Oliver Willis, in a recent Substack post, goes into further details on Sources Go Direct, and how the Harris campaign is doing this (via Dave Winer). The last paragraph is the best:

Frankly, the relationship between Trump and the press, which follows in the footsteps of the relationship George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had with many of the same outlets, shows that you can just wait them out. Like a toddler who has a tantrum, let them complain and bellow and fume, and then they will lose interest. They are attracted to shiny, loud objects, not substance, and by generating her own heat, Harris can do what’s best for the people, not the elites who ultimately do not care about our well-being at all.

Doug Muder of The Weekly Sift makes excellent points about how the mainstream media wants access to Harris so they can tear her down. It makes total sense that she is “going direct” with her message. Trump gets a pass with the mainstream media for having two incoherent “media availability” sessions – why bother with the press?

Ramblin’ “In The Car Podcast”

Making your own media

A few days ago, Dave Winer talked about “making your own media”, meaning that individuals could create lists of sources and distribute them. Dave called for Democratic podcasts, but he has a podcast “river of news” site with multiple podcasts. I thought – why not create a river of news site for some other list of sources as an example?

I recently became aware of a blogging challenge called Blaugust (during the month of August, natch!). On their media page, they had a link to an OPML file of all the participants. I copied that file, added it to my River5 subscription list, and created a river of news site for that list of bloggers. I have instructions on how to do this for yourself – so get busy!

For the record, I have added a link to my OPML feed list in the Links section of my navigation bar (My Blogroll/Feed List). However, I had to add a Links block in my list of widgets before I could see it – grrr!

Updating my River5 install

I have had some problems recently in getting the web reader feature in my River5 RSS reader install to work. Since I recently revised my main subscription list to create a blogroll OPML file, I decided it would be good to perform a clean install and start fresh with a smaller set of feed lists. I am recording the following steps to document my work.

  • Completed backup of current river5 folder from server
  • Saved my latest feed list as readinglist.txt
  • Found post about River5 callbacks, could not find my callback script
  • Looked at artcasting site, saw how I used a modified form of riverbrowser.js to display the pictures
  • Deleted river5 install on server
  • Uploaded clean River5 install from Github to river5 folder on server
  • Updated package.json to recent changes (allowing latest Node.js version)
  • Updated config.json to current content (removing initial tab setup from Github, setting max number of items in a river, setting podast download flag to FALSE
  • Updated lists folder
  • Added exampleRiver4Callback.js from C:\NodeApps\Rivers to callbacks\addToRiver folder on server
  • Did npm install, no issues
  • Did forever stop river5.js (had to, since server would not allow me to run new app)
  • Did node river5.js, watched startup in Putty, saw web view of lists
  • Did forever run river5.js
  • Checked my reading list app, saw new river file, all is well!