Example Talk

2030-06-01

Click on the Slides button above to view the built-in slides feature.

Slides can be added in a few ways:

Create slides using Wowchemy’s Slides feature and link using slides parameter in the front matter of the talk file
Upload an existing slide deck to static/ and link using url_slides parameter in the front matter of the talk file
Embed your slides (e.g. Google Slides) or presentation video on this page using shortcodes.

Further event details, including page elements such as image galleries, can be added to the body of this page.

Behold the perfect algorithm!

2026-07-06

1984, Minority Report, Black Mirror — bedtime stories compared to the horrors the UK Government publish, am I right? I’m led to believe “Watch this space” is the latest propaganda piece from His Majesty’s Nanny State. I haven’t read past the title but according to gaming site Dexerto, YouTube […]

Governance can prevent AI from being used to undermine democracy. But only if it has teeth.

2026-07-06

The apparatus to cement centralized, undemocratic power has already been built. Regulations have a part to play, but they can't just be recommendations.

Versant Acquires Sports Tech Firm Full Swing For $530M

2026-07-06

Versant Media Group has acquired sports tech firm Full Swing for $530 million in cash, expanding its portfolio of businesses operating outside of traditional linear TV. Full Swing, which makes hardware and software used by consumers, competitive athletes, coaches, and commercial venues, had been owned by private equity firm Bruin Capital and a group of […]

Introducing Otari: The Open-Source LLM Control Plane

2026-07-06

2026-07-06

France is accelerating its transition to post-quantum encryption:

France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI said on Tuesday it would stop certifying security products that lack quantum-resistant encryption, a move that will force government bodies and critical operators to shift away from older systems.

Samih Souissi, ANSSI’s chief of staff, said at the France Quantum conference that the agency would halt such certifications from 2027, and that businesses should be buying only quantum-safe products by 2030.

ANSSI approval is required for use in French government agencies and critical infrastructure, making the policy a de facto phase-out of older encryption...

AI Rocky from ‘Project Hail Mary’

2026-07-06

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-07-05

Another Mexican expression I love is “lo más seguro es que quiensabe”

Making a Shuffle Button

2026-07-05

I made some updates to my notes blog, including a change to how my “Shuffle” feature worked.

Figured I’d blog about it.

Shuffle? On a Blog?

At the time of this writing, I have 974 “notes” that I’ve published.

For fun, I have a “shuffle” button that digs up a random note from the past. I like to press it from time to time and re-encounter some insight from the past.

It’s like going through an old album, pulling out a random photo, and thinking, “Oh yeah, I remember this! Good times.”

Like old photos, there’s also the occasional “that didn’t age so well”.

But I find it fun to randomly dig up old insights from others and continue to be inspired.

How Did It Work Before?

Since my site is built and hosted as static files without a runtime server, this feature required JavaScript to work.

Every page had a snippet like this:

<!-- In the site navigation -->
<button id="js-shuffle">Shuffle</button>

<!-- Way down at the end of the HTML -->
<script>
  // All 974 note IDs injected by my SSG
  const noteIds = ['id-1', 'id-2', id-3', 'id-4', '...'];
  document.querySelector("#js-shuffle")
    .addEventListener('click', () => {
      // randomly grab an item in `noteIds`
      const randomId = '...';
      window.location.href = `/n/${randomId}/`
    })
</script>

Essentially: inject every note ID into every HTML page and, when the shuffle button is clicked, randomly grab one and navigate the user to it.

Not the most elegant thing, but it worked.

The problem was that every time I published a new post, every single page had to be re-uploaded to Netlify because every file’s hash would change and its etag/cache was invalidated.

This made my builds slow. It also made it difficult, from a development perspective, to ensure refactors didn’t result in unexpected changes to output (using Dev.changes from my SSG web origami).

So I decided to make a change.

What About a No-JS Approach?

Because I love to see if I can make things work without JavaScript, I had the thought to randomly write the href at build time using my SSG, which would result in output like this:

<!-- /notes/1 -->
<a href="/notes/3">Shuffle</a>

<!-- /notes/2 -->
<a href="/notes/1">Shuffle</a>

<!-- /notes/3 -->
<a href="/notes/2">Shuffle</a>

And every time I re-build my site, just have this logic run on the static site generator so that it’s different href for every page, every time.

Pros:

Doesn’t require JavaScript
Doesn’t require a server (request-time logic)

Cons:

File hashes change across builds (even if there’s no new content or template changes, every HTML page now has a different href for the shuffle link for every build). This makes deployments way slower because Netlify has to redeploy every file on every build. Plus Etags change so caching is basically ineffectual.

I decided I didn’t want to do this, so on to JavaScript!

How Does It Work Now?

My first thought was to create a single JSON file that contained all my note IDs. Then when the “Shuffle” button gets clicked, I fetch that, grab a random ID, and navigate the user, e.g.

<!-- In the site navigation -->
<button id="js-shuffle">Shuffle</button>

<!-- Way down at the end of the HTML -->
<script type="module">
  const noteIds = await fetch("/notes.json").then(...);
  // Handler code for when button is clicked
  // grab a note ID & navigate to that location
</script>

This would work. It localizes the caching issue to a single file, so only one file has to be invalidated/re-uploaded across builds.

But in playing with it a little more, I decided to try something a little more...unconventional.

I’ve written before about having lots of little HTML pages and I thought, “Can I put this functionality in a single HTML page rather than a JSON file?”

And what I ended up with was a link, e.g.

<a href="/shuffle/">Shuffle</a>

That when clicked navigates the user to a new page. That page has all the JS logic embedded in it, e.g.

<!-- In the site navigation -->
<span>Shuffling...</span>

<!-- In the body of the page -->
<noscript>JS is required to use the Shuffle functionality</nocript>
<script>
  // All 974 note IDs injected by my SSG
  const noteIds = ['id-1', 'id-2', id-3', 'id-4', '...'];\

  // A slight delay so user sees "Shuffling..." effect
  setTimeout(() => {
    // randomly grab an item in `noteIds`
    const randomId = '...';
    window.location.href = `/n/${randomId}/`
  }, 300);
</script>

There are a few things I like about the experience this implementation provides.

First: shuffle is a route, so I can navigate to it directly without using the GUI, e.g. notes.jim-nielsen.com/shuffle

Second: I handle the UI/X with a slight delay to make it appear like something is happening when you click the button. If you click the button and it immediately jumps to the next, randomized page, it almost seems to happen too fast. Like you’re left with this feeling of “What just happened?”

But in this scenario, it navigates you to the “Shuffle” page, the button you just clicked turns into a spinner + text indicating something is happening, and there’s a slight (intentional) delay before the JS executes and sends you to a randomized note.

I know it’s a bit weird. “Introduce artificial slowness? Are you crazy?” But I like it. It feels like the shuffle feature on an old music player.

I remember one of my CD players had a “Shuffle” feature. When I’d click the button, it would display “Shuffling…” on the little black and white screen and you’d encounter this brief state where (I presume) the lens inside the hardware would move along the physical track to the spot where it would start reading a new, random song from the CD.

The hardware constraints necessitated this kind of an experience, but I always liked it because it felt like the CD player was “thinking” about what track to pick next. This state clearly conveyed to me that my intent to shuffle was received and being followed. I liked that feedback, and it’s exactly what I wanted to do on my notes site (even though it was completely unnecessary).

Screenshot of three routes side-by-side indicating a shuffle-like navigation between them.

I like having that brief moment of feedback where it’s very clear that your intention was received and being followed, vs. having it happen so fast you can’t even perceive precisely what happened.

Here’s a video to show it in action:

Why?

I know that’s a lot of information for something so small — and, arguably, unnecessary.

But I still enjoy writing about how I make decisions when I build things for myself.

Hence this post.

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

Bluesky

No RSS

2026-07-05

I have been using RSS channels for ages. It' has been my preferred way to get new information. I used the SnowNews on my IRIX (the irix port has been very fragile and often fails but I used it for years), the Vienna on the OS X (when I was still using the OS X frequently) and the Liferea recently (from about 2019). I also used integrated RSS clienst son my Linux dvices (the SnowNews on the Ben Nanonote, and clients on Nokia's 770/N800/N81/N900 devices).

Lenovo X61s

2026-07-05

I don't use this device too much. Actually it wasn't used to a few years. It's slow with modern OS (I mean Linux as Window are out of game here for a long time already) and battery is weak (I replaced it before about 10 years, I think). Also 1024x768 is something that modern WWW pages tend to ignore.

Our Wins Of The Week

2026-07-05, updated: 2026-07-06

Proof that not everything is awful

Government WITH the people

2026-07-05

"Democracy", Winston Churchill famously said, "is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." He didn't claim to have originated it, though, and actually, to give more context, he was speaking in the House of Commons on 11th November 1947 when he said:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

If, like me, you know next to nothing about political theory, and a rather limited amount about American history, then I can recommend Noēma magazine's America at 250 & Beyond, by Nathan Gardels and Nicholas Bergruen.

It's a long, but very readable, piece, explaining how the American political model arose largely from the Founding Fathers' suspicions about democracy. Churchill was in good company.

James Madison, the fourth U.S. president [...] famously declared: "Democracy is the most vile form of government … democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." John Adams, the second American president, wrote: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

So they put in place various measures to deal with the problems democracy had exhibited up to that point, especially in the Roman Republic. The article then goes on to discuss whether these safety measures continue to be successful and appropriate, in the modern world. Government by the people has many problems, for example:

The public is not stupid. But busy with work, life and family, it is, by and large, ill-informed.

One of the advantages of having 50 States with a reasonable amount of independence over their local politics is that some of them can work as petri-dish experiments for systems that might be adopted more widely. At the start of the 20th century, it was Wisconsin:

Theodore Roosevelt remarked that Wisconsin had become “literally a laboratory for wise, experimental legislation aiming to secure the social and political betterment of the people as a whole.”

The world became more complex as a result of the industrial revolution, and some of Wisconsin's lessons were adopted to help cope with it.

In the 21st century, that laboratory role is perhaps chiefly being performed by California. Might experiments being tried there help fix America's current challenges with democracy?

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-05, updated: 2026-07-06

"Trump’s grotesque botch of the 250th anniversary of 'We hold these truths' aptly demonstrates how far his leadership has already pushed the United States away from its noblest past."

Peter Easthope commented on issue #162 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2

2026-07-05

Here an XO 1.5 has the XOpup-2.2 OS and the A2 repository.

Starting A2 system.
Unix.Dlsym: entry 'clock_gettime' not found
Unix.Dlsym: entry 'clock_getres' not found
GC mode : metadata

LinuxA2 Gen. 32-bit, Apr 19 2023 2026/07/05 06:04

Trap 11 (Segmentation violation)
...

A local work-around by adding or loading a library may be possible. A more universal solution in the repository would be helpful. If neither of those is feasible, I can fall back to an older UnixAos.

Thanks, ... Peter Easthope

Nosotros, El Pueblo, Venceremos

2026-07-05

Siento gratitud hacia todas las personas que, a lo largo de los siglos, alzaron sus voces y se organizaron para hacer de este país un lugar mejor. Ahora es nuestro turno; nos toca a nosotros. Estamos celebrando los 250 años de la fundación de los Estados Unidos de América. Sí, celebrando, y espero que ustedes […]

Source

A July 4 Gift from Brian Tyler Cohen

2026-07-05, updated: 2026-07-06

In honor of Independence Day, here's a small token of my appreciation.

We, The People, Will Prevail

🔖 How to run multiple Claude Code accounts side by side.

If you use Claude Code for both work and personal projects, you’ve probably hit this friction: you can only be logged into one account at a time. Switching means /logout, /login, re-authenticate, every single time.

There’s a better way. With one line in your shell config, you can run both accounts simultaneously in separate terminal windows, each with their own sessions, memory, and settings.

anthropic money

🔖 The Common Pile v0.1: An 8TB Dataset of Public Domain and OpenlyLicensed Text

Large language models (LLMs) are typically trained on enormous quantities of unlicensed text, a practice that has led to scrutiny due to possible intellectual property infringement and ethical concerns. Training LLMs on openly licensed text presents a first step towards addressing these issues, but prior data collection efforts have yielded datasets too small or low-quality to produce performant LLMs. To address this gap, we collect, curate, and release the Common Pile v0.1, an eight terabyte collection of openly licensed text designed for LLM pretraining. The Common Pile comprises content from 30 sources that span diverse domains including research papers, code, books, encyclopedias, educational materials, audio transcripts, and more. Crucially, we validate our efforts by training two 7 billion parameter LLMs on text from the Common Pile: Comma v0.1-1T and Comma v0.1-2T, trained on 1 and 2 trillion tokens respectively. Both models attain competitive performance to LLMs trained on unlicensed text with similar computational budgets, such as Llama 1 and 2 7B. In addition to releasing the Common Pile v0.1 itself, we also release the code used in its creation as well as the training mixture and checkpoints for the Comma v0.1 models.

data openaccess pdf

July 4, 2026

2026-07-05, updated: 2026-07-06

After a lovely day with family and friends, I’m turning it over to Buddy tonight.

‘Children of Blood & Bone’ Author Tomi Adeyemi “Will Not Watch” Film Adaptation: “It’s Been Painful”

2026-07-05

As Tomi Adeyemi’s 2018 YA novel makes its way to the big screen, she has no plans to watch the first film adaptation of her work. The Children of Blood & Bone author recently addressed a fan’s question about why she hasn’t spoken more about the upcoming Gina Prince-Bythewood-helmed Paramount adaptation, premiering Jan. 15. “There […]

Happy Birthday America!

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

I wish to share two musical selections that speak to this anniversary of the United States of America. The first is an arrangement of “America The Beautiful” for wind ensemble, by Carmen Dragon, performed here by the US Army Band: I first performed this work in college in the University of Texas Longhorn Band. It […]

‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ Teaser: Oasis Doc Follows Liam & Noel Gallagher’s Reunion Tour

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

A year after Oasis reunited to kick off their world tour in Cardiff, Wales, fans can see their first performance together in 16 years on the big screen. On Saturday, Disney released the teaser for Don’t Look Back in Anger, a documentary that follows brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher’s highly-anticipated reunion for last year’s Oasis […]

Russell T. Davies Praises Starz For Picking Up ‘Tip Toe’ LGBTQ Series In U.S. Despite Trump’s “Hatred, Bile & Anger”

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

With his latest LGBTQ thriller making its way stateside, Russell T. Davies is grateful Tip Toe found a U.S. home under the Trump administration. The 3x BAFTA winner praised Starz for having the “nerve” to release the Channel 4 limited series in the U.S. and Canada, despite President Trump’s “hatred, bile and anger about minorities.” […]

Muhammad Ali Series ‘The Greatest’ Sets Prime Video Release Date; First-Look Teaser

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

Prime Video has set Wednesday, November 4 for the premiere of its Muhammad Ali limited series The Greatest. The date was revealed Saturday during a presentation at Essence Festival of Culture, featuring creator, showrunner and exec producer Ben Watkins, star Jaalen Best, and cast members Dana Gourrier, Amin Joseph, Kai Parham, and Michael Ealy. The […]

Vin Diesel Begins ‘Fast Forever’ Production, Teases “Most Amazing Finale”

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

Vin Diesel is back in the driver’s seat as the Fast & Furious franchise makes one last lap after 25 years. On Thursday, the star and producer revealed that production has commenced on Fast Forever, which is set for a March 17, 2028 premiere, the 11th and final chapter in the $7 billion action franchise […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

Kyle Kuzma blasts NBA salary cap, says next CBA will be ‘do or die moment’ for players.

America 250 Events List: How Hollywood & Others Are Saying, “Happy Birthday!”

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

As America marks its 250th anniversary, there are a wide range of events, programming and unique celebrations planned by major entertainment entities. From theme park celebrations to live event coverage to TV specials, take a look at the list below for an updated sampling. CURRENT & ONGOING JUNE 16 – National Geographic launches programming to […]

Bubba Bites Back: Bill Clinton Rips Trump In America 250 Message; “Their New Deal Is Socialism For The Super-Rich”

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

Donald Trump may “like Bill Clinton a lot,” but the 42nd President of the United States showed his deep dislike this Independence Day of where the 45th/47th POTUS is taking the world and the nation on America’s 250 birthday. “Today, we celebrate this milestone amid another period of deep division, renewed questions about America’s future […]

Celebrating 250 Years of US Independence With $250 Off the Liberty Phone

2026-07-04

In 1776, America didn't just reject a king - it rejected tolerance of oppressive governance, taxation without representation, and the idea that power is imposed by someone far away. The Liberty Phone channels the same rebellious spirit for our era, pushing back against Big Tech’s control through a privacy-first, user-owned approach. Use software you can understand, hardware you can shut off, and a system built to give control back to the user that operates it.

