Month: June 2004

Adam is applescripting to build bittorrent enclosure feeds.

Late this week I’d come to the conclusion that some of my RSS-related activities would soon encroach on other, non-negotiable commitments. It was time to simplify. Among the negotiable commitments, I’m a little sad to say, was the RSS advisory board. While Dave’s announcement gave me pause, the factors informing my decision remain constant. Therefore, I am hereby resigning from the RSS advisory board.
In addition, I will no longer be able to provide support for the rss.scripting.com validator. I believe the validator serves an important purpose and provides unique, useful functionalities, such the daily validation service, that are not available elsewhere. I hope Dave will continue to improve on this great service.
I believe that RSS is in strong hands, and that this period of flux will provide a unique opportunity to bring RSS to the next level. I am grateful to Dave and the community for giving me these opportunities to serve, and especially to Dave for his friendship.
Over time and as time permits, I will continue to write tech notes and build applications right here on this weblog. Now I’m going to take a deep breath, go out and enjoy the rest of the beautiful sunny Sunday, and get ready for the busy week ahead. Thank you, everyone.

Michael Moore was on Friday’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Quote: Fahrenheit 9/11 “really is just my opinion. I could be right or wrong. I think I’m right. It’s my opinion, but the other guy could be right too. So, I think it’s, what’s great about this country is that everybody gets to express their opinion and let’s have the great debate, and hopefully we’ll end up with what’s best for the country.”

Went to a barbecue in the suburbs yesterday, to catch up with some old friends I haven’t seen in years. Playing out in the yard with my daughter, we took off our shoes and walked barefoot in the grass. If you live somewhere warm enough and green enough, do yourself a favor and go try it out.

Last night we watched Spider Man. Wow, fantastic. There was something odd about the scenes, camera angles, etc. Then I figured it out. They shot the scenes to look like frames in a comic strip. That’s my theory, anyway. The new movie, Spider Man 2, comes out next week.

This morning, heading into the grocery store, I noticed a sign on the door. It said, “this store is under electronic surveillance”. I wanted to ask, “Where’s it gonna go?” 🙂

Also yesterday, Dave linked to an essay. It’s titled Programmers but the first few sections apply to all humans. It’s brilliant. The section on anger hits home. Not too long ago I blew up on a friend. I knew the anger was there, building up, but didn’t know how to let it out. Then the anger let itself out. Dave nails it when he writes that anger can be a source of beauty. It was totally cathartic. Paradoxically, I wanted to thank the friend for taking me to that emotional place. I hadn’t been there in a long time, if ever.

Yesterday Dave Winer announced his resignation from the RSS advisory board. I’m sorry to see him go, but can see why he’s doing it and am excited about the upcoming open source release of Frontier and the possibilities it opens. I like Steve Gillmor’s graduation day metaphor. Awesome.
The title of this post is something that IMO doesn’t get said enough. I don’t think RSS got to where it is today by accident. I think it took a lot of hard work. The technology had to be developed, promoted, used. Specs had to be written and competitors allowed to enter the market, so that there could be a market. Data formats had to coalesce so that the little guys could compete on features and not on compatibility.
Dave, thank you for your tireless efforts on RSS’ behalf. Thank you for RSS.

Dumky: “What if you could order a pizza from your networked Tivo?”

I was talking to a guy I know tonight about Fahrenheit 9/11. I pointed him to a couple of critical pieces, the centerpieces of which are that the film isn’t fair. He responded, “of course, as Moore said, it’s an op-ed piece.” Interesting. The imdb says it’s a documentary, and the word “documentary” appears in at least a few places on the movie site, but from the interview or two of Moore I’ve seen, I too got the impression that he was making a case.