Andy's Blog

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 23:12:03 GMT

Trying a River5 test

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 23:31:11 GMT

Another test

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:15:14 GMT

Test after deleting data folder

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:30:52 GMT

Test on port 443

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 22:03:21 GMT

Test 19

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:54:28 GMT

Test 18

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:28:58 GMT

Test 17

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:28:21 GMT

Test 16

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:26:03 GMT

Test 15

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:22:54 GMT

Test 14

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:21:59 GMT

Test 13

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:19:56 GMT

Test 12

Test 11

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 19:23:09 GMT

this is a test

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 03:14:16 GMT

Test 10

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:42:52 GMT

Test 4

Another test of rssCloud

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:31:52 GMT

Test 2

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:32:05 GMT

Test 1

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:41:54 GMT

Test 3

testing rssCloud

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 19:33:57 GMT

This is a test

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 19:38:27 GMT

Here is another test of rssCloud

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 19:39:24 GMT

Doing one more test post to test rssCloud server

Using OPML to organize information for use

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 23:23:56 GMT

Recently, Ken Smith shared an example of a directory of activities to do during a wedding weekend (primarily for attendees not familiar with the area). I recently started a OPML directory of sorts on Oregon elections. Using the drummer.this.how feature from Dave Winer, these directories can be easily reviewed by others. I also recently created a Github repo to collect thoughts on organizing information for use, but it is not in OPML format (although it could be...)

In the early days of OPML, some people were trying to organize podcast directories using OPML files. The idea was that someone could be the maintainer of a directory on a topic, and that file could be included as a folder/directory within a larger directory structure. After playing with the new includes feature in opmlPackage, I started thinking about this again. My impression is that many people who post lists of things do so with the idea of sharing, but the reuse of that sharing is difficult. However, if the list was in an OPML file, this would lend itself to reuse/sharing/remixing. If you had a group of experts who could summarize/curate information/resources for a set of topics in OPML, this could be the basis of a larger work which could be updated at anytime by any of the experts (see Ken Smith's "Beyond griping" post for more info). As I mentioned in this post, maybe starting a little "beachhead" for experimentation would be in order. Watch this space for more details!

Playing with includes in opmlPackage

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 02:06:12 GMT

This afternoon, I spent some time experimenting with opmlPackage from Dave Winer, focusing on the new feature to include other OPML files within an OPML file. The includes feature is only part of the Node version of the package (other features can be used in a browser). I changed the OPML file that had example includes to use three reading list files that I had in OPML format. I then changed the demo script to add logic to write out the new outline as a file (you can see it in this Gist) and ran it locally on my laptop. Finally, I created another copy of the OPML client to display the new outline (you can see it here). Looks like the includes feature is working fine!

Who is running to represent you?

Sat, 04 Jun 2022 22:49:50 GMT

As I posted yesterday, with primaries wrapping up, the candidates for the major parties are being chosen. Some candidates will run as an independent (like Betsy Johnson in the Oregon governor's race). For most, if not all, states in the United States, the state office of Secretary of State is responsible for running elections within a state. These offices have been working to be able to provide unofficial results as soon as an election concludes. To find this, search for "secretary of state yourstatename elections" to start. Oregon has an excellent site, and your state probably does as well. Check it out!

Who represents you?

Sat, 04 Jun 2022 03:19:57 GMT

With the primary elections wrapping up across the nation, you might have a question - who is my representative? At the state level, a voter has a state representative and a state senator (except for states that have a unicameral legislature (one chamber, not two)). At the federal level, a voter has a US House representative, and two US Senators. But with redistricting going on as part of the 2022 elections, someone different might be representing you.

How to find out? The Oregon Legislature has a page to allow you to enter your address and find out who your current representative are (searched on "how to find my representative in Oregon"). Next, you might do a search on "yourstatename redistricting". For me in Oregon, this lead to a website for the Oregon Legislature on changes made for redistricting. This site also had links to a GIS site with PDFs for Oregon state House and Senate districts, and US House districts. From the earlier page, I could find my state House and Senate district, and was able to download the map. In a few minutes, I had all the information I needed.

