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Replied to RIP Joseph Sargent, Director of the Greatest Jewish Action Movie (Tablet)
I’ve always been a fan of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. It inspired me to read the book…not so good. With a script written by the great Peter Stone, an ensemble cast that included Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Doris Roberts, Hector Elizondo, Jerry Stiller and Martin Balsam, this movie is truly a classic…unlike the remake.

The author of this piece suggests it is the greatest Jewish action movie of all time, and I’m not quite sure about that. But it has some great lines.

Replied to Leonard Nimoy Dies at Age 83 (nytimes.com)
I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Leonard Nimoy at a convention some years ago. There were many questions I would have asked him, had I gotten the chance.

While certainly I became familiar with him, like most people, through Star Trek, I remember his work in Never Forget, his poetry, the controversy over his decision to publish his photography, and many other things…I’ve tried to forget the singing.

While, after declaring he was and was not Spock, he’d come to terms with how much his most iconic character resonated with people, and it was never for the obvious reasons. The last thing Nimoy posted on Twitter, 4 days ago, was, “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP.”

In the end, all I can say is what Dr. McCoy said about Spock when he died(although on film, nothing is ever permanent). “He’s not really dead. As long as we remember him.”

Replied to Teacher At Bronx Science Accused Of Paying Underage Boys For Nude Photos (newyork.cbslocal.com)
As a alumnus of Bronx Science, it is very disappointing that the top ranked debate coach has been involved in such behavior.

I was not on debate, but I had several pleasant conversations as a student with Richard Sodikow, who founded the Bronx Science debate team. He passed away last year. It makes me rather sad that this is associated with such a respected program.

Replied to Indieweb and RSS (scripting.com)
This article from last March popped into my feed again. And Dave Winer keeps popping up on this issue since, usually saying the same things. I keep seeing these things on various sites.

I’ve disagreed with members of the Indieweb community on many things….usually respectfully. I don’t understand Dave Winer’s venom on this matter. I very much respect what he’s done, and still use RSS regularly. But I really don’t like how he seems to be clinging to RSS. It seems to be, if you criticize RSS and think there is a different way, you are no friend of his.

In every community, there are hardliners. And certainly, many Indieweb people are very definitive in their views. But most recognize that you cannot just only support new standards and not have at least some support for older ones. You have to transition between the two.

In identifying the Feeds page of the Indieweb wiki as indicative of a philosophy, he is missing the point. The page identifies several trends. XML has been supplanted in many areas by other delivery methods…JSON, for example. Leaving aside HTML as a form of XML, the criticisms of traditional feeds are all legitimate ones.

So, in the end, the idea of embedding your feed markup inside your web page has some very real advantages. It means enhancing your site, rather than generating another copy of it in a different format. I appreciate that.

I also agree with Mr. Winer, if we “can get uptake for the formats they would like to replace RSS with, then everyone will support them. Until then, we use what works — for us.” Who is stopping you, sir?

If you think that you cannot adopt part of a group’s philosophy without having to buy into it all, then you would be wrong. We’re not working against you. We just disagree with you on one point. Let’s just agree to disagree and focus on moving forward the points we do agree on.

 

Some Developments in My Developments

As many of you who have been watching know, I’ve taken up WordPress development as part of my involvement in the Indieweb movement. So, this is sort of  a status update.

After developing a lot of my tools on Github, I’ve decided to move them where people can use them, the official WordPress repository. I’ve added two of them so far, the ones I’ve deemed ready for other people to try.

  1. Post Kinds  – Allows WordPress posts to respond and interact with other sites, as well as certain passive post types.
  2. Syndication Links – A basic plugin that adds links to other sites to the bottom of a post. If you check this post, there are icons indicating I sent a link to it to Facebook, Twitter, so on.

So far, if you watch this site, I haven’t been posting much. Need to work on that. I do seem to have users though. Most notably, one in Australia. I say notably because compared to my sporadic posting, my plugin is in regular use by someone, which encourages me to evolve and iterate…and even add some features I didn’t think of.

I now support passive kinds of posts. This would be actions like Listened To, and Watched. I’d better start listening and watching things.

But most importantly, I’ve always felt myself a horrible programmer, since I gave up on it many years ago. Having a project that I enjoy doing for myself, and at least a few other people are using, inspires me to try to be better. I think I’ve graduated to mediocre programmer. If I keep at it, I might get to decent.