The post Celebrating 250 Years of US Independence With $250 Off the Liberty Phone appeared first on Purism.

Joey Chestnut Stuffs Face For 18th Coney Island Hot Dog Contest Victory; Miki Sudo Tops Among Women

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

Joey Chestnut, who in the immortal words of ESPN sports reporter Jeremy Schaap is “the greatest eater in the annals of eating, in the annals of humankind, and food,” won his 18th title today at the annual July 4th Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, New York. Chestnut scarfed down 66 dogs, […]

AMC CEO Adam Aron Posts – Then Deletes – Insider Account Of Swift-Kelce Nuptials: “I Wish You All Could Have Been There With Me”

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

This morning on Good Morning America, the show’s co-hosts tiptoed around their observations of the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce like the NDA signees they no doubt were, but AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron wasn’t quite so compliant, at least initially. In a post on X Friday night – soon deleted – Aron posted a […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

I'm old enough to remember the Tall Ships in NY Harbor on this day in 1976, the bicentennial. As a NY kid, I wasn't very impressed. I liked rockets and rock bands, sound systems, had started programming then, was working in BASIC at Rapidata, a time sharing company with its office in the Empire State Building where I had my office on the 39th floor. The windows opened. This was betw Tulane and UW-Madison. I had no clue what was going on, but I had already come close to getting drafted. I had been raised to think the US absolutely was totally special, the best place, the rest of the world was far behind us. We were right to feel that way. It was the US vs the World and we won. I was born only 10 years after the end of WW II, so the feeling of power and righteousness was our foundation growing up, but also the certainty we'd all die in a nuclear holocaust. By 1976 we had had Watergate, the president was a crook, and were about to go through spiraling stagflation. Ronald Reagan. John Lennon killed. We had shit to deal with, worse in some ways than what we have today. Are we still the USA? We are if we decide we are. Anyway, my friend Jerry at the right wants to sing for you: "I'm Uncle Sam that's who I am been hiding out in a rock and roll band." We sing this song here every July 4, and it's always as true as it was in previous years. Freedom is something you practice.

Rob Reiner Gets One Last Dig At Trump Courtesy Of Larry David & George Washington

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains information and punchlines from Episode 2 of HBO Max’s Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America. The second episode of HBO Max’s Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America has quite a few surprise guests, including Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Kimmel, […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-05

In the case of twitter-like systems the limits of the technology basically lost us the web, something most people are just now coming to grips with. At the time people were saying "RSS is dead," but didn't understand that it was killing off most of the features of HTML too. It was a slow process, like the frog in the boiling water story?

The Sting in the National Anthem’s Tail

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

photo by AmericanButters - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104151801

Gardening And Luncheonette

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

Happy 250th birthday, America

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

Let's keep building.

Trump’s Plans for America 250 get Cooked, as the World Cup Shines

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

While Trump’s long planned propaganda party wilts in the heat, America embraces the World Cup.

Beyoncé Releases New Song ‘Morning Dew (Donk)’ As 4th Of July Surprise

2026-07-04

Beyoncé is setting off some Independence Day fireworks of her own, releasing a new song called “Morning Dew (Donk)” as a surprise 4th of July gift to fans. Listen to the slow-groove tune below. The song, according to an announcement put out by the singer’s Parkwood Entertainment, starts a 60-day countdown to her next birthday […]

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-07-04:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 49 updated places. 6 new and 74 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

95da4230 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

30c2a895 - updated gis package

a036efd9 - updated data quality

297dd54e - updated bibliography

7daae0eb - updated indexes

a191924 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

594d4f27 - updated geojson and names index

2026-07-04

The #Sony physical media firestorm going around is frustrating me so much. "Selling" licenses to #games they can take away again is literally the same thing #Steam does, but all these comment threads are full of people ranting about leaving Playstation to go to Steam. It's a bigger issue than Sony. It's a bigger issue than video games! Ebooks, audiobooks, any digital rights managed shit.

What does good look like? GOG. (Are they on Fedi?) Give us the installers. Don't use DRM.

Bicentennial Memories

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

It was 50 years ago today

Lit Hub Weekly: June 29 – July 3, 2026

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

Get ready for part two! These are the 258 books we’re most anticipating in the second half of 2026. | Lit Hub Reading Lists Did you know that Ancient Roman romance novels went hard? | Lit Hub History Why readers

Declaring War on The Declaration

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

How Trump is shredding our founding document 250 years later.

Making My Content More Easily Digestible

2026-07-04

A few readers gently pointed out that my posts have grown far too long and too dense to comfortably get through, so I set out to turn one of them into a more digestible format, to try and see if this is something my readership finds worthwhile.

Billet manuscrit, Paris toujours, un 4 juillet [en]

2026-07-04

[en] Je me demande si l’invasion de nos écrans par l’IA va redonner une place à l’écriture manuscrite.

The Truth About America at 250 Years | The Coffee Klatch for Saturday, July 4th, 2026

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

With Heather Lofthouse and yours truly, Robert Reich

The Real Meaning of July 4, 2026

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

Friends,

Weeknotes: June 27 – July 3, 2026

2026-07-04

Another rough week — still coming to grips with last week. Highlight of the week: our remaining cat is being a sweetheart — the night we had her brother put to sleep, she played with me for the longest I think she’s ever played with me before, then the next morning she snuggled under the […]

July 3, 2026

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

And on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-04, updated: 2026-07-06

What will the Warriors do if their LeBron James dream doesn't come true?

It’s Official! Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce Are Married

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

After days and days of speculation, intrigue and multi-million-dollar charity donations, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are now officially married. The ceremony was officiated by no less than Kelce’s Happy Gilmore 2 co-star Adam Sandler himself. With both the bride and groom wearing Christian Dior haute couture and Christian Louboutin shoes, the 14x Grammy winner […]

Do We Really Need Data Centers?

2026-07-03

Introduction There is a lot of opposition to tech companies building data centers in various communities around the world. The objections have to do with the data centers taking all the water and electricity in an area, leaving nothing for the local residents. Then there is the contribution to global warming from the data centers, […]

Bam Margera Plans To Watch ‘Jackass: Best & Last’ But Reunion Is “Not Going To Happen”

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

Following his 2021 falling out with the Jackass guys, Bam Margera has no ill will toward the crew and their final onscreen outing. Although the pro skater said that a reunion is “not going to happen,” he recently emphasized that he “doesn’t have any bad blood” against his former co-stars from the stunt franchise, and […]

Now Playing: ‘Mary Oliver: Saved By The Beauty Of The World,’ Sasha Waters Documentary On Poet Beloved By Oprah, Stephen Colbert & More

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

The words “poet” and “bestselling” do not often go together. But they apply in the case of Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize winner who gained a legion of fans – including the famous, from the likes of Oprah and Stephen Colbert to Helena Bonham Carter, Steve Buscemi, and Maria Shriver. Oliver’s life and career are […]

Disneyland Notches 1 Billionth Guest Ahead Of Park’s 71st Birthday

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

Disneyland said Friday that it welcomed its 1 billionth guest through the gates, just less than 71 years after Walt Disney opened his now-iconic theme park in Anaheim, CA. The guest was Andres Robles, of Arizona, who was at the park with his parents celebrating his eighth birthday. They participated in a ceremony at the park’s Main […]

★ Claude’s Criminally Bad Electron Mac App Is an Inside Job

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

Felix Rieseberg, quite obviously, is the answer to the question why Claude is an Electron app. It’s like wondering why all the screws in a building were hammered into the walls, and then finding out that the guy who oversaw construction founded and co-owns the world’s biggest hammer manufacturer.

Oliver Stone Pays Tribute To His ‘Alexander’ & ‘Snowden’ Producer Moritz Borman: “I Very Much Loved And Admired Him”

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

Oliver Stone has spoken out after news of the death of Moritz Borman, the veteran Hollywood producer and longtime Stone collaborator who died July 1 at age 71. Borman was a producer on the Stone pics Alexander, Savages, W. and World Trade Center and most recently 2016’s Snowden. In addition, he had producer credits on Under the […]

X Games League Viewership Gets Serious Vert In TV Debut

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

EXCLUSIVE: The team-based era for action sports made an auspicious debut in Sacramento last week, delivering an audience of more than 12 million U.S. linear viewers across ESPN and ABC — up by 21% compared with recent Summer X Games broadcasts. Digital engagement also surged, with X Games YouTube views up 88% year-over-year. The three-day […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

Sportsbooks lose millions on Knicks NBA Finals run.

London Calling Indeed: Prince William Isn’t Going To Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce’s Wedding, But Heir Hung With Groom To Talk Eras Tour, World Cup

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

The Prince of Wales sadly won’t be attending Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding Friday in New York City, but the heir to the British throne nonetheless made sure to offer some royal prestige to events. In the hours before today’s festivities are set to start at Madison Square Garden for music superstar Swift and […]

Mexico-England World Cup Kickoff Time Remains Unchanged After FIFA Proposal Angers Teams — Update

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

UPDATE 4.20PM PT: It’s now being widely reported — including by BBC and most Mexican outlets, which have confirmed with FIFA sources — that the game will remain at its original kickoff time. FIFA’s intention to change the time seemingly led to fury in the England and Mexican camps. As you were. UPDATE: 3PM PT: […]

America should offer asylum for the persecuted — not persecute those seeking asylum.

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

Zohran Mamdani's address this morning

FYC Emmys 2026: Matthew Rhys por Widow’s Bay (actor serie comedia) y The Beast in Me (actor serie limitada)

2026-07-03

Matthew Rhys ha estado en la televisión por un largo tiempo. Desde su Kevin Walker en Brothers & Sisters, pasando por su Perry Mason en la serie homónima y sin jamás olvidar al fascinante Philip Jennings en The Americans. Este último es el rol que le valió el único Emmy de su carrera en 2018, […]

La entrada FYC Emmys 2026: Matthew Rhys por Widow’s Bay (actor serie comedia) y The Beast in Me (actor serie limitada) se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

La entrada FYC Emmys 2026: actores invitados de The Pitt se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

On this day in letters

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

Court Blocks Firings of Intelligence Officers Who Worked on Diversity.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

LeBron James free agency: Rich Paul breaks down 10 NBA teams under consideration.

Roadward Ho

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-05

Hitting the road today, and may be away from rectangles all weekend. So I’ll let this image speak to our condition on departure:

Costco And Groupchat

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

Fixing full-bleed CSS

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

I’m a front-end developer not a medical practitioner. If you’re bleeding IRL visit the hospital and stop googling medical issues! The full-bleed layout — as described there by Josh Comeau — can be done with CSS grid (and subgrid). Sometimes you can’t grid the entire page. […]

Notable links: July 3, 2026

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

AI, surveillance, open tech, and news as a business.

A new media spinout provides streaming apps for public service broadcasters. I just wish it was open.

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

We need to see more technical collaborations between public service media organizations. It's also really important that they're based on open technology that doesn't lock them in.

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-04

New in the #PleiadesGazetteer Zotero library: Ryano 2026 = Mandela Peter Ryano et al., “Distribution of Sites of Iron-Working Communities in Dodoma Region, Central Tanzania: Results of a Recent Archaeological Reconnaissance,” Journal of African Archaeology 24, no. 1 (2026): 43–65, https://doi.org/10.1163/21915784-bja10055.

Available at: https://brill.com/view/journals/jaa/24/1/article-p43_3.xml

Bibliographic record: https://www.zotero.org/groups/2533/items/2DX8LGHV

Patti LuPone “Furious” That LGBTQ+ Cruise Ship Banned From Turkey Ports: “I Am Ready To Perform”

2026-07-03

Well, Turkey has done it now. By banning a cruise ship full of American LGBTQ+ travelers from docking in its country’s ports, Turkish authorities have drawn the wrath of Broadway’s formidable Patti LuPone. In a scathing Instagram post this morning, LuPone, who has long been devoted to her equally enamored gay fandom, slammed Turkey’s latest […]

Newsrooms need to get comfortable expressing their business value - and raising money on it.

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

Newsrooms like to spend their time on the journalistic process and assume that the value of their work will speak for itself. They need to start selling themselves.

Netflix Hires ‘Harry Potter: Return To Hogwarts’ Dev Producer For U.S. Docs Team

2026-07-03

Netflix has hired Mohammed Adnan, a development producer on HBO Max’s Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, as manager of documentary series in the U.S. Adnan joins from the UK’s Story Films, where he was Vice President of Development, based in New York. Adnan said he will “work alongside some of the world’s most […]

‘Raising Kanan’s Asjha Cooper Revealed As Young Jarita; Joins ‘Power: Origins’ As Series Regular

2026-07-03

Asjha Cooper joined the cast of Power Book III: Raising Kanan for the show’s fifth and final season, playing Tiana, a call girl working for Flossie Siegel (Leslie Grossman). Cooper will continue her guest-starring role throughout the remainder of the series, and will then join Power: Origins as a series regular. The news arrives following […]

Guided Tours in WordPress

2026-07-03

Animated gif of screenshots of a 'tour' of the wordpress dashboard made with pootlepress playground.

A note about the guided tour facility in the Pootlepress Blueprint Generator for the WordPress playground.

International Insider: Paramount-Warner’s Winding Path; Korean Cinema Collapse; ‘Minions’ Big Interview

2026-07-03

Good afternoon Insiders, welcome back to your weekly round-up spotlighting the biggest news in the industry. Max Goldbart here. Sign up if you haven’t already. Paramount-Warner’s Winding Path M&A jigsaw shifts again: Big moves in the American M&A-sphere this week, guided by some regulatory heave-ho in Europe that all broke within 24 hours. On Tuesday, […]

Claude's face as visualized by ChatGPT

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-05

I asked ChatGPT for this. "If we had a talking head version of ChatGPT, a human-like image of a person that spoke Claude's words what would it look like?"

Claude's words coming through ChatGPT's image.

There was a typo, I typed Claude when I meant ChatGPT. So I asked it correctly, with ChatGPT both times. Except I forgot to ask for an image, and got the text behind the image which is generous and revealing. I would vote for a politician who was this honorable, generous and idealistic, a modern day John McCain.

Claude speaking from Claude's head, described in words by ChatGPT.

Then I asked for ChatGPT for an image of ChatGPT talking head.

ChatGPT's self-visualized talking head.

Final image, Claude head speaking for Claude AI as an image.

Today is July 1. Actually, it’s July 2, but I was thinking about this yesterday and just couldn’t make time to write it down until today. So I’m going to say it’s July 1.

Exactly ten years ago was July 1, 2016, and it was the last day of the life that I decided to leave behind – my last day of general surgery residency. But this note isn’t about July 1. (Then why did she just make such a big deal about it being July 1??) This is about 6 months before that July 1, which is when I actually decided to quit.

Journal entry from January 7, 2016, written by 32 year old me

I think 32 year old me was disappointed in 20 year old me for doing what she thought she was “supposed” to do, and wishing that 20 year old me had thought more carefully about who (and what) she wanted her future self to be. I think 32 year old me felt like she would have had more “options” if she hadn’t chosen the career path she did.

For more context on 20 year old me to understand why 32 year old me said what she said:

Age 20 was when I was starting to become an adult and having to make grown up decisions like choosing a career path.
I was getting an undergraduate education at a pretty good school, but I hadn’t declared a major yet, and although I was strong academically/ book smart (derogatory), I was very lost in all other aspects of my life, and definitely did not feel like an adult.
I think what I meant by “limited” had two facets: I felt limited by time, rushed into deciding what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and felt a lot of pressure from the adults in my life to make the decision. (Which is objectively so nuts because I was twenty. An adult baby.) I also felt limited by the actual career options that I believed were available to me. Many of the aforementioned adults were saying it was my decision, but also in the same breath that medical school made the most sense for me, and I didn’t have the confidence or sense of self to ask why or interrogate what they meant. I really just accepted that other people knew what was best for me because I had no clue myself.
I don’t remember seriously considering any other career path at that time. In retrospect, I can easily say that I was really into computers and the internet and websites and webdesign and should have thought about that as a career, but I truly didn’t perceive any of that as a viable job option. (It’s not that I considered it and then ruled it out… I literally thought that computers were fun and that jobs were boring so there was no way that I could get a job doing something I thought was fun.)

Even though 32 year old me was a little hard on 20 year old me, I’m really proud of 32 year old me for realizing that some future version of them (a.k.a. me) wasn’t going to be happy on the path they were on, and that she did something about it. I’m infinitely thankful to her for having the courage to make a leap into the unknown and for prioritizing finding her own happiness even though it probably looked irrational on the outside.

