all of the hullaballoo surrounding rss makes me feel dumb. i don’t understand how a spec for something as simple as syndicating content can become the center of such a soap opera. it feels like i’m missing something.
part of my problem is that, like kellan, i never really could understand how rss 1.0 got labelled as “hard”. way back in the day, before blogger supported any flavor of rss, i used xml::rss to generate my feeds. after a few cups of coffee, i’d made a quick hack that produces valid feeds. i’ll grant you that it’s not exactly a “power feed”, but it’s not like it was rocket science to figure out how to produce the feed that satisfies my needs.
so what’s the big deal? sure some things need to be clarified in certain specs and i wish echo all the best in making Cool Stuff, but do we really need so much drama?
“And a majority, 52 percent, say they believe the United States has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam was working closely with the al-Qaida terrorist organization.
The number that believes this country has found weapons of mass destruction is 23 percent, down from 34 percent in May, according to a poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. ”
searches i never went anywhere with the idea. and it’s a good
thing, because the NITLE blog census
is doing a much better job that i could have done anyway. it
doesn’t directly answer the “by country” part of the question, but
there are some tantalizing nuggets in there already. and it’s
database of urls is growing at a good clip
perhaps ben trott’s why we need echo took dave over the edge. it looks like he’s taking scripting news off the air for awhile:
“Scripting News is taking a break.
The lack of support, even name-calling, from people who think of themselves as my friend, has got me thinking that maybe this isn’t worth it.
I’m thinking about all the services I provide and UserLand provides, for free, after years of pouring money and energy into community building, and the lack of appreciation for any of that in the community.
So I’m shutting down Scripting News now, to give me some time to think, and to give you all a demo of what it would be like if it weren’t here. These last few days have been really awful. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have so many people screaming at you. It’s inhuman, especially considering that my health isn’t that good. The only conclusion I can come to is that I shouldn’t be doing this.
Give it some thought. This is what it would look like if there were no Scripting News. What would it be worth to you, not in monetary terms, but in support terms, to keep this going.
“This means that, for a while, humanity was in a
perilous state, vulnerable to disease, environmental disasters and
conflict. If any of these factors had turned against us, we would
not be here.”
“Who owns your Sidekick? T-Mobile does, apparently,
even if you spent full retail on it (I dropped $250 on mine). You
need T-Mobile’s permission to install software on their device.
T-Mobile will, from time to time, decide to erase software from
your device. And when you stop subscribing to their service,
T-Mobile will delete all your data forever, without giving you any
mechanism for moving it off the device (and without giving you the
ability to design a tool that would let you do this).
I apologize, then, to all the people I’ve recommended Sidekicks
to.”
“The usual plot is this: Guy walks into restaurant. Guy is huge. Guy played football in college. Guy is hungry. Guy is boastful. (Or Guy is nervous — it depends.) Guy starts strong. Guy starts to tire. Guy’s friends chant “Chew! Chew! Chew!” Guy fails. Guy throws up.”