Next step - who is running for office this fall? Tune in soon!

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 00:34:13 GMT

After I posted yesterday on my access problem with drummer.this.how, the problem appeared to take care of itself in the evening. Oh well!

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 22:08:36 GMT

I had a problem today looking at Ken Smith's activity outline that I posted about on May 30th. When I looked at the page on my laptop, I would get a message saying "This site can't be reached". When I looked at the page on my phone on Wi-Fi, I got the same result. When I looked at the page on my phone on mobile data, I was able to see the page. Has anyone else had this problem?

How change happens

Tue, 31 May 2022 16:27:33 GMT

Seth Godin had a great post last week that speaks to Ken Smith's citizen toolkit post, here are the key paragraphs:

Going to the protest of the day, performing acts of slacktivism, hopping from urgency to emergency–this is how people who day trade in our culture are whipsawed. But the people who are consistently and actively changing the culture are not easily distracted. One more small action, one more conversation, one more standard established.

The internet would like us to focus on what happened five minutes ago. The culture understands that what happens in five years is what matters.

Focused, persistent community action is how systems change. And systems concretize and enforce cultural norms.

If you care, keep talking. Keep acting. Stay focused. And don’t get bored.

A great example of organizing information for use

Mon, 30 May 2022 23:05:02 GMT

Ken Smith wrote a post yesterday showing a great example of activities that wedding attendees could participate in around the wedding date. The example was an outline created in Drummer and published using the drummer.this.how construct/PagePark plugin. This could be done for any event, with a permanent URL that can be sent to a group, and updated as needed since Drummer is a web app. Or - this could be a set of instructions, which could be updated based on feedback. Or - this could be an agenda for a meeting. Or - hopefully you are getting the picture - it could be any information that can be easily structured in an outine. Boom!

The urge to fiddle around

Mon, 30 May 2022 00:17:17 GMT

Every so often (well, at least once a week....), I read about different blogging tools and think "I would like to try that out...". Then, I remember this picture, and think "My WordPress setup is just fine, I don't need to look at other blogging tools" (he says as he types this post in Drummer to publish with Old School). But...I had some time this weekend (Memorial Day holiday), so I spent some time looking at two tools related to Drummer.

The first tool was drummerCMS (a shell for the Old School blogging tool to connect with Drummer). Some time ago, I saw that Scott Hansen wrote a post about running drummerCMS locally, and that it could generate a set of files from the OPML blog file. I set it up per his post a few weeks ago, but had a problem, and set it aside. This weekend, I reached out to Scott Hansen, and he said that his original post had an error in the build URL, and he had updated the post. I tried it again, and it did create a set of files, but not the finished product I was hoping for (a set of HTML files that I could upload to a hosting site). I did a little looking through Old School, and saw that the tool is tied into uploading to Amazon S3, and although parameters related to that could be changed, the tool seemed to do the final render as part of the S3 upload. Sigh...setting it aside again...

The second tool was written by Antranig Vartanian, and was using an XSLT style sheet to style an OPML file from Drummer as a blog. I took a slightly out-of-date copy of my blog.opml from Drummer, copied it to a folder on my web hosting service, copied the XSLT style sheet, added a link to the style sheet within the OPML file, and was able to create this rendering of my Drummer posts. Fun!

I guess a batting average of 1 out of 2 is not too bad...must...stop...fiddling....

Sat, 28 May 2022 21:59:32 GMT

I think this post (via Frank McPherson and John Philpin) has some excellent ideas for gun control laws – take the NRA gun safety rules and make them the law – I will be looking into this more…

Fri, 27 May 2022 20:31:04 GMT

I couldn't help myself - I had to write a response to the latest article on the corporate takeover of podcasting. Oh the humanity!

Fri, 27 May 2022 02:21:38 GMT

Added a new entry to the awesome-drummer site under Blogging - using OPML and XSLT to create a blog

Wed, 25 May 2022 17:55:39 GMT

Still working through HTTPS breakage, updated my Reading List and Granary news rivers, and an OPML client demo (replaced HTTP links with HTTPS).