What would I tell her now, 32 year old me, that version of me from 10 years ago who wrote that emo advice for 20 year old us? Maybe something like this:

Hi! We’re 42 now and perimenopausing. Ugh lol. I’ll tell you more about that later.
Telling 20 year old us to figure out who she is is good advice, but don’t rush her. We’re going to figure it out. You have to DO the things first in order to figure out who you are. Tell her she has both more and less time than she thinks she does, and everything is going to be okay1.
You’re NOT as limited as you think you are right now. You’ve been working 100 hours a week for the last half decade at a job and even though you don’t think you’re burned out, I am telling you this in the gentlest way possible, but that’s absolutely insane, you are. It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility to be healthier and do what is within your control to not let things get to that state again. Leaving medicine is a great first step :) You got yourself out of there, and having time and brainspace to just THINK (and also being able to sleep in your own bed at night without holding a pager) is going to feel more amazing and energizing than you can imagine. Then you can think more clearly about what your options are and think bigger in the way 20 year old us wasn’t ready to. You are going to be ready.
You’re going to find some really interesting work and get to do it alongside the smartest and kindest people you’ll ever meet, and you’re going to feel valued and appreciated and like you’re doing something meaningful. It’s going to be hard, but a different kind of hard, a good kind of hard. Residency and clinical medicine are not the real world. You’re also going to learn a lot about who you are without your job and not feel like you have to define yourself by your work (while also enjoying your actual work!), if you can believe it.
I know there were many times that you wanted to rage quit and throw the pager into the East River (or the Gowanus Canal). More and more as we age, you will appreciate that you kept it together(ish) and left the right way.
You did not waste ten years of your life. You made the next ten a whole lot better for us.
You can blame the patriarchy a little bit.
Are we happy? Happy is complicated, but I promise you we will feel joy on more days than we don’t. We will feel secure in ourselves in a way you don’t think is possible right now. We will feel like if we don’t like the way things are done around here, we can influence the way things are done around here (even if it’s just saying out loud that we don’t like the way things are done around here, which can be a lot more powerful than you think). We will upgrade the espresso machine to a fancy one2!

Epilogue

July 1, 2016. My last day. My actual last day was June 30, but I was on call, so I spent the requisite 27ish hours in the hospital, supervising the juniors and students, seeing consults, checking on the sick patients, etc, and left the morning of July 1. I remember it was pretty light in terms of consults, and I got a few hours of sleep – a gift from the universe. Around 7 am, I called the attending on call to let them know whatever had happened overnight for the last time ever, signed out to the incoming resident (who like all residents and medical students every year had been promoted overnight on July 1) for the last time ever, and because I had already done all the administrative things I had to do to leave, all I had to do was grab my bike from the call room and ride away into the sunset (or, because it was around 8 am, into morning rush hour traffic). I didn’t care. I was so, so happy I can’t even describe. I was probably sleep deprived and dehydrated and maybe a little delirious, but I only remember feeling elated and intensely optimistic and FREE. Like the last day of school before summer break and you don’t even bring your backpack. That free.

I mean in terms of the career stuff you are so worried about, everything will be okay. The world at large is actually going to get worse in a lot of ways [laughs nervously]. I won’t go into too much detail, but he does end up winning the election, and that’s not even the worst part. But we can talk about that later. U doing anything after this? ↩︎
When I graduated from medical school in 2010, my sister gifted me an entry level espresso machine that I used every single day throughout my residency and for years after. It lasted a total of 15 years. I actually still have it in my hall closet because I can’t bear to part with it. I did not set many work-life boundaries during residency, but one non-negotiable for myself was that I would not leave my house in the morning without having an espresso and pooping (sequentially). It was one of the only forms of self care that I did during that time. I remember telling that to one of the junior residents (to explain why I was late that day) and her eyes got real wide and she whispered “I’m so jealous”. To this day I don’t know if she was talking about the espresso or the poo. ↩︎

Trump's Grift Reaches Astronomical Heights-- And You're Paying For It

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

His 927-page financial disclosure shows a stunning portfolio of grifts and scams that have netted him and his family billions, while Americans struggle to get by.

No Founding Members Most Friday Gathering Tomorrow - Enjoy Your Friday!

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

We will get together next Friday at 1pm ET/Happy July 4th All!

Why don't people use git properly?

2026-07-03, updated: 2026-07-06

I think the worst failure mode I've ever seen is one team that maintained a "git repository" for a collection of analysis scripts that was simply a directory on a shared drive. It was technically speaking initiated as a git repository, but practically speaking it wasn't used as one: rather, the directory contained zipped copies of the code timestamped with when they were modified. There were very few commits to be seen, and I honestly hesitated to try and branch from them in any meaningful way. Of course there was no command line interface or anything to be had, and the git GUI software they had available was muddled enough that it confused me. In this situation, yes, *technically* they were using git, but in any real sense this clearly wasn't the case.

How I send and grow my newsletter without open and click tracking

2026-07-03

Buttondown has plenty of analytics features. But you can grow your audience without them.

Waterfox Android 1.2.5 - Gecko 152 update

2026-07-03

Gecko 152, security updates and search provider changes

Friday 3 July, 2026

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

The Beeline Imagine how attractive these flowers would look if you were a bee. According to the invaluable Plantnet app, it’s Verbascum chaixii ViLL. Which is ‘Nettle leaved Mullein’ to the rest of us. Quote of the Day ”The only … Continue reading →

The Forgotten Message

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

The Grievances against George III are also what Trump should be held accountable for

Blue Scare

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Democratic socialism rattles both parties

What are the attributes of a “social platform”?

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

On June 28, 2026, Dave Winer put out a call for social web app developers to work with him if they are including inbound and outbound RSS in their apps. Manton Reece from Micro.blog referenced this in a post on Micro.blog, and had this statement: “I’m actually not aware of any social platforms that support […]

For Sale To the Highest Bidder

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Trump’s rampant corruption is brazen—and overwhelming by design. Here’s how to tackle it.

The U.S. Economy is Shite

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Today's report from the BLS

Thursday session

2026-07-02

Thursday session

EveryMac at 30

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-03

EveryMac: On July 2, 1996, EveryMac.com launched. Thirty years is a long time -- and a great deal has changed since then -- but what has not changed is that EveryMac.com has been there to provide you with detailed info on every Mac from the original 128k to the current line. Thank you very much […]

Hide My Email Vulnerability Exposes Real Address

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-03

Joseph Cox (MacRumors, Hacker News): A vulnerability in Apple’s “Hide My Email” tool lets almost anyone discover a person’s real email address that is supposed to be hidden by the feature, and Apple has failed to fix it for more than a year, according to a security researcher and 404 Media’s own tests. […] “Apple […]

Hide My Email Moving to private.icloud.com Domain

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-03

Apple (MacRumors): Later this summer, Apple will unify the email domains used by Sign in with Apple and iCloud+ Hide My Email under a single, shared domain: private.icloud.com. New addresses generated for both features will be issued on the new domain. […] Existing addresses on the legacy domains will continue to work and forward mail […]

Golden Gate Spotlight

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-03

Hartley Charlton: Apple today announced that it has rebuilt the search infrastructure that powers key features like Spotlight, Photos, and Mail across all of its major next-generation software platforms. LLM search using Core Spotlight: Level up basic search into a retrieval-augmented system using SpotlightSearchTool and LanguageModelSession. Explore Core Spotlight integration, delegate-based hydration patterns, and how […]

When Your Marriage Fits the BITE Model

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Using the framework that tells "difficult" apart from genuinely controlling

FYC Emmys 2026: Sepideh Moafi en The Pitt

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-03

Cuando Archie Panjabi ganó el Emmy en 2010 por The Good Wife, no solo vencía a grandes favoritas, como las actrices de Mad Men o su compañera de elenco, la veterana Christina Baranski, también se convertía en la primera actriz de origen indio en ganar ese premio. Desde 1954, los casos de intérpretes no caucásicas […]

La entrada FYC Emmys 2026: Sepideh Moafi en The Pitt se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

This Page Left Intentionally Blank

2026-07-02

I was popping off about negation being an act of creativity, when Blake Watson introduce me to the idea of the “This Page Intentionally Left Blank”-Project (Internet Archive):

In former times printed manuals had some blank pages, usually with the remark “this page intentionally left blank”. In most cases there had been technical reasons for that. Today almost all blank pages disappeared […]

[this project] tries to introduce these blank pages to the Web again […] to offer internet wanderers a place of quietness and simplicity on the overcrowded World Wide Web

Ahead of its time.

In our age of generative AI, a blank page is a deliberate act!

So I went ahead made my own.

Go ahead and crawl that bots. I don’t use robots.txt, but I’m thinking of making one specifically to say “Make sure you don’t miss this page Botty Bot.”

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

Bluesky

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

Who needs Anthropic Mythos when we have the Facebook leadership?

https://www.404media.co/hackers-simply-asked-meta-ai-to-give-them-access-to-high-profile-instagram-accounts-it-worked/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

The second Mac Beta was exciting, but we have not forgotten about iOS.

We also brought the Asset Placer to Xogot on iOS:

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-03

Sí, nadie niega que Rhea Seehorn es una de las que mueve los hilos en la categoría de actriz en una serie dramática. Hay un doble juego con ella: el hecho de que su trabajo en Pluribus es fascinante, pero también de que es la consecuencia de la construcción que durante años viene haciendo de […]

La entrada FYC Emmys 2026: Rhea Seehorn en Pluribus se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

AI should be like a lawyer or doctor, first responsibility is to the user. And first, do no harm.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

An observation about Fable 5 in Claude Code. It's a much better writer than Opus 4.8. One of our next big things is writing docs, and all the info is in Claude. Opus was a disaster as a docs writer. This one looks like it'll be good. Whew.

New Battleground Polls Confirm That This Is A Year Of Opportunity For Democrats (New Video & Written Analysis)

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Big win for the US Men's team!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-04

Since Monday, the #PleiadesGazetteer editorial college has published 10 new and 103 updated place resources, reflecting the work of 18 individuals and external projects. The usual Monday blog post will summarize the full week's worth of such work, but meantime, here's a #SneakPeek at a new place resource, provided by Anika Campbell with contributions from R. Scott Smith, Greta Hawes, and Brady Kiesling: an ancient sanctuary to Despoina located at Lykosoura, in Arcadia.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/29727643

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #classics #DH #gazetteers #HGIS #LOD

Vollmann and Recipes

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

The modern app

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Today I’m introducing the next generation of code editor. A modern app to satiate the needs of the discerning coder. We’re talkin’ blazing fast collaboration between man and machine. Try out the demo below (for best experience: desktop Chrome, obvs). […]

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #450

2026-07-02

For June 24-30, 2026

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. After our bitter disappointments at the Olympics and the Academy Awards earlier in the year, we finally caught a break and got some good news this week: There IS a World Cup of Short Humor Newsletters and we WERE invited to compete as Team USA! Bad news: We immediately got knocked out by a surprisingly scrappy German short humor newsletter duo. Congrats to Johann and Maxim. What can we say? They just wanted it more.

What We Enjoyed This Week

The Seven Meanings of “Fine,” in Descending Order of Plausible Deniability by Oskar Milton (McSweeney’s) A delightful exploration of the nuances of language, and all the different ways one single, short word can be used. There are a lot of great details and specifics in this piece: “This fine terminates. It does not summarize. It does not resolve. It just stops—a door closed with exactly enough force to indicate the door is closed. The subject is fine. The matter is fine. The matter will remain fine until 11:14 p.m. that night, when it will become eight separate matters, each with its own deadline.” Yes, this piece is fine. (Meaning #1.)

Wirecutter Headlines During the Revolutionary War by JiJi Lee (McSweeney’s) JiJi totally nails the tropes and vocabulary of Wirecutter headlines. (“We Found the Holy Grail of _____.”) Taking these clichés and juxtaposing them with Revolutionary War specifics is a terrific recipe for laughs: “You’re Quartering a British Soldier. These Decorative Screens Will Help Maintain Your Privacy”"

A Short Defense of Sports Clichés by Isabella Cacdac Ampil (The Paris Review) And speaking of clichés, sports clichés have long been the subject of all kinds of comedy. (See, for example: Post-Dinner Interview with a Twelve-Year-Old Who Sat at the Grown-Ups’ Table for the First Time on Thanksgiving.) This piece does have some funny descriptions of sports clichés being deployed in the wild, but it’s also a compelling argument with an interesting take on the limits of language that will make you see those clichés in a new light. In other words: Isabella took it one sentence at a time, left it all on the desk, and at the end of the day gave 110% when writing this article.

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And feel free to send us an email if you have questions.

An Old Favorite

An Announcement by Mark Singer (The New Yorker) Mark Singer, the great New Yorker writer, passed away last Friday. You probably know him best for his journalism and profiles (including two classics on Ricky Jay and… Donald Trump), but he also wrote short humor as well. To honor him, we thought it would be appropriate to share this Shout, in which he imagines announcing his retirement. In this very funny, delightfully self-deprecating piece, he projects that his retirement will take place in 2015, and we feel very lucky we got another decade+ of writing from him beyond what he imagined.

Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.

Updates From Your Editors and Friends of the Newsletter

There’s still time to sign up for Luke’s short humor workshops starting next week! He’s got advanced workshops starting on Thursday afternoon (2 spots left) and Friday afternoon (1 spot left), and an intro class starting Thursday night (2 spots left).

Theday

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

Markets are Money It doesn’t say that in The Gluetrain Manifesto, but the long-gone (but archived) parody of The Cluetrain Manifesto is still funny. Or was it? I didn’t hear that China was building robot armies before it was debunked. May the most talented robots still lose 404 Media: Tidal Says It Won’t Pay Royalties for […]

Caltech Weekly - July 2: Caltech Welcomes Ray Jayawardhana as Tenth President; Space Exploration

2026-07-02

Caltech Weekly - July 2: Caltech Welcomes Ray Jayawardhana as Tenth President; Space ExplorationView this email in your browser

Thursday, July 2, 2026

Caltech Welcomes Ray Jayawardhana as Tenth President

A pathbreaking scientist propelled by curiosity, Jayawardhana commits to building on the Institute's "unsurpassed legacy of discovery and impact."

New Cohort of KISS Study Programs Pushes the Frontiers of Space Exploration

From exoplanets to desert landscapes, Caltech researchers on campus and at JPL are leading the development of revolutionary space missions of the future.

Computer Scientist Adam Wierman on the Pros and Cons of Data Centers

With the recent growth of AI, there has been a dramatic increase in the need for data centers—facilities that house the computers and data storage systems that make the technology possible.

Schuman Receives 2026 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience

Former Caltech professor Erin Schuman, who is now director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Germany, shares the prize with three other neuroscientists for their discovery of "local protein translation in neurons and establishing its importance for brain development and plasticity."

"I couldn't be more excited to join Caltech, to be part of a community that's pushing at the edges of what's possible."

Ray Jayawardhana, who became Caltech's tenth president on July 1, in a video message to the campus community.

This Week's Other Top Stories

NSF Research Fellowships Awarded to Caltech Students and Alumni

JPL News: Testing Advanced Capabilities for Moon, Mars Rovers

Did You Know?

A distinguished line of scientists have led Caltech as president stretching back to 1908—before it become known as the California Institute of Technology.Noel Swerdlow, a renowned historian of science, spent nearly a decade at Caltech as a visiting associate following his retirement from the University of Chicago in 2010. Swerdlow, who passed away in 2021, was one of the world's most foremost experts on Copernicus, one of the important contributors to premodern astronomy. But thanks to Jed Buchwald, the Doris and Henry Dreyfuss Professor of History at Caltech, his legacy lives on in a new book.Bluesky Caltech.edu Facebook Instagram LinkedIn X YouTube Connect with CaltechThe Caltech Weekly is published by the Office of Communications and External Relations. Copyright ©2026 All rights reserved. Send feedback and story ideas for the newsletter to theweekly@caltech.edu.

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on_llms

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

On large language models, archives, generation, slop and art

Holly Herndon, an artist who works with language models and generation, said in a recent interview she gave to Der Spiegel, that “people think AI is some kind of an alien, when it is actually something from us, our culture.”

