Scripting News: Wednesday, August 20, 2025
My mother would have been 93 years old today. She died in 2018, seven years ago. As time goes by, I feel her importance in my life more and more. I find I didn't have a realistic perspective in the living years. But more than any other person in my life, she shaped me -- for better or worse, but mostly better. #
- Note: Posted on Facebook eleven years ago. Still relevant today.#
- You couldn't have had podcasting without a lot of things coming together. They all had to be there.#
- Networks of writers who shared links. Blogging.#
- A protocol for moving links around a network. HTTP.#
- Something to attach links and recordings to. RSS.#
- A standard format for recording. MP3.#
- Inexpensive, easy to use playback devices, that could hook up to all this. iPod.#
- You might argue that we still haven't gotten all the pieces needed for it to really work. But one thing is for sure, none of the pieces existed when the famous patent troll claims to have invented podcasting. #
- Maybe we should reach not for a victory but for understanding. The patent system is making decisions about technological processes it doesn't understand. No wonder it gets it so wrong.#
- Postscript: The EFF filed suit against the patent troll, but didn't listen to what I said here, which is really fucked up because they didn't create podcasting, I did. There's a tremendous lack of respect for generosity in tech, yet without generosity there's no interop, only silos. Either you made billions from something, or you don't exist. That's why I stopped supporting EFF long ago, even though I gave them what was to me a significant amount of money when they started up, and why they get involved in so many wrong-headed ideas. They don't respect tech, they respect money.#
- Dermot Casey: "I'd add Dave to this list. Things that are obvious in retrospect are never obvious before people like Dave put them together."#
Linkblog items for the day
Former national guard vice chief calls deployment into D.C. an 'intimidation' tactic. npr.org
Ukrainian sabotage groups operating behind Russian lines. counteroffensive.news
Are newsletters the new academic social media? blogs.lse.ac.uk
Volkswagen secures $35 million to build its most affordable EV yet. electrek.co
The Innocent and the Executed: James Beathard's Long-Forgotten Story. texasobserver.org
The five things that were necessary before you could have podcasting:
- Blogging.
- HTTP.
- RSS.
- MP3.
- iPod.
It's pretty simple, but this confluence eludes most tech people and journalists.
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