Looking for tools for a citizen's toolkit

Tue, 24 May 2022 19:19:59 GMT

In April, Ken Smith wrote about the need to citizens to provoke change in their government. He asked this question: "What tools do citizens need to make this essential contribution to their democracy?". Ken created an initial list, but I would like to suggest three other sites for resources.

Community Tool Box from the University of Kansas: "Get help taking action, teaching, and training others in organizing for community development."

City of Orlando: Neighborhood training source

City of Orlando: Taking Your Leadership Skills to the Next Level (PDF)

City of Cupertino: Neighborhood Block Leader Resources

Starting a political journey

Mon, 23 May 2022 19:40:39 GMT

The political primary for the state of Oregon was last week, and I was pleased with the results overall (most of the candidates I voted for won). I have had the feeling for some time that although voting is a necessary condition to maintain democracy, it is not sufficient by itself. Participation by the voters in the democracy is also required to keep it strong. Last fall, I signed up for the newsletter for my county Democratic Party committee. I have not done any more than that up to this point. Well, today, I sent for some information on the Neighborhood Leader Program. It is a small step, but long journeys begin with the first step. I will work to take one political action each day. Hopefully, this journey will make me more of a participant in our democracy.

Mon, 23 May 2022 01:44:32 GMT

When my main site got switched to https, I had some problems with sub-domain sites. One of them was my Old School Drummers river of news site. I cleaned up some http/https references, and got it to appear on desktop and mobile, but the mobile version did not show the text. I used Developer Tools in Brave and cleared up what I think is the remaining issues, but it still does not display in the Brave mobile browser for Android (that is, news items do not appear). It does work in Google Chrome for mobile. Lazyweb – any thoughts?

Thu, 19 May 2022 21:49:48 GMT

I apologize for the outage on the Old School Drummers river - I had a problem with my web hosting (now I am on https - grr), so I had to update my URLs in the site - but everything is back to normal again.

Taking the first step to start a project

Sat, 09 Apr 2022 19:09:51 GMT

I have been putting off the first step in a recent project - to review all of Ken Smith's content on organizing information for use. I did start (got through a month's worth of content), but then stopped. Why did I stop? I think my idea of what the first step should be was too big to do in one sitting (review the content and organize it). I couldn't even review it all in one sitting. I then decided to just review the content and collect the links to all pertinent posts. That felt more doable. I did finish that step (see my Github page), although it still took longer than I thought it would. How could I have continued to make progress?

Sam Julien wrote a post in December 2020 called "How to Finish What You Start". When I changed the first step to be a smaller scope, this was in line with one of Sam's recommendations (Reduce Your Scope). Also, executing that first step could be considered a "Tiny Experiement". I could then look at the result of completing that step and let that guide my next step. Sam Julien eventually followed this same technique to develop a number of information products, including "Guide to Tiny Experiments".

Based on this experience, I can see some of the next steps in my project about organizing information for use. I can also see some ways to break steps down and continue to make progress and feel good about it. Yay!

Looking for magic numbers

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 02:28:51 GMT

Ken Smith wrote a post with the question (my version): how many people posting on a subject does it take to provide a good weekly overview of the newest posts on the topic? Now, I think the version of the question he posted on Twitter is slightly different: "How many people who write about your topic do you have to read before you're likely to hear about most any new development?". I am going to address both of these questions, then ask one of my own...

My guess on the original question is five to seven people. I think that people who read blogs/websites on a specific topic follow at least this many blogs/websites to get a full overview of what is happening on the topic, and probably more than seven. On the second question, I think the number goes up (say 15-20) if you want to hear about "any new development". Of course, people who use feed readers can have hundreds of sources (my reading list is 143 feeds, but not all of those feeds have new posts every day, and not all of them are on the same topic).

Some examples: the Election Law Blog created by Rick Hasen at UC-Irvine Law School has 15 contributors besides Hasen. One of their posting methods has been to have contributors take responsibility for one or more days of daily news coverage. All of them have had individual posts on topics within election law. The Daily Kos news site appears to have a staff of over 30 contributors (although this is now more of a professional site). A subscription site I follow uses a group seven people to post content, so that falls within the 5-7 range I gave as my early answer.