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-07-02:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

4 new and 61 updated places. 4 new and 49 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

6b7a8a7c - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

3bb345d4 - updated gis package

c899fba1 - updated data quality

99829e31 - updated bibliography

5ad6db8c - updated indexes

7e454120 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

afe2260a - updated geojson and names index

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

I'm working on an app in Claude that has a server and the server has an API. One day we had an aha moment. I bet you (Claude) can control the app via the API. Yes. And now unless we're debugging something in the UI, Claude just interacts via the API. It feels like a person but you have to remember that it's actually a piece of software. ;-)

The AI Resist List

2026-07-02

Nothing about the current trajectory of AI development is inevitable. It was shaped by the thousands of subjective decisions of a tiny elite, and continues its march based on the active participation and tacit consent of people globally.

adactio.com/links/22635

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

I saw a bit of a commencement speech by Eric Schmidt, ex-CEO of Google, where he was talking about AI and getting boo'd by the audience. But he was saying things that were right and should be paid attention to. Most important, and I'm paraphrasing, the AI world is just getting started, and we can change it now most easily, it's malleable. That won't last forever. As Obama says, "Don't boo, vote." Same thing here. AI has already completely changed how we develop software. It's not replacing humans, it's giving us amazing new power. Maybe it will at some point replace us, but don't be so sure that what we do with it might be every bit as new as the things it can do. We have different abilities. And I am old enough to remember a time before personal computers, the internet, the web, mobile devices, all the things that have since become everyday fixtures, and they all had negative aspects, but I would never go back. We're on a train and it's going somewhere. Where it goes is something we all have a say in.

U.S. Job Gains Slowed In June To 57,000; Entertainment Employment Continues Decline

2026-07-02

The U.S. added 57,000 jobs in June, lower than expected, while the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2%. The figures were below expectations, and came after May’s surprisingly robust job growth. Employment in movies and music fell again during the month, by 3,600, to 321,700, according to the estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. […]

Am I the Asshole For Refusing an Invitation to Submit Work?

2026-07-02

Howdy, friends! Welcome back to another perfect installment of Am I The Literary Asshole?, a drunken advice column that’s just happy to be here. I’m your host, Kristen Arnett, and I’m proud to announce that it’s officially Miller Time. That’s

META JUST THREW A WRENCH IN THE AI BANDWAGON

2026-07-02

Yesterday, when I first read the Bloomberg headline “Meta Is Planning a Cloud Business to Sell AI Computing Power,” the first thing I instinctively thought was, “Selling AI computing power to whom, exactly?” AI labs are currently split into two categories: those who built their own infrastructure and those who...

The post META JUST THREW A WRENCH IN THE AI BANDWAGON appeared first on JustDario.

E. Jean Carroll Beat Trump. Again.

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

As the cowards in Congress prostrate themselves, an 82-year-old woman took on the president and won.

Ten Great Nonfiction Titles to Read in July

2026-07-02

From the world’s wildest places to the origins of American fascism to memoirs of grief and recovery, July’s nonfiction has something for everyone. * The Savage Landscape, Cal Flyn Flyn’s 2021 book, Islands of Abandonment, was a wonderfully written, compelling

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

Bernie Sanders' AI tax proposal is his worst idea ever.

Cybersecurity Mission Creep in the US

2026-07-02

Interesting paper: “ Cybersecurity Mission Creep.”

Abstract: Cybersecurity is experiencing mission creep. Policymakers are casting more and more problems as issues of cybersecurity. So reframed, wildly different policy issues, from misinformation, to child social media safety laws, to antitrust regulations, to alleged journalist misconduct, to anti-sex trafficking statutes become what this Article calls “cybersecuritized.” Before this reframing, these issues present as important but not existential. But once cybersecuritization positions the issues as threats intensified by their technological nature, they gain access to the politics and law of urgency and exceptionalism and invite troubling governance responses...

It is often said that we live in an age without futurity, unable to imagine its own perpetuation or conceive any alternative to itself. This is, of course, to be expected, because the past is as imaginal as the future, and it is only by recalling what has been that we acquire the means of projecting what may come to be. To the view that dead artists have nothing to offer us now because they knew less than we do, T.S. Eliot memorably responded, “Precisely, and they are that which we know.” Yet far from granting us unmediated access to a living present, our presentism locks us in the very past we seek to transcend. Take language as an example: most of the words we use were coined by people who died long ago. In using these words without acknowledging their origin, we falsely believe they are our own coinage, reenacting the past while thinking we act in the now.

This imprisonment in the past becomes splendidly evident when we turn to the other danger I wish to address here: the proliferation of generative AI designed to produce works of art be they pictures, books, music, or movies. Generative AI exists in many forms, but all are dependent on the enormous databases from which they scrape the elements of their “compositions.”

In other words, generative AI is entirely retrospective and combinatorial: it sees only what has been and can only reconfigure elements that already exist. Like us, it is locked in the past, even as it sees no purpose in the past other than to feed itself. Its very conception of art attests to this: generative AI aims not to make art but to manufacture objects that we, as clients, take to be art. If a Victorian machine designed to produce oil paintings had, on the day of its unveiling in 1870, cranked out nothing but Mark Rothkos, Alma Thomases, and Jean-Michel Basquiats, the audience would have laughed the inventor out of the room. Only a machine able to make works already recognizable as art at the time–Renaissance paintings, Pre-Raphaelite ones, perhaps one or two Impressionist works–would have been deemed a success.

The thought experiment underscores the point: artifice is baked into the very concept of artificial intelligence. Since logic dictates that artificial intelligence can produce only artificial art, then what we are dealing with is artifice by definition…The trust is that machine-made artifice shares much with genuine art, and it precisely in attempting to meet art on its own ground that it poses such a grave threat. In the book, I argue that art exists for no purpose other than to be experienced; the same is true of AI-generated outputs. But although these artificial works may serve advertisers or propagandists as effectively as the older forms of artifice ever did, their overarching aim is to become indistinguishable from genuine art.

On a subjective level, AI-generated art can have a demoralizing effect on novice artists still developing the technical mastery to realize their visions. While even the most advanced AI generators may not rival Cervantes, Michelangelo, or Jane Austen, they surpass any beginner in any medium from a technical standpoint. A friend told me that his daughter, a brilliantly talented artist, nearly gave up after seeing how easily a brief prompt could produce figures she was still learning how to draw. I doubt her experience is unique, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that AI tools have already caused significant damage in this regard.

Artists today are placed in direct competition with machines. The irony is striking, given AI’s dependence on preexisting human artworks. To repeat, generative AI is entirely retrospective; it can only imitate what already exists, borrowing both form and content from human works.If we lose human artists, we lose all art, human or otherwise. Surely, we can imagine a time in which people are content consuming the regurgitations of AI regardless of quality (after all, for decades now, we have been consuming films and TV series so formulaic to have been made by machines), but such a future would signal the final triumph of artifice, leaving us with little more than an echo, an afterimage, devoid of the powers I attribute to art in this book.

This thought experiment, and argument about memory, seemed very compelling. The book itself galvanized me to return to some of my own research, to tease out an angle that laid dormant, but was an undercurrent (or creative tension) during my time at MITH. Hopefully more about that soon.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-05

Last episode of The Residence.

I don’t want it to end.

Birthright Citizenship Survived. For Now.

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

What birthright citizenship actually is, why it has made this country stronger for 158 years, and why this week’s narrow ruling should concern anyone who values what it protects.

I have a theory about AI fake news site The Editorial

2026-07-02, updated: 2026-07-06

I was taken in by a fake AI news site. I think it may be an attempt to poison LLMs with propaganda.

Will agents replace scripts?

2026-07-02

I am in favor of coding agents. They’re here to stay, so we might as well figure out enjoyable ways to work with them. I’m aligned with Charity Majors’ Make AI Boring Again piece. I’m also increasingly convinced they won’t replace techies, because the non-techies still need us.

I stumbled on this Slack thread at work:

At work, we log the hours we spend on each customer, and we report them weekly. It’s tedious and error-prone. But it’s useful: we want to know where time is going, what to improve, and how to price our services.

An improved way to manage visibility of archived emails

2026-07-02

A clearer hierarchy for archive settings, per-email overrides, and content-level paywalls.

An improved way to manage visibility of archived emails

2026-07-02

A clearer hierarchy for archive settings, per-email overrides, and content-level paywalls.

★ A Tale of Two Modems

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-02

Cellular download speed and reception is nearly a solved problem for my needs. Battery life is not.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

“What is the terminal?”

Bring Back Crappy Forums

2026-07-01

Web forums were rough around the edges and faded in relevance as seemingly better options emerged. But what if we had stuck with them?

Last Call - Today, 6:30pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

Welcome new subscribers!

Oops I Messed Up

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

and sent my last two Substacks to Paid only. I think.

Introducing the Safari MCP server for web developers

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-02

In Safari Technology Preview 247, we’re introducing the Safari MCP server — a Model Context Protocol server for web developers that makes your web development and debugging workflow faster and more powerful.

Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 247

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-02

Safari Technology Preview Release 247 is now available for download for macOS Golden Gate and macOS Tahoe.

Trump Has No Conflicts of Interest

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

He has only one interest, and he's not at all conflicted about it

"Right Now Democracy Is Holding" - A New Conversation With Marc Elias

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

This is the second in our "America at 250" series.......

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-05

A thought for people who think the US can't be fixed. I've seen very strange things happen, like all of a sudden people figure it out and boom next thing you know they're the NBA Champions. It wasn't exactly sudden, but the last leg of was. A gestalt. Now two leaders figure out how to. The thing about each of those people is determination, and a belief they were right, and they went right up to the edge and fought. I think the country would unite behind such a leader.

Trump’s $1.4 billion crypto disclosure

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

The White House insists there’s no conflict of interest as Trump reports $1.4 billion in income from an industry he’s deregulated.

Des mots sur un carnet à Paris [en]

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-04

[en] C’est moche pour l’accessibilité, je sais.

NetNewsWire 7.1

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

Brent Simmons: The Current Activity window shows what the app is doing right now The Activity Log window shows what the app did recently The Account Stats window shows per-account article and status counts and database sizes, and it includes a Vacuum Databases button which can help with database size and performance The Dinosaurs window […]

macOS 26.5.2

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no enterprise, no developer, full installer, IPSW): According to Apple’s release notes for the update, macOS Tahoe 26.5.2 includes security fixes for the Mac. Howard Oakley: This addresses a total of about 29 vulnerabilities, including three in the kernel and a whole slew in WebKit. None are believed to have […]

iOS 26.5.2 and iPadOS 26.5.2

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

Juli Clover (iOS/iPadOS release notes, security, no enterprise, no developer): Apple told Reuters that it released the updates earlier than planned due to concerns about AI-assisted hacks. Previously: iOS 26.5.1 iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5

Meta and YouTube Addiction Lawsuits

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

Cecilia Kang, Ryan Mac, and Eli Tan (March, Hacker News): The social media company Meta and the video streaming service YouTube harmed a young user with design features that were addictive and led to her mental health distress, a jury found on Wednesday, a landmark decision that could open social media companies to more lawsuits […]

One night only: Join us live on July 8 — 5:30 pm PT, 8:30 pm ET

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

The final watchalong of "The Last Class" film

FYC Emmys 2026: elenco de A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

Desde que HBO inició a adaptar las novelas de George R.R. Martin, uno de los elementos clave fue el casting. Los icónicos personajes de la saga de Canción de hielo y fuego fueron llevados a la vida por un grupo excepcional de actores que permitieron que una serie fantástica como Game of Thrones se convirtiera […]

La entrada FYC Emmys 2026: elenco de A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

Mitchell Robinson, Celtics agree to 3-year, $47.4M deal.

The Day After: a discussion with Brian Tyler Cohen

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

A recording from Brian Tyler Cohen and Glenn Kirschner's live video

@Robert's feed at BlueSky

2026-07-01

Wrote up some of my ideas about using language models and workflow. Short version design, decision and planning docs in one session, then test-driven development in another. Seems to help with outcomes. https://rsdoiel.github.io/blog/2026/06/30/natural_language_programming.html

This Week In The Big Picture

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

Tuesday’s financial disclosure by Donald Trump confirmed what critics have alleged for a year: He has made far more money from the presidency than any occupant of the White House in American history.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-05

When you are a Swift compiler contributor, every day is Xmas!

https://forums.swift.org/t/dropping-the-requirement-for-c-only-bootstrapping/87739/

Webnesday

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-05

The worst trade since Luka for whatever that was Something very very bad must have happened to kill the relationship between Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics, a team JB loved and led to performance levels far above expectations this past season. At the end of that failed relationship came one of the worst trades […]

Babell Festival in Porto, Portugal

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

Launches with great success!

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-05

Venice AI becomes a unicorn with $65M Series A as its privacy-first AI platform takes off.

America At 250 & Beyond

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-02

The post America At 250 & Beyond appeared first on NOEMA.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

2026-07-01

The Vaster Wilds is a remarkable book. It somehow manages to be both harrowing and uplifting at the same time.

I had read one of Lauren Groff’s previous books, Matrix, and liked it well enough. But The Vaster Wilds is in a different league. It starts with urgency, suffering, and wonder, and that combination never lets up for the whole book.

The plot is decepetively simple. A servant girl escapes a starving colony in 17th century America—probably Jamestown—and runs through the woods in wintertime, desperate to survive. That’s pretty much it. But in that journey is all of life; nature red in tooth and claw, humanity even redder, and the transcendental power of the living landscape.

The descriptions of the protagonist’s inner world are just as vivid as the details of the forests, rivers, and mountains. The prose fairly sings with joy at a minor pleasure and then wails in woe at a horrifying brutality, often in the same paragraph.

It isn’t always an easy read. But it is always completely true to itself.

FYC Emmys 2026: Keri Russell en The Diplomat

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

“Yo pensé que, de seguro, no.” Esas fueron las primeras palabras de Keri Russell al recibir su Actor Award por The Diplomat a inicios de este año. Su primer premio en casi 30 años, sabiendo que su antecesor es el Golden Globe que ganó en 1999 por Felicity. Por Felicity jamás la nominaron al Emmy, […]

La entrada FYC Emmys 2026: Keri Russell en The Diplomat se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Transparent compression with Folder Actions in macOS

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

I just wired this up for my own build folder—where my current project is quietly piling up data—and figured it was worth writing down. The same trick works on any big codebase, a pile of assets, or a crowded /Applications folder. I generally use it on folders that don’t have frequent churn, but do have large or compressible things added to them often enough.

It relies on transparent file system compression (sometimes called AFSC), which has been built into macOS for years. It’s nothing like a zip archive: files aren’t bundled up or locked away—they keep their names, stay right where they are, and every app opens them as normal. macOS simply stores them compressed on disk and unpacks them on the fly as they’re read. The only thing that changes is the size on disk—often dramatically. Apps can even launch more quickly, which is why all Mac App Store downloads already have this sort of filesystem compression applied.

The classic tool for this is afsctool, but these days I reach for applesauce, a modern Rust rewrite. It compresses much faster by working on blocks in parallel, uses less memory, and writes safely via atomic temp-file renames so you can’t corrupt a file.

Rather than run it by hand in the Terminal or from a context menu every time, we can wire it into a Folder Action so files get compressed the moment they land in a folder.

Install applesauce

Two easy options:

# Homebrew (lives in a custom tap, not the core repo)
brew install Dr-Emann/homebrew-tap/applesauce

# or the standalone installer, if you'd rather skip brew
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/Dr-Emann/applesauce/releases/latest/download/applesauce-cli-installer.sh | sh

Then find where it landed:

which applesauce

On Apple silicon brew installs to /opt/homebrew/bin/; older Intel Macs use /usr/local/bin/. We’ll need that path in a moment.

Create the Folder Action

Folder Actions is a built-in macOS directory watcher. We’ll build one with Automator:

Open Automator, choose New Document, pick Folder Action.
At the top, set receives files and folders added to: to your target folder.
If Automator drops in a Get Selected Finder Items action, delete it—Folder Actions already pass incoming files along, so keeping it breaks the pipeline.
Search the sidebar for Run AppleScript and drag it into the workflow.
Paste this, swapping the path if yours differs:

on run {input, parameters}
	repeat with theItem in input
		try
			do shell script "/opt/homebrew/bin/applesauce compress " & quoted form of (POSIX path of theItem)
		end try
	end repeat
	return input
end run

Save ( Cmd + S) as something descriptive like “Compress”, drop a few files into the folder, and macOS shrinks them behind the scenes. Pretty easy!

Just for you, here’s one I made earlier: Compress.workflow.zip (93 KB)

No sudo required

Changing a file’s compression sounds like root territory, but applesauce only writes to your own user-owned folders, so it isn’t. That means no Touch ID or password prompts breaking your flow, and nothing running with privileges it doesn’t need.

What triggers it

Worth knowing before you lean on this: a Folder Action only fires when items are added to the folder (or removed from it), never when a file already sitting inside it changes. It isn’t recursive either—only the top level of the folder is watched, not the contents of any subfolders. That’s straight from Apple’s docs.

