampf, and maybe perhaps possibly maybe with only two weeks to go before the election started envisioning themselves and family on trains to American death camps. After all CNN ran some perceivably negative stuff about Trump, and who knows maybe President Trump won't be so discerning and might just have all media people euthanized. It could happen. Maybe visions of their own mortality caught up with them and they decided to let Blitzer do what he can to douse the flames. Oddly the same thing seems to have happened at the NY Times and the Atlantic, and Trump's former Chief of Staff has gone on the record now, with audio, explaining what we all know is waiting for us if the US actually goes down the path it appears we quite possibly are going down. #

I think it's probably too late, anyway. Journalism should have reported, constantly, that the house is on fire. And nothing else. Biden's age didn't enter into it you fools. The much bigger story was and is that Hitler wants to be president, and this time he has a plan. It was true then and it's true now. The next question is what will Biden do if Trump wins. It was tough watching Obama greet Trump at the White House in 2016. I can't see Biden doing that. I wonder what ideas they're workshopping in the actual Situation Room. #

Don’t depend on Threads to validate the Fediverse. That’s not what they’re doing. Some of the people working there have good hearts and mean well, but Meta is a huge company, competing with other huge companies, and the goals of the Fediverse do not show up in their roadmap.#

I got a notice that Threads had deleted one of my posts because they said it violated their rules. They thought I was claiming to have written something I had not written. I didn't keep the notice (it popped up when I signed on). I shrugged it off when I got it, but then realized that we are very far away from the web. It has been turned into Disneyland where the cops are algorithms and they err on the side of stopping innocent things. I was just passing on a link to someone else's blog, something I thought an informed person would want to know about (that's the idea behind every link I share). We really do need to dig our way out of this hole, again. This is of course no better than Twitter or Facebook. Not a place to get work done. #

It's amazing that the million-plus Americans who died from Covid during Trump's tenure aren't even mentioned as a campaign issue. Maybe people don't want to be reminded of those dark days. #

Some of us do most of our writing on desktop computers. I guess we're in a very small minority. We can use a much better twitter-like system than the people who use mobile devices to tweet. I'm one of the desktop people. So I want textcasting. Mobile people either don't care or don't want it. So it stands to reason we need a different user interface. We can use the same network, we just need a different UI for editing. Since the twitter-like systems already carry links to stories written by people on desktops, there's room in their pipes for our writing too. And it can work more efficiently if the stories are part of the message as opposed to living off-site. Think of it as a web of writing. A writer's web that also carries short messages. #

I did a podcast this morning about the reality of Musk owning Twitter, which is now completely settling in. He might have enough influence on the election to push Trump over. He wins even if Trump loses, he gets a moon mission project to boot up a Musk Party. It's coming for sure, either way. Probably will pick up what's left over after Trump, who clearly is losing it, and even if he's president, someone else will be pulling the strings. I can't imagine the billionaire will let JD Vance do it. And by "billionaire" I mean Musk.#

A second elimination game for the Mets tonight. I almost don't want the Mets to win, because the World Series opponent from the "other" league are the Janks from the Bronx. I love the Bronx. That's about all I have to say about that at this time. #

Eugen Rochko, the lead developer of Mastodon: "Fediverse integration in Threads is still in a sorry state over a year since launch. They need to be able to follow us back. They need to see when we mention them. Those are such basic things." They got what they wanted, they got the users and press to relax because they’re Facebook who we know, but this is different, it’s the fediverse. And they got Eugen and others to validate them. This always works, standard tech playbook. they give up nothing, then the priority changes. I don't like being right. But they're never going to change in Silicon Valley. They do what works, and take advantage of newcomers who want to believe. #