I think that the real question Ken is asking was really asked in his post "It's actually a web" - how many people does it take to sustain a useful conversation for a long time? I think that the answer is "at least two". Derek Sivers, in his post "First Follower: Leadership Lessons From A Dancing Guy", analyzes a video of a guy dancing at an open air concert, how he gets his first follower, and then how the dance party grows within a few minutes to include a majority of the attendees (also see TED talk link). The role of the first follower is key - it legitimizes the one who went first.

So Ken - I am trying to follow you in the topic of "organizing information for use" - it looks like we have a conversation going - take a look at Derek Sivers' post - over to you...

Starting a conversation on the web

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 01:41:38 GMT

Ken Smith wrote a post titled "It's actually a web" on March 29, talking about people posting on the web, linking back and forth to each other around a shared topic to help creating meaning and understanding. This resonated with me, much like Ken's post on "Organizing information for use". So, I am taking a little step to start a conversation and a beachhead, like I mentioned in my post "How to organize information for use". I have created a Github repo to collect/digest/collate information on organizing information for use. To start, I will link up posts from Ken and myself, but plan to add more information. Anyone who wants to contribute is welcome!

My impresssions of the current state of Drummer

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 16:38:00 GMT

I read some comments by Dave Winer on March 15th about users/development of Drummer and how he got little feedback on a feature and how he might go back to just writing software for himself. I also just finished listening to a podcast from March 16th where Dave Winer talks about the need for Drummer users to test new features, or "we can't move". As an early tester and user of Drummer, I would like to offer my perspective on these items.

I was one of the early testers of Dave Winer's Drummer application. I was pretty active in the first month or two, but then I had a negative experience - getting deleted from the Drummer support repo for posting a link to a river of news of Drummer users using Drummer to create blogs. I understood the reason for the deletion (I wasn't reporting any problem), but I felt the attitude was wrong. As I watched other Drummer users giving opinions on the product, instead of reporting problems, their comments would get deleted, usually after some negative back and forth with Dave Winer. I can understand having rules about participation in support forums, but this consistent pattern gave me the impression that Dave Winer did not want any other feedback except for problem reports on Drummer. To me, this behavior does not give the impression that someone is interested in other people's opinions. Also, I think if someone is going to criticize others in public, be prepared to stand behind your comments. For people who followed the Drummer support repo, all of this back-and-forth was plain to see via the Github emails.

I spent some time working on developing outline renderer scripts, but got a dig (I think) for using the word "Drummer" in the title of my Github repo. That didn't feel good. I had started work on integrating a presentation library with Drummer, but decided after that to hold off on investing more. I guess some people can include Drummer in their repo name, but not others.

The first major feature of Drummer to get traction was the Old School blogging tool. Many people gave it a try (including me (original blog and relocated blog when I had a overwrite problem) and there were lots of comments and problem reports. At first, these were welcomed, but within a short period of time, negativity returned. In addition, people posting about the tool or possible changes were deleted or got negative responses. I worked with another Drummer user to create a separate repo (awesome-drummer) to collect information on Drummer, and to provide a place where non-problem-report conversations could occur. Dave Winer created a separate repo called "RFC" - Request For Comments - where people could contribute ideas that could be developed further. There were some user posts there, but most initial posts were by Dave Winer, so it did not appear to have much uptake in terms of suggestions from users. Full disclosure - the awesome-drummer site did not take off either, but at least no one's comments were deleted for being off-topic...

When Dave Winer rolled out the Daytona search engine, some reasonable initial comments were met with replies like "...people who won't even read the fucking manual.", but those "docs" were somewhat hidden in the first days of the release of Daytona. How does this behavior help build a community?

I have worked in software development for 37 years, primarily in small teams in the aerospace industry. If I or other team leads treated team members in the way other Drummer users have been treated in the Drummer development project, I believe they would go find some other project to work on.

Frank McPherson sums it up well: "Developer yells at users, wonders why then users don't participate in the development process."