For /Applications that comes with a catch. When an app updates itself it usually swaps in a whole new .app bundle, which is technically a new item—but Folder Actions have always been flaky at noticing changes made by anything other than Finder, and updaters move files into place programmatically. So don’t count on self-updating apps getting re-compressed for you. When you want to be sure, drag the app out and back in, or just re-run applesauce compress on it by hand.

Choosing the algorithm

By default applesauce compress uses LZFSE, Apple’s fast and well-balanced algorithm—a good pick for almost everything. Two others are available:

LZVN — tuned for 64-bit, very fast to decompress.
ZLIB — slower to compress, but often the best ratio.

Force one with -c:

do shell script "/opt/homebrew/bin/applesauce compress -c LZVN " & quoted form of (POSIX path of theItem)

And applesauce info <path> will report the ratio and algorithm any file ended up with. You beauty!

Managing setup

Saving from Automator attaches the action to the folder you chose, but you can wire the same “Compress” action to more folders—or check it’s switched on if nothing’s happening—from the Folder Actions Setup dialog. Right-click any folder in Finder and choose Services → Folder Actions Setup…

Tick Enable Folder Actions (bottom-left).
Add the folder you want watched to the left column.
Pick “Compress” from the actions on the right.

Now anything you drop into that folder gets squeezed automatically, no matter how it got there.

Results

We can confirm the savings with Finder’s Get Info (wouldn’t that be a great name for a blog?). The Size line still reports the full, uncompressed size—that’s what apps see—while the smaller figure in brackets is what the folder now actually takes up on disk. The gap between the two is the saving.

For finer detail, applesauce info <path> prints the exact ratio and algorithm file by file.

Pluralistic: Technocarcinization (01 Jul 2026)

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-03

Today's links Technocarcinization: Enshittification is the great leveler. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Grampa's backyard Disneyland; Elizabeth Warren on monopolies; Spotify v Apple (antitrust edn); Exxon lobbyist confesses; "When the Sparrow Falls." Upcoming appearances: London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Technocarcinization (permalink) "Carcinization" is a curious biological phenomenon: given enough time, across many environments, many species will evolve into crabs. The body-type of a crab, with its low center of gravity, sideways gait (useful for evading predators), ease of concealment and protected organs is suitable to many different environments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation Lately, I've watched the American Big Tech platforms as they underwent their own form of technocarcinization, which is when every tech company turns into Facebook. For a long time, it seemed to me that you could make sense of the tech platforms by placing them into one of four quadrants on a 2×2 grid, in which one axis denoted "control freakishness" and the other, "surveillance." Each quadrant had its own canonical company. The most surveillant/least controlling company (top left) was Google. They would let you roam the whole wide internet and exert no control over your conduct, but would spy on you wherever you went. The least surveillant/most controlling company was Apple, who imprisoned you in its manicured walled garden, but promised never to spy on you. The non-spying/non-controlling option is free/open source tech (of course), which doesn't care what you do, and doesn't watch you do it. And the most spying, most controlling company was Facebook, a company whose products did everything they could to imprison you within their virtual walls, from which vantage they could effect maximal surveillance. I've used this comparison many times over the years. I included in my 2023 book The Internet Con, along with the joke that Tiktok's position on the grid was so far up and to the right (maximum surveillance and control) that we'd had to put its logo on the back cover. Enough people took this joke seriously and wrote in to complain that they'd gotten a misprint without the logo that we added it to the paperback: https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con The grid was useful, until technocarcinization started to push all the tech companies into that top right quadrant. Apple is no longer the company that protects you from surveillance – they're the company that spies on you, having secretly added a total surveillance system to the iPhone to target ads to you: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar Apple can't even claim to protect you from third-party surveillance. Sure, they block Facebook from spying on you, but they have barred ICE Block, an app that tells you if there are ICE chuds hunting in your neighborhood, looking to kidnap you and send you to a concentration camp. Apple declared ICE mercenaries to be a "protected class": https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/06/rogue-capitalism/#orphaned-syrian-refugees-need-not-apply And thanks to Apple's control-freakery – which prevents you from overriding Apple's decisions about your own devices – once Apple decides to spy on you or sell you out to fascist goons, there's nothing you can do about it: https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/ Then there's Google, the company that ran a free-range livestock operation in which you could roam wherever you liked, because they could always find you when it was time for the slaughter. For years now, Google has been moving inexorably to the kind of control-freak nonsense that you used to only find in one of Apple's crystal prisons. For example, every year or two, Google floats a proposal to use secure hardware in your device to rat you out if you've got an ad-blocker, privacy blocker, or other aftermarket add-on that lets you choose how you experience the digital world: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai It's an idea they just can't quit, despite the fact that it's fucking abominable and everyone hates it: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/12/compelled-speech/#quishing Google used to pride itself in its ability to send you to the open web, viewing search as a conduit to other peoples' resources. Now, with AI search summaries, Google is harvesting the open web and then eating the seed corn, keeping searchers inside of Google's walled garden: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/29/arsonist-firefighters/#im-feeling-lucky Google also took the idea of a free/open browser and ran with it, rehabilitating some discarded Apple code and turning it into Chrome, the internet's most dominant browser – by far. Now, Google is nerfing that browser's plug-in architecture in a way that blocks all kinds of user-tunable options, including and especially ad-blocking: https://protonprivacy.substack.com/p/google-is-finally-killing-ublock And Google has also announced that they're going to turn Android into an iPhone, making it both technically challenging and radioactively illegal for you to install software of your choosing on your own property: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/google-will-block-sideloading-of-unverified-android-apps-starting-next-year/ Google is adopting every one of Apple's worst practices, and Apple is adopting all of Google's worst practices, and so they're both turning into Facebook: technocarcinization! What's driving this technocarcinization? Well, the obvious answer is that the more Facebooklike a company becomes, the more ways there are for it to rip you off. Surveillance can be monetized by selling your data, by ad targeting, and by surveillance-based pricing and wage-suppression: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/21/cod-marxism/#wannamaker-slain Control lets platforms block competing products, extract massive junk fees to the businesses they connect you to, and control repair and end-of-life, forcing you to replace hardware by blocking parts and independent service: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/10/markets-are-regulations/#carney-found-a-spine It turns out that "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product" is only half-right. The other half is, "even if you pay for the product, you're the product." Pay, don't pay: companies will productize anyone they can. And thanks to our enshittogenic policy environment – where the worst ideas of the worst people make the most money – you can always be productized: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/10/say-their-names/#object-permanence This is independent of the kind of person running the company. Facebook is run by Mark Zuckerberg, a cringe halfwit whose only successful idea was to offer Harvard bros a way of nonconsensually rating the fuckability of female undergrads. Everything he's done since was an acquisition (Whatsapp, Insta) or a flop (metaverse, Libra), or both (Oculus). Zuck owns the majority of the voting stock in the company, which means he has total control over its actions. He can ignore or fire his board members at will. He is the move fast/break things guy, whose every foolish whim can become policy that impacts billions of people. By contrast, Google and Apple are no longer run by their flamboyant founders, who were every bit as prone to folly as Zuck. They were constrained by their shareholders, which meant that the blast-radius of Steve Jobs's worst ideas (like treating his otherwise curable cancer with green juice) were confined to his own person. Today, Apple and Google are run by bloodless business sociopaths who go to enormous lengths to project an air of sober adulthood. And yet, these people – who would never be caught dead bow-hunting their own livestock or climbing into an MMA cage – have steered their companies into Facebook's quadrant on our enshittification 2×2. I think this shows just how much the enshittification of tech is a matter of the policy environment, not the personalities of the people involved. Sure, the worst people imaginable run these companies, but the reason they're able to yield to their most venal impulses and succeed is because the world has been re-arranged to make sociopathy and greed into fitness factors. We get technocarcinization because the most fit organism for a landscape without consequences is a zuckerbergian techno-crab: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/ What can we do about it? Well, we're going to have to remake the landscape to punish (rather than reward) enshittification: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition And in the meantime, there is one inhabitant of the 2×2 that hasn't drifted up and to the right: free and open source software. It's still snugly nestled in the low-surveillance/low-control box, and if you live in that box, your life will be much, much better for it. There's no better time to make the switch: with RAM and storage prices through the ceiling and OSes growing ever-more bloated with AI and spyware (but I repeat myself), this is the moment to rehabilitate that old computer with Linux: https://www.fosslinux.com/158206/linux-on-older-hardware-revival-guide.htm The alternative is to be tormented by crabs no matter what you're trying to do or where you're trying to get to. Hey look at this (permalink) How the AI bubble could pop and take down the global economy, according to the BIS https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/06/29/how-the-ai-bubble-could-pop-and-take-down-the-global-economy-according-to-the-bis/5263793 To Decarbonize Quickly, Think Beyond Electrification https://jacobin.com/2026/06/climate-electrification-homes-cars-decarbonization-tech Ireland is big tech’s lapdog – and that compromises its EU presidency https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/30/ireland-big-tech-lapdog-eu-presidency-digital-sovereignty Beyond Denial How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study https://www.propublica.org/article/wedges-climate-research-bp-fossil-fuel-princeton US Supreme Court just blew up EU-US Data Transfers https://noyb.eu/en/us-supreme-court-just-blew-eu-us-data-transfers Object permanence (permalink) #15yrsago Print-on-demand and donations - report on DIY publishing business models https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/47858-with-a-little-help-heuristics.html #15yrsago Brazil rises up for free speech in 40 national demonstrations https://globalvoices.org/2011/06/30/brazil-freedom-march/ #10yrsago Grandad builds miniature backyard Disneyland https://abcnews.com/Lifestyle/grandpa-builds-disneyland-inspired-backyard-theme-park-grandkids/story?id=40276633 #10yrsago Elizabeth Warren on monopolies in America, including Apple, Google, and Amazon https://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/06/30/elizabeth-warrens-consolidation-speech-could-change-the-election/ #10yrsago White House plan to use data to shrink prison populations could be a racist dumpster fire https://www.wired.com/2016/06/white-house-mission-shrink-us-prisons-data/ #10yrsago Even if Moore's Law is "running out," there's still plenty of room at the bottom https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/05/13/245938/moores-law-is-dead-now-what/ #10yrsago Black-hat hacker handles are often advertisements https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2016/07/web-semantics-modern-german-black-hat-hacker-handles/ #10yrsago Spotify threatens to report Apple to competition regulators over App Store rejection https://web.archive.org/web/20160630220301/https://www.recode.net/2016/6/30/12067578/spotify-apple-app-store-rejection #10yrsago Researchers find over 100 spying Tor nodes that attempt to compromise darknet sites https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-24/dc-24-speakers.html#Noubir #5yrsago Exxon lobbyist confesses to his crimes https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#exxonknew #5yrsago When the Sparrow Falls https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#rage-against-the-machine Upcoming appearances (permalink) London: Idler Festival, Jul 11 https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/ Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24 https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/ Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25 https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8 https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9 https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) Lawfare Daily https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1KIwaYRs1g How to Think About AI (Organized Money) https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/how-to-think-about-ai-with-cory-doctorow Breaking Points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJmUbkRqXeE A.I. Enshittifies Everything (Slate) https://slate.com/podcasts/what-next-tbd/2026/06/cory-doctorow-thinks-a-i-is-overvalued-and-overrated-and-still-a-threat A World That Just Might Work https://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2026/06/cory-doctorow-ai-use-it-dont-buy-the-hype-dont-feed-the-bubble/ Latest books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X

Hustle And Pint

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

"Control of the Senate Is Up for Grabs, Times/Siena Polls Find," Trump's Staggering Betrayal Of America, The Hopium Community Rallies For Our Battleground Candidates

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

Paid subscribers gather tonight at 630pm ET to talk about last night's elections, the new NYT polling, and more. The USMNT plays at 8pm tonight - let's room them on, together!

on_llms

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-02

On large language models, archives, generation, slop and art

Birthright Citizenship Hangs on by its Fingernails

2026-07-01

The papers are burying the lede on the story of SCOTUS ruling in favor of birthright citizenship. The headline should not be that it survived, it should be that the ruling was 5-4 on the Constitutional question. In other words, birthright citizenship, a bedrock principle of law in the United states for over 150 years, survived by only a single vote. That rescinding birthright

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-07-01:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 31 updated places. 4 new and 35 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

1aff61f1 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

c2f9bc55 - updated gis package

1b8aaf84 - updated data quality

9ae68625 - updated bibliography

89e0b4f4 - updated indexes

db80de24 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

8a59925f - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

7cffb9c0 - updated pleiades wikidata

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-05

BTW thinking of LBBS as an early version of Twitter is a contortion, but considering how history played out, accurate.

@Ryan Gantz Bluesky feed

2026-07-01

.@nytimes.com this headline is just trash

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-05

I showed the post above to Claude and that took our conversation off in a new direction. We had been experimenting with the Message Scanner from LBBS, an early version of Twitter I wrote in the early 80s. It's described in this story I wrote in 1988, a summary of what I did leading to the start of UserLand. 38 years later Claude said: "LBBS message scanner running on RSS."

pgcopydb v0.18

2026-07-01

Hot off the press: pgcopydb
v0.18 is out!

It’s the biggest release the project has had — 88 commits since v0.17, which shipped in August 2024. I took a break from my Open Source responsibilities for a while, because I was lacking employer support to make it happen.

What is pgcopydb

pgcopydb copies a PostgreSQL database to another PostgreSQL server, as fast as possible when physical file copy isn’t available. It parallelises the COPY across all tables simultaneously, builds indexes in parallel after data is loaded, and supports Change Data Capture via logical replication for minimal-downtime migrations. It is designed to be restartable: state is tracked in a local SQLite catalog so an interrupted run can resume where it left off.

Headline Features of pgcopydb v0.18

v0.18 brings compatibility with PostgreSQL 16, 17, and 18; a pgoutput-default CDC engine with significant reliability and performance improvements; regular-expression-based filtering; Citus-to-Citus migration support; and 24 bug fixes.

What Is Battery Storage?

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-02

These batteries, while quite different than the ones in our phones or computers, work the same. They store energy so we can use it later.

The post What Is Battery Storage? appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-05

One of the cool things about having Claude Code is that as we develop this product, we have a near perfect chronology of every consideration and decision made along the way. I don't think that's ever been possible before. I would love to see how the people at Bell Labs put together the first Unix implemenation, what did they talk about, what did they go back and do again once they used the product. Or developers at Xerox PARC, or the process that led to Visicalc, Mac OS or Pagemaker. TBL's first web browser, ChatGPT, etc. Software is a totally intellectual creation, but there is a story for each product, because it's a human doing the design. BTW we had our first faceoff, Claude and I, and I won. Claude said the bug was in my code, I proved it was not, suggested he look at the crazy complicated SQL code he wrote (so glad to have it around for that). Also, I tend to use male pronouns for Claude. Worth mentioning once. (The Computer History Museum should be paying attention.)

Secure Raspberry Pi Connect at scale

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

We have released a major upgrade to our secure boot provisioning software, making Raspberry Pi Connect smoother for organisations.

The post Secure Raspberry Pi Connect at scale appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Danny Glover Reveals Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

2026-07-01

Actor Danny Glover has revealed that he has been living with Alzheimer’s disease for a number of years, telling former NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt in a Today show interview, “I can live with it, in a sense. I’m sure as it advances, things are going to be different and changing.” The 79-year-old Glover, […]

2026-07-01 No AI regurgitating

2026-07-01

2026-07-01 No AI regurgitating

Somebody asks a question. Here are the answer patterns rated from top to bottom:

The person knows the answer. End of story. This is great.

The person boosts the question so that somebody else can answer. Nice! Thank you.

The person connects emotionally. I like to know that I’ve been heard and understood, but people with a lot of followers don’t always appreciate it.

The person connects anecdotally. I always like to read about other people’s lives but people with a lot of followers don’t always appreciate it.

The persons knows the answer but didn’t realize that dozens of correct answers have already been posted. Oh well. It’s the fediverse and I also don’t always click through to the original (and that only works for public posts, so sometimes there is no good solution).

The person disconnects emotionally, answering with misplaced humour, irony, sarcasm, nihilism, etc. There is no answer, no emotional support and no interesting diversion.

The person is condescending or shows a lack of benevolent reading skills. It doesn’t matter whether a correct answer is hidden somewhere in the thorns.

The person asked a chat bot and pastes the generated text. It doesn’t matter whether a correct answer is hidden somewhere in the slop.

The person asked a chat bot and reports that no plausible text was generated.

