November 2022

There were 11 posts published in November 2022 (this is page 1 of 2).

Lazyweb request – I am trying to make sure WordPress is not caching RSS feeds, I tried these things but it did not work. WordPress devs, please get in touch if you have any ideas! I am trying to test a RSS Cloud plugin I developed.

Feedback on my zettelkasten experiment

I have decided to slow down my updates on this project, but I do have a few observations. Adding links to the OPML file was pretty easy in Drummer. I missed adding tags to some links, but will make a sweep of the over the next week. I did some re-arranging of categories, as well as added a lot of categories after the start. In the rendered file, I noticed (as well as a reader) that all the entries are fully expanded. I may experiment with trying to flatten the categories. Also, I have not explored using XSLT style sheets to render the OPML file. Still, my biggest benefit so far is that I am now entering links into the OPML file that I would have pasted in some other file, and they are categorized, which helps in navigation.

My Hugo-based zettelkasten site is lagging in updates. I chose to create a single Markdown file for each entry, and I found that it was a significant amount of typing, even though I was starting with text from the OPML file. My favorite feature of the site is being able to view links by tag. I will continue working to get this caught up with the OPML zettelkasten.

Final note: there are lots of good tools out there, this is what I chose to start with, so far it is working for me!

Demo of rssCloud protocol and reallySimple NPM module 

In this era of moving away from Twitter, I have been reviewing the rssCloud protocol and think about its potential. I had not done anything about it, but saw this Twitter thread and really liked this comment by Preslav Rachev regarding building on RSS: “And best of all, everyone is free to build their own apps and tooling on top of it without restrictions, or stepping onto each other’s toes.”. I then decided to start playing around….

I read through the walkthrough document on the rssCloud site and decided that the simplest test would be to create some RSS feeds that have rssCloud elements, register them with a rssCloud server, then get the server to contact a server when the feeds updated, then display some information from the feeds. I started with this script from Dave Winer, updated it to provide web output, then ran the script twice to register two different feeds. I then made a video of running the script, posting to feeds using Drummer and FeedLand, then displaying the title or description of the most recent item in the feed, along with the feed name. The video is shown below. Source code and more instructions are available on Github. Let me know what you think!

Pooping is the secret to weight loss

I apologize for the crude and crass nature of the title of this post. However, it is an aspect of diets/weight loss programs that I think has been overlooked. I have noticed that when my weight has been somewhat stable, and then I eat a fair amount of fiber (beans, greens, etc), the next day, I usually have a bigger bowel movement than in the past two to three days, and reach a new low in my weight. It seems like it “clears out the backlog”! Thanks for listening, and keep eating that fiber!

OPML Zettelkasten Update – Day 13

Added over 10 links today for my ZK file, new links in Mastodon, Blogging, and Writing, and added Agriculture and Directories categories. I reorganized the Podcasting section into Resources and History subsections to group the links better. There are 143 links in the OPML ZK, more than 10 links a day on average – wow! I also updated the Blogging category on my Hugo ZK site, still need to finish migrating the OPML content over. Also on the to-do list – playing with XSLT style sheets to view the OPML content by tags. However, the full ZK file list still looks pretty good.

OPML Zettelkasten Update – Day 12

Added over 10 links in today for my ZK file, new links in Mastodon, and added Software Engineering, Programming, and Music categories. I am really working on trying to clear out tabs from my daily browsing by using my ZK, so far I am keeping up!

The historical record of podcasting

As I was working on my Podcasting category in my zettelkasten file, I realized that I did not have a link to the history of podcasting. I started doing some searching, and decided that I should try to collect “original sources”, as they say in historical research. Here, then, is a start at a chronological collection of links to pages on podcasting from original sources and some versions of documenting the historical record. Feedback is welcome!

DaveNet – Initial description of early meeting with Adam Curry at a Scripting News meetup, includes description of “the last mile” (2000)

The Two-Way Web – Payloads for RSS – Initial description of podcasting technology (January 2001)

Grateful Dead Podcast Feed – Creation date of May 18, 2001

Adam Curry – Description of podcasting for a session at BloggerCon in 2004

Scripting News – More info on early podcasting (people/timeline) (2005)

Scripting News – The origin of podcasting (2010)

References the meeting with Adam Curry, and also this post on “virtual bandwidth”, which has more detail on the Adam Curry meeting in 2001

Harvard/Berkman Center – Essay on Dave Winer/Chris Lydon collaboration (2010)

Scripting News – No silos – comments on the rise of podcasting companies trying to lock in users (2017)

Scripting News – An addendum to the creation story of podcasting (2017)

Mentions Adam Curry, Doug Kaye, Chris Lydon among others

Scripting News – Podcasts are feeds. If there is no feed, it’s not a podcast (2018)

Scripting News – CBC podcast on the origin of podcasting (2017)

Andy Sylvester – Comments on “Alternate Histories of Podcasting” podcast (Radio Survivor), pointing out that Andrew Bottomley’s research on audio file usage on the Internet was not podcasting (no RSS feed! see Podcasts Are Feeds item) (2018)

Scripting News – Twenty years ago in podcasting (2021)

Dave Winer’s side of the story in how podcasting got started, also references Podnews story on first podcast feed

Podnews – The story of the first podcast feed (2021)

Covers first meeting between Dave Winer and Adam Curry in 2001 and first feed using Grateful Dead songs