So how much activity is Drummer getting now? The small flood of users who tried use Old School for blogging have stopped. There are an average of five people who still post to their Old School blogs on a regular basis (from reading the Old School Drummers river of news). New items on the support repo have slowed. This could mean that Drummer is working great. To me, it says that many of the early Drummer users have moved on.

I am glad that Dave Winer made a choice to share Drummer with the world. I am using Drummer to write this blog post. I have a copy of Electric Drummer for Windows, for which I am happy. What I don't have is a compelling reason to use Drummer. I don't need another writing tool (strictly speaking), writing in outlines is fun but getting that text into something other than a blog post using the Drummer tool being hosted on someone else's site is not straightforward (did I mention that the blog is hosted on someone else's site?). I don't have a lot of content that could be searched using Daytona, so that is not enticing. Markdown is not part of my workflow, so the work on that feature is not something I am interested in.

There are ways to add functionality through scripting, which is great. Several users did develop some independent features (WordPress integration, Gatsby integration, HTTPS proxy mapping, my outline renderer script), but these did not get much participation from other users. Still, their contributions are still present and available for use.

I get the comment that Dave Winer wants feedback on features. The work I did was a collaboration with two other Drummer users. However, the tone of the podcast comments and the blog post comes off to me as more "demanding" than "asking" or "requesting". In the end, my impression of Drummer is that this is Dave Winer's application, a logical outgrowth of his previous work on Frontier and the OPML Editor. It is his application to shape and grow. Other people may not share his vision or interest, but that should not be a roadblock for development, unless Dave lets it be a roadblock. Look at how other development tools have evolved/grown over the past 20 years - a tool scratches someone's itch, gets some users, gets traction, interest grows, people start to talk about the tool itself, people start making contributions to the tool or environment. Perhaps it will take more time. Perhaps it will take a change in attitude. I don't know, but I think there are at least two sides to this story.

Sat, 12 Mar 2022 19:16:45 GMT

Just added a new Old School Drummer blog to the river - welcome to Folke Hermansson Snickars!

How to organize information for use

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 21:52:39 GMT

Ken Smith had two recent posts ("For the team" and "Or maybe not"), discussing the ideas of forming a community, collecting information on a topic, processing information as a group, and providing a summary of that information. I think the collection and processing tasks are attainable and occur on a regular basis. The task not being performed well is the curate/share/maintain steps.

As an example, I started collecting information on the topic of personal book lists in a Github repo. I provided a chronology of recent posts on the subject, collected tools and techniques, and also created some tools of my own. The recent Github repo for Drummer stuff would be another example, as well as other "awesome-fill-in-the-blank" sites on Github. A mega example of this is a tech guide put together by Stephen Downes on resources for creating an online community, class or conference.

Perhaps the main thing is to start a "beach-head" of some sort where people can collaborate, then publicize and support that beach-head. Thoughts, anyone?

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:57:00 GMT

I have downloaded a copy of the Windows version of Electric Drummer and wil be trying it out. I would be interested in hearing from other Drummer bloggers if they have been using Electric Drummer for blogging (reach me at @AndySylvester99).

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:40:44 GMT

After a somewhat long hiatus, the Thinking About Tools for Thought podcast is back. In episode 10, I interview Phil Nunnally on how he uses his many tools for thought, and how he switches back and forth between them.

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 22:11:55 GMT

I am really happy to read that a Windows version of Electric Drummer is in work!

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 22:14:04 GMT

Ton Ziljstra is doing some more work on federated bookshelves (additional post here and Github stuff here). Chris Aldrich is also organizing a IndieWeb pop-up session on this topic. I reviewed my federated bookshelves Github repo today, I came up with requirements and use cases for an app called Booklist Browser. I think my next step is to work on class diagrams...

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 00:42:18 GMT

Revision C of my two level outline renderer is now available, see my shared scripts OPML file to get the latest version!

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 16:24:40 GMT

Today is the one year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol. I created a liveblog of the events of that day, click this link to see the OPML in Little Outliner. The original post is here, and another rendering of the liveblog showing all entries expanded is here.