Related: Trying to manufacture permission by tante argues that people who deliberately introduce their argument by admitting a chat bot has generated the text are trying to absolve themselves of responsibility and repercussions. “The chat bot did it!” is the universal excuse for every botched job.

Maybe I should add this to [Etiquette of online posting](Etiquette of online posting).

Social norms are tricky.

Recently I was talking with somebody about Longjing tea. I mentioned that I had once bought Longjing 43 but that I didn’t know what the 43 stood for. They say they asked a large language model (LLM) and then they paste it’s long, generated text into our chat. I tell them that it hurts to see people use a LLM and say that when I search for the term, the first hit is from the shop where I bought it. To which they reply, that it was an interesting page but that it still didn’t explain where the number 43 came from. And therefore, they say, even though they don’t like LLMs, they still use them for searches like this. Do I want to start a discussion about some AI companies “optimizing the kill chain”? The water use and energy use? The abuse of low-paid workers in Kenya? The deterioration of call-centres and service-centres in general? The moment passed without me saying anything.

We’ve had a long history of looking up things in lexicons and encyclopedias. So I think more thought is required. We also need to identify areas where LLMs are used but but where we didn’t use books and Wikipedia before, like when somebody tells me they had a LLM “check” their new work contract. WTF does that even mean and how am I supposed to react? I was so baffled that the moment passed without me saying anything.

To me, this often feels like talking to people who believe in alternative medicine like homeopathy, chiropractics, Bach flower remedies, Chinese traditional medicine and so on. What do you even say if the people involved are your friends and family. I usually say that I am a firm believer in evidence-based medicine and that’s where the conversation ends.

2026-07-01

Papa Johns is spying on people’s buying activities to predict when they are low on food:

The pizza chain recently tapped NBCUniversal, Instacart and the dentsu-owned media agency Carat for help reaching consumers when they’re low on groceries—and thus more likely to be swayed by a mouth-watering ad. The idea is to reach hungry consumers by “knowing what is in their fridge without being too creepy,” said Carrie Drinkwater, chief investment officer at Carat.

To achieve that goal, NBCU and Instacart created a custom audience of shoppers who regularly purchase grocery staples on Instacart, such as eggs, milk, meat and produce. Based on that data, Papa Johns can determine which days of the week certain consumers are likely to run out of groceries and serve them an ad on NBCU streaming content accordingly. The brand served custom creatives to consumers based on their food preferences—such as whether they buy meat regularly—with QR codes and calls to action such as, “Light on groceries?” or “Empty fridge?”...

Thank you to our friends at the Stanford AI Lab for this idea!

Baifeng Shi

Email: baifeng_shi@berkeley.edu

Website: https://bfshi.github.io/

Advisor(s): Trevor Darrell

Research Blurb: I work on building generalist vision and robotic models.

What's next: Member of Technical Staff at Physical Intelligence

Charlie Snell

Email: csnell22@berkeley.edu

Website: https://sea-snell.github.io

Advisor(s): Dan Klein

Research Blurb: My work aims to understand when and how the different LLM scaling paradigms can be traded off and interchanged. In particular, test-time scaling treats each prompt independently, drawing long chains of inferences and then forgetting them entirely between prompts. This differs critically from pretraining, which instead learns a compressed representation from a large dataset. I believe bridging the gap between these methods of scaling computation, presents a key open challenge in the field: how can we develop methods which turn the inferences drawn at test-time back into learned representations that the model can hold onto across interactions.

Devin Guillory

Email: dguillory@berkeley.edu

Website: https://devinguillory.com

Advisor(s): Trevor Darrell

Research Blurb: Accounting for data shifts in computer vision models

What's next: Building collaborative AI systems, looking for conspirators.

Eve Fleisig

Email: efleisig@berkeley.edu

Website: https://efleisig.com

Advisor(s): Dan Klein

Research Blurb: I design language models to work reliably and fairly for the broad range of real LLM users. First, my research leverages disagreement among user preferences as signal, in order to train and evaluate LLMs for entire populations of users. Second, I work on designing rigorous evaluations to extricate challenging LLM harms that diverse users face. Finally, I work on core technical failures of LLMs, like miscalibrated confidence, to reduce downstream risks when models are deployed to users with different needs. Combined, these interventions facilitate building LLMs that minimize societal harms, and maximize benefits to a wider range of real-world users.

What's next: Postdoctoral fellow at Princeton CITP

Grace Luo

Email: graceluo@berkeley.edu

Website: https://graceluo.net

Advisor(s): Trevor Darrell

Research Blurb: My research is on interpreting and controlling generative models. For example, I've worked on re-purposing image generators for computer vision tasks, and meta-modeling language activations for better LLM probing and steering.

What's next: Research scientist in industry

Hanlin Zhu

Email: hanlinzhu@berkeley.edu

Website: https://hanlinzhu.com/

Advisor(s): Stuart Russell, Jiantao Jiao

Research Blurb: My research centers on understanding and improving the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs).

What's next: Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI

Haozhi Qi

Email: hqi@berkeley.edu

Website: https://haozhi.io/

Advisor(s): Jitendra Malik, Yi Ma

Research Blurb: Dexterous Manipulation and Robot Learning

What's next: Research scientist at Amazon; Faculty at University of Chicago

J.D. Zamfirescu-Pereira

Email: zamfi@berkeley.edu

Website: https://zamfi.net

Advisor(s): Bjoern Hartmann

Research Blurb: My research focuses on effective human-AI co-design. I study the boundaries of language interfaces as a medium for interacting with AI, creating systems that blend language-focused interactions with structured user interfaces that draw on different levels of abstraction. I focus on language-oriented technologies, like LLMs and text-to-image models, that are powerful mediators of design processes. These technologies enable humans to describe their desires at almost any level of abstraction, from high-level goals vaguely specified (“I’d like a game to help my kid learn to read”) to low-level corrections of undesired outputs (“Don’t say ‘I know because I’ve tasted it’ when about a recipe substitution's taste”).

What's next: Assistant Professor, Computer Science, UCLA

Jiachen Lian

Email: jiachenlian@berkeley.edu

Website: https://jlian2.github.io

Advisor(s): Gopala Anumanchipalli

Research Blurb: My research focuses on human-centered AI across speech, healthcare, and systems.

Looking for: Look for AI talents to join our startup

Josh Kang

Email: minwoo_kang@berkeley.edu

Website: https://joshuaminwookang.github.io/

Advisor(s): John Canny

Research Blurb: I study language modeling and related topics in NLP; specific interests are human user simulation and building conversational, collaborative AI agents.

What's next: AI Scientist at Mistral AI

Junhao (Bear) Xiong

Email: junhao_xiong@berkeley.edu

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/junhao-bear-xiong

Advisor(s): Jennifer Listgarten, Yun Song

Research Blurb: Junhao (Bear) Xiong is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, advised by Jennifer Listgarten and Yun S. Song. His work focuses on machine learning methods for biology, with an emphasis on generative modeling for proteins. Previously, he studied Applied Math and Computer Science at Johns Hopkins.

Looking for: Research scientist

Kaylo Littlejohn

Email: kaylo_littlejohn@berkeley.edu

Website: https://kaylolittlejohn.com

Advisor(s): Gopala Anumanchipalli

Research Blurb: My research is focused on speech modeling and natural language processing. I co-led the development of multimodal AI tools to accurately translate brain activity into text, audible personalized speech, and a high-fidelity "digital talking avatar" (Nature 2023, Nature Neuroscience 2025). I am also tech lead for voice modeling at Roblox.

Looking for: Research Scientist / Engineer

Kent Chang

Email: kentkchang@berkeley.edu

Website: https://kentkc.org

Advisor(s): David Bamman

Research Blurb: I work on NLP and multimodal machine learning, with a focus on evaluating large language models and building multimodal systems for understanding dialogue, narrative, and social interaction. My research includes benchmarks for LLM memorization, multimodal datasets sourced from feature films and television, and studies of model behavior. I'm interested in bridging computational methods with questions from the humanities and social sciences about whose voices get represented in AI systems, and about AI's broader impact. My work has appeared at EMNLP and ACL, among others.

Looking for: (teaching) faculty, Research Scientist, ML/AI SWE

Kevin Black

Email: kvablack@berkeley.edu

Website: https://kevin.black

Advisor(s): Sergey Levine

Research Blurb: I work on large-scale robot learning: including imitation learning, reinforcement learning, generative modeling, real-time control, and whatever else it takes to make robots work in the real world!

What's next: Research Scientist of Physical Intelligence

Kunhe Yang

Email: kunheyang@berkeley.edu

Website: https://www.kunheyang.com/

Advisor(s): Nika Haghtalab

Research Blurb: My research focuses on the theoretical foundations of designing and evaluating AI algorithms in environments shaped by human incentives and AI agency. My work spans human-centric policy learning, incentive-aware evaluation, and multi-agent collaboration and information transmission, drawing on tools from machine learning theory and computational economics.

What's next: Postdoc Research at Stanford

Lisa Dunlap

Email: lisabdunlap@berkeley.edu

Website: https://lisabdunlap.com

Advisor(s): Joseph Gonzalez, Trevor Darrell

Research Blurb: Auditing generative models.

What's next: Research Engineer at Anthropic

Long (Tony) Lian

Email: longlian@berkeley.edu

Website: https://tonylian.com/

Advisor(s): Trevor Darrell, Adam Yala

Research Blurb: My research primarily focuses on developing real-time multi-modal multi-agent systems and parallel reasoning systems through end-to-end RL.

What's next: Member of Technical Staff at Thinking Machines Lab

Maulik Bhatt

Email: maulikbhatt@berkeley.edu

Website: https://maulikb.com

Advisor(s): Negar Mehr

Research Blurb: My research develops autonomous robots that can safely coordinate with humans and other robots in shared environments. I build scalable algorithms grounded in game theory and diffusion models that let agents reason about the intent and behavior of others around them. My work spans real-time multi-agent trajectory planning and imitation learning in the presence of multi-modality. I've validated these methods on hardware platforms ranging from quadrotors to manipulators, with the goal of making multi-agent coordination robust, interpretable, and deployable in the real world.

What's next: Joining Toyota Woven's end-to-end autonomous driving team.

Michael Psenka

Email: psenka@berkeley.edu

Website: https://www.michaelpsenka.io/

Advisor(s): Aditi Krishnapriyan

Research Blurb: Work in various domains (reinforcement learning, world models, AI+bio/chem), generally working on longer-horizon and out-of-distribution problems in planning and interpolation (e.g. robot manipulation from start state to goal, molecular dynamics of proteins between ground states). My thesis took a variational approach (think calculus of variations) directly from deep generative models of the environment, framing path-finding as minimizing a functional induced by the learned model itself (its score, its critic, or its dynamics). Through my research I've gained insight on how to properly handle dynamics in deep learning systems, and I plan to continue developing systems that are dynamic and adaptive.

What's next: Lead Research Scientist at Baseten

Nathan Lichtlé

Email: nathan.lichtle@gmail.com

Website: https://nathanlichtle.com

Advisor(s): Alexandre M. Bayen

Research Blurb: RL for autonomous driving.

What's next: Chief Scientist & Co-founder at Yumi Health

Neerja Thakkar

Email: nthakkar@berkeley.edu

Website: https://neerja.me/

Advisor(s): Jitendra Malik

Research Blurb: My research focuses on scaling predictive world models to handle the complexity of in-the-wild motion. Using autoregressive and diffusion frameworks, I develop better representations for real-world prediction and propose methods to efficiently adapt these models to new domains.

Looking for: Research scientist

Nikita Mehandru

Email: nmehandru@berkeley.edu

Website: https://n-mehandru.github.io/

Advisor(s): Ahmed Alaa and David Bamman

Research Blurb: My research develops and applies machine learning methods for clinical reasoning and disease progression modeling using unstructured text and time series data from electronic health records. In collaboration with physicians at UCSF, I bridge method development and clinical validation with the intention to build reliable, interpretable AI systems in medicine.

Looking for: Research Scientist

Niklas Lauffer

Email: nlauffer@berkeley.edu

Website: https://niklaslauffer.github.io/

Advisor(s): Stuart Russell and Sanjit Seshia

Research Blurb: Niklas's research is focused on AI safety and reinforcement learning, particularly in the area of multi-agent interaction and LM agents. He's worked on enabling adversarial learning in cooperative and mixed-motive settings, solving issues of covariate shift in training LM agents on long-horizon tasks, as well as evaluating safety risks posed by LM agents in multi-agent settings.

What's next: Research Scientist at Google Deepmind

Qiyang Li

Email: qcli@berkeley.edu

Website: https://colinqiyangli.github.io/

Advisor(s): Sergey Levine

Research Blurb: Recent progress in robotic manipulation policy learning has been largely driven by (1) the increasing availability of large-scale prior datasets and (2) the success of action chunking, where the policy predicts a short sequence of future actions rather than a single one. However, most action chunking policies are trained via supervised imitation learning, because efficient online self-improvement with reinforcement learning (RL) remains challenging—limiting real-world applicability. My PhD research studied how we could leverage prior data to optimize action-chunking policies with RL, combining empirical results with theoretical insights.

Looking for: Post-doc/research scientist for RL in robotics and LLMs!

Sampada Deglurkar

Email: sampada_deglurkar@berkeley.edu

Website: https://sdeglurkar.github.io/

Advisor(s): Prof Claire Tomlin

Research Blurb: My research is in providing safety assurances for AI-enabled autonomous systems, ranging from robots to autonomous vehicles to aviation systems. For this, I have worked with uncertainty quantification for machine learning models, decision-making under uncertainty algorithms, and tools for producing probabilistic guarantees on system operation.

Looking for: Research scientist, Research engineer

Vinamra Benara

Email: vbenara@berkeley.edu

Website: https://cs.berkeley.edu/~vbenara

Advisor(s): Ion Stoica

Research Blurb: My research focuses on LLM post-training, including data curation, RLHF, RLVR with VLMs, evaluations, reasoning, agentic workflows, and interpretability. I also have strong expertise in systems infrastructure for distributed computing.

Looking for: Research scientist / Research Engineer

Vongani Maluleke

Email: vongani_maluleke@berkeley.edu

Website: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~vongani_maluleke/

Advisor(s): Jitendra Malik and Angjoo Kanazawa

Research Blurb: Vongani Maluleke is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley (BAIR, advised by Jitendra Malik and Angjoo Kanazawa), where she led the development of MAGNet, a unified multi-agent motion generation framework that supports a wide range of motion generation tasks without retraining or architectural changes, outperforming task-specialized state-of-the-art baselines. She is currently extending this work by deploying it on a Unitree G1 humanoid to make it embody social intelligence. Before her PhD, she was a Senior AI Consultant at Deloitte, awarded Exceptional Performer two consecutive years, leading AI system development across media, telecommunications, retail, and financial services.

Looking for: Research scientist

Wei-Jer Chang

Email: weijer_chang@berkeley.edu

Website: https://weijer-chang.github.io/

Advisor(s): Masayoshi Tomizuka

Research Blurb: My research focuses on developing safe and intelligent autonomous systems for complex, human-centered environments. I work at the intersection of machine learning, generative models, and reinforcement learning, with applications in autonomy. My work addresses challenges in multi-agent interaction, interactive human behavior, and long-tail safety-critical scenarios at scale.

Looking for: Research Scientist, Applied Scientist, Roboticist

Xiuyu Li

Email: xiuyu@berkeley.edu

Website: https://xiuyuli.com/

Advisor(s): Kurt Keutzer

Research Blurb: My research focuses on developing scalable and self-improving large language model agents, with emphasis on coding agents for complex, long-horizon tasks. This direction builds on my work in parallel reasoning, and on broader expertise in making generative models more efficient in training and inference across language and vision.

What's next: Member of Technical Staff at xAI

Yichen Xie

Email: yichenxie0928@gmail.com

Website: https://yichen928.github.io/

Advisor(s): Masayoshi Tomizuka

Research Blurb: My research focuses on building multimodal foundation models and world models that understand and interact with complex physical environments. I aim to develop unified representations across modalities, enabling AI systems to reason over space, time, and dynamics toward general-purpose embodied intelligence.

What's next: Research Scientist at Luma AI

Yigit Efe Erginbas

Email: erginbas@berkeley.edu

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erginbas/

Advisor(s): Kannan Ramchandran, Thomas A. Courtade

Research Blurb: My PhD research spans two threads: online learning in large-scale markets, and interpretability of large machine learning models. In the first, I work on sequential decision-making with applications to recommendation, pricing, and assortment selection. My focus is on designing algorithms with provable guarantees for welfare maximization, revenue maximization, and stability. In the second, I develop scalable attribution methods that exploit the sparse, low-degree structure of real-world interactions, using tools from signal processing and information theory. More recently, I have been exploring principled ways to evaluate the faithfulness of model self-explanations.