It's possible the Dodgers let the Mets win as I begged them to yesterday, but it's also possible the Mets just crushed the Dodgers, but either way, the Mets are still in it. The series is now 3-2, and returns to Los Angeles tomorrow. So we don't have to tear down Citi Field after all. If the Dodgers win it'll be in their own stadium. The Mets were magnificent! Absolutely inspiring. A three-run home run by Alonso started things off. Everyone got on base. Doubles and triples. It wasn't without the concern that our wonderful and lovable Mets would do the usual Mets thing and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but they held out. The final score was 12-6. We're still in it. Lets go Mets!#

I asked ChatGPT to illustrate my post. Not bad. Very colorful!#

Bloggers, here's an idea. When you write a piece you're proud of, end it with a sentence like this: "And that's why I have a blog." It plants a seed, which through repetition and appearing in many places, might help people appreciate the purpose of a blog. We've had a lot of mud slung at us, let's start undoing that. #

The Dodgers soiled our lovable slumping Mets last night. It was a sad sight. One to forget as soon as possible. And don't forget folks, there's always next year. If I were the Dodgers, I'd expect the Mets to win tonight, and the Dodgers will probably begrudgingly go along with it. Otherwise we'd have to destroy Citi Field as we did when the Yankees celebrated their World Series victory in 2000 on the field of Shea Stadium. I was actual there the night that will live in infamy. Back then at first I objected to the destruction of our shrine to the glory of past Mets teams, but then I realized we could never again rise to the peak of Mets philosophy in a chapel so soiled by the infidels. So if you don't mind Dodgers, we'd like to keep Citi Field, so we won't object if you let our Metsies win tonight's game. The song for tonight's game is Ain't Too Proud to Beg by the Temptations.#

There's this great story in the Fargo TV series where one of the villains says there's a point when an animal that has been captured, relaxes when it realizes that it is no longer a being and has become food. "At some level food it knows it's food." Evolution has been kind to us that way. At what point in last night's game did you realize that the Mets were no longer a baseball team and had become food? #

One of the things that makes me want to see Automattic stick around and grow is that they have a really large codebase that has been scaled, debugged and maintained for over 20 freaking years. And the most important thing -- they don't break users. The code I wrote to run against WordPress in the 00s still runs today. To me as a developer this speaks very loudly. It means it's safe to develop here. It means there's discipline in their development organization. Most companies don't do this, but the ones who do, have earned my deep respect. For all of Microsoft's sins, they were incredibly good at this too. It's why I liked working with them, and also why we laughed at each others' jokes if you can believe that. In some ways all the open source stuff is too complicated. I understand the concept of "development org" -- so I look at it that way. I dig around their codebase, see how they do things, and figure it'll work out pretty well if I just do it that way. Because the last people they're going to break are themselves. What I see on their latest APIs is maturity and completeness. They didn't rush off to the next thing before finishing. I found that in their Calypso API, which I've been building on. Honestly this is my kind of platform, it's what Manila's API would look like today probably if we had continued developing it. I'll see if I can find the docs around here somewhere. Long time ago. ;-)#

I made the reallySimple package for Node.js because I wanted to make it as easy as possible to read feeds in Node apps. It should be as easy as reading a file. Give it the URL of a feed, get back a JavaScript object that's as simple as feeds are. It can read RSS, Atom and RDF feeds, but you get the same object regardless of what form the feed was in. I'm up for creating some example apps if you're interested. There is a very simple Hello World app included in the package and a set of demo apps. It's MIT-licensed, so you can do whatever you want with the code. It would lovely to see it ported. The idea is to plant some seeds in the Node.js world to make it easy for developers to try out new ideas with feeds, figuring the easier it is, the more people will do it. Be creative. Blow our minds! :-)#

The question has come up in various contexts, is a Substack feed a blog? Yes, I think it can be. For some reason people thought I'd say no. In 2003, I compiled a list of things that make a blog a blog, and it's not about the software you use, rather it's about who's writing it, and whether they're being edited. Now it's a different question to ask if I would use it. I would not. Because it forces you to use their editor. And that's a pernicious form of lock-in. It might sound like a small thing, but it means you can't easily try out something new. You are not available to other software developers as a possible user, so no software will be designed for you. I know how well that kind of system works. And that's probably why they lock you into using their editor. If I can't switch without breaking everything, I'm not going there. #

