I like how clean Scripting News looks in the markdown version. No tabs along the top, no column of links (blogroll) along the right, just an emphasis on the text. Clean. Easier to read. Loads fast and the reader can select different type faces, so I can select one that makes rendering on a eInk tablet look nice.
Another thing I find interesting is that it looks like the “browser” treats markdown heads as in-page hyperlinks. Mouse over a heading and you see a icon appear to the left, which when you click scrolls the page up to put the head at the top. I think this might be useful for large pages like my Daynotes, I imagine being able to create a table of contents at the top to jump to the months of the year.
I want to give a recommendation for the Walk The Distance app and developer John Zaccone. Like many apps supported by a small team of developers, John has been particularly responsive. Google recently turned off the Fitbit API the app used for receiving data in a switch to Google Health and John made the change over the weekend. I also received notice that I no longer need to pay a yearly subscription unless I use Garmin as an input source.
A critical component of my healthcare is walking several times a day, particularly after meals. The Walk The Distance app provides context for my distance by relating it to a map of popular trails and parks. I first used it to virtually walked the 2,024 mile Appalachian Trail from early 2023 through July, 2024. Right now I am virtually walking the 2,650 mile Pacific Crest trail and have 129 miles to go.
I noticed that the markdown version of my daynotes was not displaying links and upon review of the source I notice that it has HTML tags that are not rendered in Dave’s markdown browser, which he is calling BonBonWeb. I had Claude update the script to convert HTML tags to markdown.
I’ve been meaning to have Claude edit our opml_to_markdown script so that the markdown version of my daynotes is in chronological order rather than reverse chronological order, which I think make more sense when reading it as a document. You can see the result here.
A random dea. What if there were an iPhone Duo emulator for the iPad mini? As I read about the app updates and new apps developed for the Duo UI I recognize that while those apps will run on the Mini it likely won’t run the same as they do on the Duo, which means the Duo inside screen functionality isn’t available although the screen space exists.
I have uploaded a markdown version of my daynotes site to my shared server and you can click here to view that version in Dave’s markdown web browser. One thing I notice is that HTML links are not rendered.
Dave has shared a demo of the markdown-web browser that he is developing. I very much like clean text on websites, so I find this approach appealing. Something work keeping an eye on.
I think my lessons from the 2020 election need to be revised. In the 2026 election the Republican lone strategy of fear was overcome by the realities people face every day. Everything in the United States is more expensive and the party in power is to blame. Further, many people have lost or will lose healthcare, adding more stress to already stressful lives, and the only reason why is to make rich people richer.
Annotations in the Kindle App
For me the most important thing about the election is not just how many Democrats won but the margins of their victories being large because that sends a message. Some may be tempted to declare this a victory for democracy, but while the act itself was an exercise in democracy I think the results are more a consequence of the economy. Where democracy may have begun regaining some ground is in state legislatures where several super majorities were broken.