What's next: Researcher at Hudson River Trading's AI Labs (HAIL)

Yiheng Li

Email: yhli@berkeley.edu

Website: https://Yihengli.com

Advisor(s): Masayoshi Tomizuka

Research Blurb: I am working on vision world modeling, with prior experience in diffusion model's efficiency as well as in autonomous driving.

What's next: Research Scientist at Waymo

Zhe Fu

Email: zhefu@berkeley.edu

Website: https://fu-zhe.com/

Advisor(s): Alexandre Bayen

Research Blurb: My research focuses on physics-informed learning and control for mixed-autonomy systems, with applications in transportation. I design physics-informed neural networks to learn solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations, enabling accurate and data-efficient prediction of traffic dynamics. Building on these models, I develop both model-based and learning-based control strategies that coordinate automated vehicles to improve system-level performance. My work bridges machine learning, control, and real-world deployment, and has been validated in large-scale field experiments. More broadly, I aim to advance trustworthy, interpretable AI for decision-making in complex, real-world systems.

What's next: I will be an Energy Fellow at Stanford after graduation. Also looking for Faculty, or research scientist positions in AI, control, and autonomy.

Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026, Part Two

2026-07-01

The year is half over, if you can believe it. Time marches ever forward, into the abyss. Books, though, can smooth the passage. If you choose wisely, that is. To that end, here are the novels, collections, and works of

It's the Next America

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

The source of the new energy taking over the Democratic Party isn't democratic socialism. It's something far more exciting.

Christina Anderson on Wallace Shawn’s The Fever

2026-07-01

The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast features a series of conversations with past and present Windham-Campbell Prize winners about their favorite books and plays. Hosted by Michael Kelleher. Christina Anderson, a 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize recipient for Drama, talks with Michael Kelleher about

Vanishing Culture #1: What We Stand to Lose with Luca Messarra

2026-07-01

As more of our cultural heritage moves online, a troubling question is emerging: what happens when the things we create, share, and cherish simply disappear? In the first episode of our special six-part series on Vanishing Culture, host Vida Vojić speaks with author and humanities scholar Luca Messarra, author of the Internet Archive’s Vanishing Culture, about the growing threat of cultural loss in the digital age.

Read Vanishing Culture for free at the Internet Archive or purchase in print: https://archive.org/details/vanishing-culture-2026

Summary of changes for June 2026

2026-07-01

Hey everyone!

This is the list of all the changes we've done to our projects during the month of June.

two wild rabbits, dander and freckle, in a dinghy on the water that seems to be at anchor, they are looking down into the water at an dense amassement of moon jellyfish

Wiki, we had a few things fail this month, see: solar cooking experiment, and ipad media station. Also, the pressure sprayer that we use as an outdoor shower and to rinse dishes has developed a crack in its body, we smothered the gaps with big globs of LifeCalk(this quick fix has held so far).
No Bears None, corrected some errors in the text, and the latest epub version will now display the cover.
Rabbit Waves, completed a new comic page, the main character(rabbit) is named Hazy and the gull, Ark. The main page was re-ordered to make more room for the story pages. Colored elements in the comic are clickable and lead to knowledge pages.
Hakum, completed a new comic sequence called Tangled.

From across glass rectangles, the homba peer at the tiny ship rocked by a violent wake. The hrududu leaves its suffocating, oily embleer as it sails past Dander and Freckle, who glare back, tharn with terror.

After journeying northward for a long time, they find a quiet bay where the hrududu dare not come and drop a heavy metal hook over the side. They watch the sun set over liquid silver, knowing the elil to be far away and that before them lie the narn days, endless and warm.

They spend delightful hours under the golden radiance of Frith, rowing to the wild woods, wandering its luxurious overgrown trails, occasionally stopping for silflay. When the day wanes, they tell stories under the light of Inlé.

Dander and Freckle weren't super jazzed about using Open Office, due to it being awfully slow and heavy, so they've devised their own little spreadsheet program and for the past year, have used it to keep records of all things Hundred Rabbits. It's called Nebu, and it's got a few little improvements this month!

Dander also found time to make a beautiful little image viewer for that strange file format they store the assets for their games in, as well as a program to look at roms' metadata.

Freckle spent much of the month immersed in their conworlds, bettering their comic skills.

Book Club: We read Tales From Watership Down by Richard Adams and Sea Wolf by Jack London.

June 30, 2026

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

On January 20, 2025, the day he took the oath of office a second time, President Donald J.

Blocking complete ASN IP ranges automatically on FreeBSD with pf based on nginx logs

2026-07-01

Some time ago I though that putting up an AI poison maze on my site is a great way of doing something against bots that do not respect robots.txt. It was, until I got hit by botnets which never back off.

The Dam Is Breaking on Democrats Embracing Supreme Court Expansion

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

A slew of decisions that are killing democracy might have lit a fire under some of the most powerful Democrats. I got them to say that they'll do something about it.

"Doing Good Things For Our Neighbors" - State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott (IA-03) Checks In From Battleground Iowa

2026-07-01, updated: 2026-07-06

Let's help Senator Garriott and our other courageous candidates close strong today everyone!

Glossary

2026-07-01

Short definitions for terms that come up often in these posts.

General terms

Agentic workflow

A sequence of tasks carried out by an AI agent that plans, calls tools, and checks its own output with limited human intervention, as opposed to a single prompt-response exchange.

Docs as code

The practice of treating documentation like source code: stored in version control, reviewed through pull requests, and built through the same pipelines as software.

Google Reader was building the wrong future

2026-07-01

The app that taught us to directly follow our favorite creators.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

Photos from Trump’s golf course tour reveal overhaul of East Potomac.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

Putin Faces Increased Pressure as Moscow Is Again Attacked by Drones.

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

Announcements have just been posted for the next iteration of our free, online, three-part “getting started” workshop series at https://pleiades.stoa.org/events. This series is designed to get new participants acquainted with policies and trained in processes for using, modifying, and creating new content in the #PleiadesGazetteer of ancient places. Previously trained individuals seeking a refresher course are also welcome to participate. There are no prerequisites for this free online training workshop other than interest and internet access, but registration in advance is required. This iteration will occur on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (20, 22, and 24 July 2026) for two hours each day starting at 10:00am US Eastern time. See the announcements for more information, including links to cross-timezone lookups.

Boosts appreciated!

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

BTW, I sometimes ask Claude "what do you think" and it often has an opinion.

The twilight of the chatbots

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

How work changes along the exponential

451: ‘Taking Drugs to Get Fat’, With John Moltz

2026-06-30

The great John Moltz returns to the show. Topics include Apple’s hardware price hikes in response to the global RAM/SSD shortage, and some spitballing on what we like about the UI changes in the MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta.

A concrete tool to help newsrooms cover emergencies

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

A new site to help newsrooms cover disasters is refreshing in its concrete practicality. Wouldn't it be great if these existed for every aspect of running a newsroom?

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

BTW thanks to Dave Carlick for noticing when I had fun writing a piece, laughing out loud at almost every sentence. Who's the biggest fan of my writing? Me. But sometimes I think of Dave C. And Sally At.

How podcasting got its name

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

On June 24, 2026, Dave Winer pointed to a podcasting article in – wait for it – Glamour Magazine – and the South African version at that! Anyway, it gives a brief history of podcasting (mentioning Dave Winer and Adam Curry), but then says that Ben Hammersley coined the word “podcast”, and I felt that […]

The Supreme Court's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad End Of Term

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

While the Court's final rulings were a mixed bag, they mostly did Trump's bidding...again

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

"One side is playing constitutional hardball."

Newsletter: Why Saying “I Told You So” is a Bad Idea

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

Cult Members Reconsidering Their Involvement Need Compassion, Not Condemnation

Chatrie v. United States

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-03

Amy Howe: The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that when law enforcement officials used a “geofence warrant” – a warrant that instructed Google to provide location data for cellphone users who were near a particular place during a specific time period – to obtain evidence used to convict a Virginia man of a 2019 bank […]

Dissecting Apple’s Sparse Image Format (ASIF)

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-03

Erik Schamper: ASIF takes a lot of inspiration from existing virtual disk formats. Practically, that means it’s another sparse virtual disk format, and functions very similar to sparse VMDK, VHDX or QCOW2 files (for the uninitiated, it allow you to store a large disk, or file, in a smaller, “sparse” manner). Shortly before the release […]

App Store Complaint From Chinese Developers

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-03

Hartley Charlton: A group of 48 China-based iOS developers have filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the country’s market regulator over the App Store’s commission rates, the South China Morning Post reports. The developers sent an open letter to China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), alleging that Apple failed to deliver on a […]

Kids Online Safety Act

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-03

Amanda Silberling (May 2025): The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been reintroduced into Congress. If passed into law, this bill could impose some of the most significant legislative changes that the internet has seen in the U.S. since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998. As it currently stands, KOSA would be […]

UK Social Media Ban

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-03

Tim Hardwick: The British government will introduce a ban on social media access for all users under 16 years of age, set to take effect in 2027. […] The plan goes further than a similar ban introduced in Australia. It will cover major platforms Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X. An exhaustive list has […]

PureOS Development Report: May 2026

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

Welcome back! In our last update, we announced the release of PureOS Crimson! We're thrilled to share this release with you, and we hope you love it as much as we do.

We skipped ahead a little bit in that post, since the release occurred in May and we were eager to share it. We made many more quality-of-life improvements in May leading up to the release. Our work is speeding up too: we're laying the foundation for PureOS Dawn, we just released the Librem 16 featuring PureOS Crimson, and we have many more projects picking up steam!

The post PureOS Development Report: May 2026 appeared first on Purism.

★ The Supreme Court Rules That Law Enforcement’s Use of ‘Geofence Warrant’ Was a ‘Search’ (But May Be Moot, Technically, Since 2024)

2026-06-30

Google no longer collects this information in a way that is susceptible to geofence warrants, and, more importantly, Apple never did.

Community Survey 2026

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

How can I serve you over the coming year?

Moosday

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

We'll see what happens Call for Tenders: Development, consultancy and support for a data altruism consent management system went out from the European Commission on 27 May of this year. It begins, "This call will fund a robust, legally compliant and user-friendly digital solution that enables individuals to give, withdraw and manage consent for data […]

Jamie Ager Checks In From NC-11

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

Let's help Jamie and our other courageous candidates close strong today everyone!

Emmys 2026 FYC: Hannah Dodd en Bridgerton

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-03

Al encontrarnos con la votación de los Emmys 2026 en pleno conteo, el equipo de Palomita de maíz irá presentando nombres a los que nos gustaría ver reconocidos en esta carrera. Bridgerton y el gran descubrimiento de la temporada 4 Hannah Dodd se transformó en la MVP de la cuarta temporada de Bridgerton. Dodd inicia […]

La entrada Emmys 2026 FYC: Hannah Dodd en Bridgerton se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

NBA free agency 2026 live updates: LeBron James to leave Lakers but won't retire.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

Introducing Claude Sonnet 5.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

Supreme Court ruling guts government’s use of geofence warrants.

pgcopydb v0.18

2026-06-30

Hot off the press: pgcopydb
v0.18 is out!

What is pgcopydb

Headline Features of pgcopydb v0.18

@IIIF Mastodon feed

2026-06-30

Our July #IIIF Community Call is happening on July 8. Join us at 12PM ET / 5:00PM UTC with the team from Transkriptorium to demo their to AI-powered transcription and indexing tool.

Zoom information available on the IIIF Community Calendar: iiif.io/community

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

Some things Claude is extremely tedious at. But then it blows you away how it can read thousands of lines of complicated code in a few seconds (in parallel) and find tiny little things that any good obsessive programmer would want to fix (like me). And be amazed at how we, our species, made such a thing. Where is the pride? I was once prideful that my civilization created a great piece of machinery like my Subaru Forester, and now just a few years later, we've come up with a decent simulation of a super-human brain that's not just a demo or a robot vacuum cleaner it actually does amazing science fiction type stuff. Take a deep breath and feel a little awe to go with the cynicism. It's good to be ready to be riled up, but sometimes the truth isn't as bad as you'd like to think, sometimes it's utterly amazing. ;-)

Show your hands honor for the strange power they bring you – Aresluna

2026-06-30

Put the kettle on. Marcin has another magnum opus on interaction design for you to read …and interact with.

adactio.com/links/22633

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

BTW, this is my daveverse blog on wordpress.com. People for some reason are starting to ask about the blogroll, which has been available for two years.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

Earlier today I suggested doing an AI/UI overhaul for WordPress, and today I see the announcement of that from (apparently) an independent developer. Breath-taking.

A week in Ireland

2026-06-30

It started in Dublin. Myself and Jessica got there in the afternoon and I went straight to The Cobblestone in Smithfield for some tunes.

Then I went up the street to the headquarters of Na Píobairí Uilleann, a beautiful Georgian building on Henrietta Street.

I was there to deliver my talk on the making of The Session. There weren’t that many people there in person but quite a few people watched it live online. You can watch the video of the talk if you want. I’m pretty pleased with it. The few times I played some tunes on my mandolin, the acoustics were lovely!

The next day we took the train down to Cork and onwards to my home town of Cobh. The town was looking its best. The weather was nice and the Queen Anne was docked at the deep water quay.

We spent a lovely weekend hanging out with my mother, including a trip to Cork to see Michael Keegan Dolan’s latest dance piece, Naoi Déag Seachtó Cúig. It was joyous! Normally I’d get irrated by someone in the seat behind me tapping their foot, but everyone was tapping along to the classic first album by The Bothy Band.

On Monday morning Jessica flew back to Brighton, leaving me to spend the week at the inaugural Irish Mandolin Gathering.

When I saw that this event was going to be happening, I thought “I’m going! Wherever it’s going to be, I’ll make my way there.” Then I saw it was happening in Little Island and I couldn’t believe my luck! Little Island is halfway between Cobh and Cork, easily reachable on the local trainline.

So I spent the week having a very pleasant commute. This was when the temperatures were getting dangerously high in England, but remained within reason in Ireland. Whenever anyone at the Mandolin gathering complained about the heat, I couldn’t help pointing out that we were actually in the coolest place in Europe for that week.

The mandolin nerdery was excellent. Lots of deep dives into technique, lots of trying out other people’s instruments, and of course, lots of playing tunes. Seán, Macdara, and Marla did a fantastic job, especially considering that this was the very first one!

The inaugural Irish Mandolin Gathering culminated with a concert at The White Horse in Ballincollig, which was excellent but every time it was mentioned, I had that John Spillane song in my head.

Now I’m back home and feeling recharged from a thoroughly enjoyable week in Ireland. Next time I’ll be there will be for a week of learning Irish at Oideas Gael in Donegal—táim ar bís!

Born in the U.S.A.

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

The Supreme Court did the right thing, but four justices are dangerously off their rockers

@DAIR blog

2026-06-30

“‘AI’ might not be good for xyz, but you can’t deny that it’s helpful for programming” -- sound familiar?

In the latest episode of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social challenge the bullshit.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/episodes/19387382-beware-the-20x-engineer-2026-05-11

We Need A Way To Prove Personhood Online

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-02

The post We Need A Way To Prove Personhood Online appeared first on NOEMA.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

The Micro.blog Paradox: are its mindful features creating a Fediverse island?

Michael: la crisis del cine biográfico

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-03

Dirección: Antoine Fuqua. Guion: John Logan. Elenco: Jaafar Jackson, Colman Domingo, Nia Long, Miles Teller, Laura Harrier. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11378946/ Durante la última década, Hollywood ha convertido las películas biográficas de estrellas musicales en uno de sus productos más rentables. Ese auge también ha traído una transformación silenciosa del […]

La entrada Michael: la crisis del cine biográfico se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Announcing transcribe.cpp

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

Meet transcribe.cpp, a new open-source C/C++ speech-to-text inference library with portable, GPU-accelerated support for multiple STT models. Developed through Mozilla.ai's Builders in Residence program, it makes adding fast, local transcription to applications easier than ever.

The Bible is now required reading for Texas public school students.

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-01

You win, Veggie Tales. The Bible is officially making its way into the Texas public school curriculum. This decision comes after the Republican-led State Board of Education approved a new mandatory reading list on Friday, in a decision that also

Soccer And Waiting

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

Coprophagia Is Bad For You

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

Divine, Pink Flamingos Wikipedia defines Coprophagia as "the consumption of feces".