Mathew Ingram asks if AI will save us or kill us. It could both save and kill us. That's what's so disturbing about evolving. We live such short lives, people aren't really designed to evolve, but because of medicine and other tech, we are often forced to do it. Evolution can come many ways. Losing a job may force you to evolve. The dissolution of a marriage. Having life-saving surgery with a long recovery saves you for sure, but it might also kill you because you can't go back to being the person you were before. There might not be a path back. One thing's for sure we need saving. We can't survive without radical change. We're on a path that doesn't work. Is there any way for us to change radically without a complete collapse? Well, actually kind of looks like we might have been given a path out through AI. But it means we must give up control. But here's the funny thing about that. We aren't giving up anything because no one has any control. That's a political question in the US, can one person become a mad king and thus gain complete control. But he's 78 and not in good health, and that control could only last a few years at most. We will need saving from that. If somehow we could configure AI so it did what humans can't and won't do, at least our civilization might have a way forward if not our species. Just some random thoughts. Maybe unthinkable, but they occur to me anyway, which is why I have a blog. 😄#

I keep writing on my hybrid WordPress/Mastodon blog at my kitchen table. This morning I wrote about why I don't believe in the Ya Gotta Believe, a baseball slogan coined by a 1973 Mets pitcher Tug McGraw. It's on-topic because the Mets are in a challenging series with the Dodgers for the National League championship. No matter how it turns out, this is a historic year for the Mets, and no matter how it turns out I won't love the Mets any less if they lose. I think true believers believe in that -- love -- without any expectations, win or lose, or maybe even more if they lose. BTW, I know the rendering of the post isn't complete on Mastodon, and there are errors. I'm working with the people at Automattic at getting this right. I'm glad to see that Mastodon has the flexibility to do that. Anyway, I believe in the things I believe in, not because I "gotta." I don't like the slogan because it doesn't reflect how I feel about the team. My philosophy is respectful (in a way) of the teams the Mets beat, because I understand that their fans don't love them any less because they lost. If anything I think the better slogan for the Mets would be this: Wait till next year! 😄#

Gruber gave me an idea when he put his NYY logo on his blog. I thought that was both interesting and weird. I don't get how anyone I know can be a fan of the that team. An American League team in a National League city. Kind of like rooting for Staten Island. Anyway, the Yankees may win the ALCS, but what does it mean? It's not going to make New York love them. But then Gruber is in Philadelphia so why isn't he thinking about the Phillies, who btw, the Mets beat soundly in the division series, earlier this month. In any case, I have made the team picture of the 1969 world champion Mets as the banner image on Scripting News for now and into the forseeable future. #

BTW, I've been too busy to keep up with the Podcast0 feed. Not sure when I'll be able to pick it up again. #

Threads just added an online status feature, where it'll show your icon to others with a green dot if you're online. I turned it off. I don't see this as a social network, I see it as a two-way publishing medium. Big fundamental difference. My words speak for me here and on Threads. It's a strong argument in favor of "Follows" being the default algorithm, btw.#

Everybody's maxing out on Wordle today. I stopped with one step left. Stumped. I may lose my streak today. A lot of people are. #

Highly recommend today's Olbermann podcast. I've seen video of a recent press interview where Trump said he's use the military to arrest and in some cases kill Americans, starting with but not limited to Hispanics. This is not being reported in the major news orgs. We can't wait for them to fix it, we have to create new channels for news flow that have credibility and work, and we need it before the election. People need at least have a chance of understanding what they are voting for. #

