Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
scriptingNews outline for 11/29/2000
Author: Dave Winer Posted: 11/29/2000; 6:19:43 AM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 11/29/2000 Msg #: 22002 Prev/Next: 22001 / 22003
An important recommendation for Radio users who use MSIE/Win as their Web browser. (Updated with instructions for MSIE/Mac users.)
An excellent start for the new Python site. Jonas Beckman posted a script that shows how to reply to Manila message using a Python script. And Brent Simmons added a script that adds an item to your home page, as Manila Express does in the browser. All kinds of information can flow through these interfaces, not just stuff that users type. Dave Warner, who writes for O'Reilly, is pumped too. Thanks to Daily Python URL for the welcome. Josh Lucas is posting to his Manila site with Python. We want to build bridges to the Python community. People describe our scripting language, UserTalk, as being Python-like. That suits me fine. I like Python. Let's keep moving here.
I'm also building the directory on the Python site. This is how I burn in a new feature. Use it. Find out where it works and doesn't. I'm still feeling my way around, learning the art of Web directories. It's total fun, haven't had something this new to explore at an authoring level for quite some time. Here's a screen shot of the directory as I edit it on my system.
Jason Levine: Manila altTemplate Plug-In. "One of the biggest problems with Manila is that every page is rendered through the exact same master template. This means that, if you want a pop-up window rendered out of your Manila site, or a page with a different background color, or without the stuff that you've framed every other page with, you're out of luck. A few days later, though, I realized that I could change it, and out of that realization came this, the altTemplate plug-in."
CNN: "Many Internet users have found the information glut daunting and confusing. And frequently, it's a reference librarian they turn to make sense of it."
NY Times: "Stephen King is suspending his independently offered Internet serial 'The Plant' to work on other projects. An aide said sales had fallen sharply and that fewer buyers were paying after downloading."
Thanks to Dan Gillmor for the pointer to Microsoft's Reviewer's Guide for their Appellate Brief to the US Court of Appeals. Fantastic. Software culture permeates the legal system.
Heavy-duty Reuters pic, also on the home page of the NY Times.
What if VCs were mensches?
Last night I went to dinner in downtown Palo Alto, and drove by the venture capital headquarters of Silicon Valley, Sand Hill Road. I thought about the last few years, the irrational exuberance, and how the chickens must be coming home to roost now in VC-land.
If only one of the VC leaders had said in the midst of the mania "The stock market is over-reacting, the technologists aren't delivering the kind of value you think they are."
Sure the growth of their stocks would probably have abated a bit, but they would have credibility now. And to the VCs, please start investing in technology again, hardware and software, so when the next boom happens, we can be ready for sustained growth.
Dictionary.Com: mensch.
Re-finding the high road
Last night on Larry King, former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher said something beautiful about Dick Cheney, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, who is his adversary in the struggle for the presidency.
I don't remember the exact words, but he said he was glad that Cheney survived his heart attack and that we need him in our country. Whether we need him or not is subject to debate, but that's the kind of grace we truly do need. To show some care and humanity, why can't we be ladies and gentlemen as we disagree?
This had occurred to me while I waited on hold to comment on NPR's Talk of the Nation on Monday. I wanted to ask former NY governor Mario Cuomo where his manners had gone. He was slamming strangers on a personal level. One self-described "lifetime Democrat," a woman from the midwest, who spoke quite intelligently, said that she didn't support all the bloodletting on the part of Democrat leadership. Cuomo said she must not be a "real Democrat." Huh? Is that all there is? Blind allegance? What if we have brains and values? Hello.
And thanks to Warren Christopher for re-finding the high road.
Nixon is dead
Final political thought for the day, perhaps.
I remember Nixon and what he did to our country.
After Nixon, it was easy to paint Republican intentions as evil.
So the Democrats took the easy way. They owned the high road. And they abused it.
Nixon is dead. So many people are too young to remember him. Watergate is over. Let's move on.
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:57 PM.
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