BTW, why doesn't Netflix buy Metacritic and integrate their ratings aggregator in their user interface. I predict I'd watch far more stuff on Netflix than I do now. Or Apple TV, Max, Hulu, Disney, etc. The idea that such a valuable resource is not part of the user experience is crazy imho. What a waste. What reminded me of this is Plex has integrated the equivalent of Bingeworthy in their service, which is also a good idea and will glue communities of users to you. The idea is to systematize recommendations. If I know a specific friend liked a movie or a show is valuable information for me, not just advertisers. #

Someday I have to reboot Bingeworthy, it's the software snack I miss the most. It broke when Twitter broke their identity system.#

I am totally having a blast with my hybrid blog, built by textcasting WordPress and Mastodon. Just wrote a post about the day the NYT signs off, finally realizing how fcuked we are if Trump is elected or manages to steal the election next month. Their final headline in this story is GOOD LUCK AMERICA. #

Textcasting shows up as a slight blip (or less) on Google Trends. #

I would switch to any podcatcher that let me edit my subscription list outside their app, because I use that list in different contexts, also because I’d like to share my list with others, and would like that to be a dynamic connection, so I could add feeds as I learn about them, or remove feeds that have stopped updating. Also because there are lots of others, aka influencers who’d like to too. You’d own the market if you did this. #

Cynicism isn’t always the right explanation. Sometimes people just want to share something good with you, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re stupid, maybe they just like you. #

The common denominator between journalism, business and politics is that none of them have any respect for people. To rise in influence, money or power you have to give up imagination, and be ruled by cynicism. If you don’t believe this, show me a journalist who listens, a business that makes products for thinkers, or a politician who lets individual people lead them. #

Summarizing the last 18 years on the web. Between Twitter and Google Reader, the web was cut into two, and they didn't get along. We may now be on the cusp of fixing that. Why? Because WordPress and Mastodon work with each other in unforeseen ways. We got lucky, because I don't think this was done consciously by the developers of either product.#

Quick note about last night's Mets win over Philly. The series is over, the next game on Sunday will be against the winner in the west, either San Diego or Los Angeles. Last night's game was stressful, low scoring, until the Mets star shortstop hit a freaking grand slam home run, and that was all the scoring we needed. The Mets are the hottest team in baseball. It doesn't feel like a long time since 2015 when they got to the World Series before crashing. Who knows how far we'll get this year, honestly -- I'm surprised (and pleased) we got this far. And in the meantime, I caught a tiny bit of last night's preseason game between the Knicks and some other team I don't care about. They have two new stars to add to the roster after losing one star as a free agent, and trading two others for the second new star. All in all, very enticing. New York has some excellent sports teams, which is unusual, because it isn't just the Jankees this time, a team I will, I promise, never root for. Quite the opposite. I will root for whoever they are playing. You can probably tell I don't like them. 😄#

I'm posting development notes on the wordland product in my wordpress/mastodon account. I'm starting to like using the new editor. Today I switched the format we save drafts in from HTML to Markdown. More consistent with my belief that Markdown is the ideal subset of web writing features for the social web. #

Isn't it weird that businesses work hard to get better position on Google search, but fight the other way with AI to be excluded. At some point they could realize that one of the approaches isn't correct. #

December 2005: Biloxi/Gulfport after Katrina. #

After Katrina I went to New Orleans to see what was left, esp in the areas where there was a 15-25 foot storm surge in coastal Mississippi. If you went inland from the coast for a few miles there was nothing left. No trees, only a few skeletal all-concrete buildings where the beach used to be, otherwise everything destroyed. What you don't necessarily realize that it isn't just 15 feet of water, it's 15 feet of stormy ocean with cars and building debris being pushed around floating in the water. This video on Threads provides a visual illustration of what a 9 foot surge is like. #

Summary of my posts about New Orleans in December 2005.#

Thanks for all the good wishes re the 30th anniversary of the start of blogging here. It's not the same as it was at the beginning, but it's still pretty good. And to all the friends no longer with us, and there are plenty of them -- you are appreciated, respected and missed. #