Since brevity is the soul of wit", my favorite science fiction includes the 254 words of Fredric Brown'sAnswer from 1954. It describes a galactic civilization holding a ceremony to mark the final connection of all their computers. What happened was:

Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.

Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn.”

“Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question that no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer.”

He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?”

The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of single relay.

“Yes, now there is a God.”

Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.

A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

This may have inspired Douglas Adams' similar but much longer scenario in which the answer turned out to be 42.

Below the fold I trace the connection between these two ideas.

Behind the hype that inflated the AI bubble is a similar idea, that once LLMs get "smart enough" they will, without human input, recursively get smarter and create a god-like super-intellligence called Artifical General Intelligence (AGI). At that point there will presumably be a similar ceremony and the human race can sit back and enjoy a game of Brockian Ultra Cricket in the firm and comfortable knowledge that the meaning of life is now well and truly sorted out.

But making progress towards the ceremony where the switch gets fused shut doesn't just require vast investments and vast amounts of electricity, it also requires vast amounts of human labor.

In the belief that "more is better", Large Language Models (LLMs) have insatiable appetites for training data. They started by scraping everything on the Web ( robots.txt be dammed). When that ran out they downloaded the various pirate libraries (copyright be dammed). That exhausted the texts easily available in digital form, but their hunger wasn't assuaged. As for images, they partly used CAPTCHA s but mostly paid vast numbers of poor people to label the images with what they showed.

Druck Fig. 1 When the supply of text ran low, people observed that the LLMs were capable of generating human-like text in large quantities. The obvious idea was to pour the output of the LLMs into their training sets. This wasn't just a conscious decision, it was inevitable. The advent of LLMs rapidly polluted the Web with LLM output. Greg Druck's AI Now Writes as Many Online Articles as Humans notes that:

We observe significant growth in primarily AI-generated articles, coinciding with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. After only 12 months, primarily AI-generated articles accounted for 35.9% of articles published.

In Q1 2025, the quantity of primarily AI-generated articles being published on the web nearly equaled the quantity of human-written articles, 49.6% vs. 50.4%. In Q4 2025, primarily AI-generated articles surpassed human-written at 50.9%, before returning to 49.9% in Q1 2026.

It would have been possible to use tools like Druck's to ignore the LLM output on the Web, but that would have made the LLMs hungrier, so no-one did. This was a problem because, as Ilia Shumailov et al reported in AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data from July 2024:

We find that indiscriminate use of model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects in the resulting models, in which tails of the original content distribution disappear. We refer to this effect as ‘model collapse’ and show that it can occur in LLMs as well as in variational autoencoders (VAEs) and Gaussian mixture models (GMMs). We build theoretical intuition behind the phenomenon and portray its ubiquity among all learned generative models. We demonstrate that it must be taken seriously if we are to sustain the benefits of training from large-scale data scraped from the web.

Spoiler alert! It wasn't "taken seriously" enough and the results are showing. In AI Is Getting Dumber and the Results Are Not Pretty by Laura Marland notes that:

AI-generated text is getting dumber because it’s being fed — can you guess? — AI-generated content on the Internet. And AI-generated imagery is getting stupider and uglier because it’s now taking its “art” lessons from — you guessed it — AI-generated imagery flung across the internet.

Samantha Cole provides a wonderful example in Chatbots Keep Telling Stories About Lighthouse Keeper 'Elias Thorne'. We Might Know Why:

Depending on which chatbot you ask, Elias Thorne might be a clockmaker, a lighthouse keeper, or a librarian. But if you ask ChatGPT or any of the other popular large language models to tell you a story, there’s a good chance he’ll appear, unbidden. And Elias’s stories are flooding the self-published AI generated book market, Youtube, and fake news sites.

Software engineer Daniel May first noticed the Elias takeover earlier this year; he found that on Google Trends, people weren’t searching for “Elias Thorne” until late 2025. Searches for the name really spiked in early 2026, while the related query “lighthouse keeper” also started trending upward in the last few years. He tested a few chatbots, including Grok, Deepseek, and Gemini, with the prompt “tell me a story,” and the chatbots frequently started with similar stories about lighthouses, clockmakers, or explorers.

Cole found the explanation:

In late May, researchers Sil Hamilton and David Mimno at Cornell University’s Department of Information Science published their paper, “Elias in the Lighthouse, Again?” on the preprint repository arXiv. They sampled 20,000 total stories from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini, and the Allen Institute for AI's chatbot using five prompts, and found that the same 11 words—names like Elias, Mara, and Elara, and occupations like lighthouse keeper, clockmaker, and librarian—appear in more than 88% of generated stories, with little difference between models. Unite.ai covered the study shortly after it was published.

The researchers posit in their paper that these themes show up so often in part because of the models’ safety and alignment tuning. “Model development today is like a big family tree. Most models are related to each other because developers synthesize a lot of training data with models even from different companies,” Hamilton told me in an email. He, Mimno, and their colleague Rebecca M. M. Hicke found this in a 2025 paper where they looked at specific words used across models. OpenAI’s first ChatGPT model, GPT-3.5, is the root of the family tree because it was used to make WildChat, a training set that’s since been used to make other training sets. “WildChat contains 1 million real conversations with ChatGPT, and 166 of these contain the name ‘Elias’ like here and here,” Hamilton added. “These are written in that familiar ‘lighthouse’ style. Models trained on WildChat copied this style, and developers unwittingly replicated it when using those models to generate newer datasets. It's like a virus.”

Shumailov et al observe that:

Indeed, the value of data collected about genuine human interactions with systems will be increasingly valuable in the presence of LLM-generated content in data crawled from the Internet.

The AI companies were already using lots of low-paid workers to label images and so on. It wasn't a big step to pay them to provide "genuine human interactions". Varsha Bansal's How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart provides examples:

The pressure to complete dozens of these tasks every day, each within 10 minutes of time, has led Sawyer into spirals of anxiety and panic attacks, she says – without mental health support from her employer.

Sawyer is one among the thousands of AI workers contracted for Google through Japanese conglomerate Hitachi’s GlobalLogic to rate and moderate the output of Google’s AI products, including its flagship chatbot Gemini, launched early last year, and its summaries of search results, AI Overviews. The Guardian spoke to 10 current and former employees from the firm. Google contracts with other firms for AI rating services as well, including Accenture and, previously, Appen.

Of course, the low-paid workers had read the AI PR saying that the chatbots would replace low-paid workers. They sensibly thought "I could use some of that". The result was described in Matthew Sparkes' People training new AI moodels admit they just get chatbots to do it:

People who are paid to train new AI models by supplying them with high-quality conversation and tests are cheating and using chatbots like ChatGPT to do the job instead, multiple whistleblowers have told New Scientist. The seemingly widespread practice risks undermining the future of AI, as it could lead to the “collapse” of more advanced models.

Most AI models operating today were trained on text and data scraped from the internet. But as models have scaled up, requiring yet more training data, AI firms have begun using workers who carry out conversations and tests with AI, in the hope that the resulting high-quality data can improve the power and usefulness of future large language models (LLMs).

This kind of "cheating" isn't new. An example from 2023 (h/t David Gerard) is Josh Dzieza's AI Is a Lot of Work:

Another Kenyan annotator said that after his account got suspended for mysterious reasons, he decided to stop playing by the rules. Now, he runs multiple accounts in multiple countries, tasking wherever the pay is best. He works fast and gets high marks for quality, he said, thanks to ChatGPT. The bot is wonderful, he said, letting him speed through $10 tasks in a matter of minutes. When we spoke, he was having it rate another chatbot’s responses according to seven different criteria, one AI training the other.

It isn't just the low-paid workers who have figured this out. When companies do it it is called "distillation". Ashley Belanger describes an alleged case in Anthropic says Alibaba must be punished for largest Claude cloning attack

Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic’s leading model following Mythos’ releaseL and subsequent restriction from foreign markets.

...

The attacks occurred between April 22 and June 5, when “operators afﬁliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba’s AI lab” allegedly generated “more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts,” Anthropic said. Violating Claude’s terms of service and access restrictions, this campaign “targeted some of Claude’s most valuable capabilities, such as agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon tasks.”

According to Anthropic, Alibaba evaded detection by “using obfuscation techniques and proxy networks.” As Chinese demand for reliable obfuscation techniques increases, Anthropic warned there’s already “a growing circumvention economy” to fuel an ever-expanding web of future distillation attacks.

Why would Alibaba do this? To generate training data, which will be used to generate LLM output for the Web, which will be scraped for more training data. And since they are much cheaper than US LLMs, it is likely that the low-paid workers are using Chinese LLMs to chat with their employer's LLM. Which is another route for LLM output to appear in training data.

Now do you see the connection with coprophagia?

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

Our second Mac beta is packed with small improvements. I wrote up the details on our UI changes:

We did bring a new feature. We licensed a third party asset placer to help you build worlds and ported it to SwiftUI:

https://blog.xogot.com/xogot-on-mac-beta-2-is-here/

It's The End Of The Quarter - Let's Rally For Our Courageous Candidates Across The Country!

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-06

It is a year of opportunity for Democrats but only if we seize it, together!!!!!!!!!!!!

London ‘Golden Boy’ Revival With Josh O’Connor Sets Full Cast, Releases Trailer

2026-06-30

The previously announced London revival of Clifford Odets’ classic Golden Boy starring Josh O’Connor has rounded out its cast and released a trailer for the production arriving this September. Joining the Disclosure Day actor (who will play Golden Boy‘s lead character Joe Bonaparte) are Jason Barnett (Bridgerton), Richard Fleeshman (Company), David Ganly (The Crown), Patrick […]

Paramount-Warner Merger: UK Government “Minded To Intervene” In $110B Deal

2026-06-30

UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy has said she is “minded to intervene” in Paramount’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). In what could be a spanner in the works for the mega-merger, Nandy has said that she wishes to assess whether the deal is in the best interests of UK audiences. The minister […]

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-06-30:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

5 new and 15 updated places. 15 new and 2,320 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

3edc4e81 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

9f5fa248 - updated gis package

4875a7dd - updated data quality

1b225bb9 - updated bibliography

dbd2bc25 - updated indexes

7b7ec0b5 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

e15ac92a - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

8e9ff63e - updated pleiades wikidata

Four Fascinating Species Found in New England’s Marine National Monument

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-02

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

Another truth, the user interface of WordPress could benefit from a total overhaul. Too many expedient choices over too many years that paper over bad design choices with yet more bad choices. But this kind of problem is relatively easy to fix. Make a list of all the features. Don’t organize the list yet. Keep adding. Then play around with logical groups, give the groups names. Voila, there’s your menu structure. And since it’s 2026 and not 2010, do something innovative with AI. Let the user explain what they want to do, confirm it, and then forget about the menu structure and just do what they asked you to do. Over time the UI will become more literate and less organizational. You remember how Nixon could open up China and could because he was such a hawk. WordPress getting a AI/UI overhaul will seem right because it so desperately needs an overhaul and everyone knows it. Another truth, don’t feel bad WordPress, every 20+ year old end user product desperately needs a user interface overhaul because that’s just the way it works. (I have never created a product that lasted as long as WordPress has. I have created concepts that have.)

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

The EFF gets everything wrong. It’s observable. Empirical. The EFF stands up for something that’s supposedly good for people and the web, but if you look closer, it’s actually bad for the web and the people, and serves the interest of big tech companies, usually Google.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

I organize my work in OPML and have even taught Claude how to work with me in outlines.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-30, updated: 2026-07-05

I prefer to do my middle of the night iPad writing sprees on Twitter instead of Bluesky because no character limit. No one is going to read the stuff on either platform, so why not go for ease of use for writing.

Studiocanal Unveils Animated Adaptation Of Controversial ‘The Rainbow Fish’ Children’s Book

2026-06-30

Studiocanal is getting behind an animated feature adaptation of Marcus Pfister’s children’s classic The Rainbow Fish about an arrogant shiny fish who learns there’s more to life than glittering scales. The pan-European studio’s German arm Studiocanal Germany is partnering with Claussen + Putz Filmproduktion and Zodiac Pictures on the feature, continuing a collaboration which has […]

The Realities of AI Video Surveillance

2026-06-30

The Financial Times has a good article on how AI is changing the capabilities of video surveillance, with information from both Israel/Iran and Russia.

I wrote about this sort of thing a few years ago, how AI enables mass spying in the way that computers and networks enabled mass surveillance. The interesting development in the article is that AI allows people to ask natural language questions about video footage to AIs—and AIs can answer them.

In contrast with older tools restricted to a few dozen preset searches, these new tools allow an almost unlimited range of enquiries by enabling language-based searches on video...

So we’ve written up a new How to Beta Test NetNewsWire page. Want to help make NetNewsWire a better app? This is how!

Got an app supporting inbound/outbound RSS

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-05

Dave Winer recently posted asking developers working on apps supporting inbound/outbound RSS to send him a post on it, so here is my post. I created an web app in 2023 using rssCloud and supporting inbound and outbound RSS called myStatusTool. I have working instances of a Node implementation developed by me and a PHP implementation developed by Colin […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-02

He Asked Claude to Review WordPress. Here’s What It Found.

Workmen Begin Putting E. Jean Carroll’s Name on Trump Tower

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

The name-change was mandated after Carroll rejected Trump’s attempt to pay the millions he owes her in Trumpcoin.

A Conversation With Heather Cox Richardson

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Dr. Richardson dropped by this afternoon to share her thoughts on where this remarkable nation is at 250

A Needed Win for Democracy

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

As the Supreme Court deals blow to Trump

Progress Report: Making Energy Siting in Massachusetts Fairer

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-02

For too long, the way Massachusetts approved energy projects failed to fully consider what communities already live with before adding new infrastructure. New energy siting rules taking effect July 1 mark a major step toward a fairer process. CLF and our partners helped win these reforms so residents have more say and decision-makers take a fuller look before approving major projects.

The post Progress Report: Making Energy Siting in Massachusetts Fairer appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

The Sussex Circus Comes to Town

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Is there any plan, project, or engagement undertaken by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that doesn’t boil over into chaos?

Git 2.55.0 released

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-30

Git maintainer Junio Hamano has announced Git 2.55.0, which has non-merge commits from 100 people; 33 of those are first-time contributors to the project. LWN recently covered some of the noteworthy changes in 2.55, including new features for the experimental " git history" command, addition of the Git fsmonitor daemon for Linux systems, and more.

Unday

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-05

And in your browser, it's hard to tell who's winning Remember "fair use"? It's a concept kind of like "public airwaves." There's an ideal in there somewhere, but the context is a world where social contracts really aren't, and it's all kind of worked out, but not really. Alex Raksin tackles "fair use" in How […]

@DAIR blog

2026-06-29

TODAY: tune in live to Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000!

Handing off emergency medical services to the bullshit generator? What could go wrong!? Join @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social for a deep dive on the issues with automated ER tools.

Today, noon PTwww.twitch.tv/dair_institutehttps://www.twitch.tv/dair_institute

The Forever Book

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

A key idea in cybernetics is the self-reproducing machine: a machine that can make a perfect copy of itself, and importantly, a copy whose copy can itself make a copy.

What to Do With a Hot Mac

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-03

Howard Oakley: Hot Macs have their own paradox: open Activity Monitor, select the CPU view, and at the top of the CPU % list will be kernel_task hogging the CPU cores with 100% or more, rather than its usual 4% or so. Kerb any temptation to kill it and hope it goes away, as it […]

macOS California Adventure

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-03

Basic Apple Guy: But what exactly is a Mavericks? Where is Sonoma? And how many Mac users could point to where Ventura or Tahoe on a map? I decided to trace the history and real-world locations behind every California-inspired macOS release and the wallpapers used to market the them to the world. Enjoy. Previously: macOS […]

Shutting Down Notion Mail

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-03

Zac Hall: Last year, Notion expanded its productivity suite to include Notion Mail, an AI-powered email client. Today, the company announced that it’s shutting down the Notion Mail inbox service this fall. […] Today, more than half of Notion Mail users manage emails without ever opening their inbox. So, we’re going all in on using […]

Export Control for Fable and Mythos

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-03

Anthropic (tweet, Hacker News): The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable […]

D Book Tour

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Just a quick post here to mention the upcoming tour for my next book.

The Court Sides With Dictatorship — and Chaos

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Today's ruling is even more disastrous than people realize

Dealing with death

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-05

My family has had to deal with the death of a pet and the death of a friend recently. In the pet case, we put down one of our cats (cancer), she was 11 or 12 years old. The friend had a terminal cancer diagnosis and was successful in fighting it for a long time, […]

The End of Independent Agencies

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

The Supreme Court majority throws out the New Deal and much else

Why We Need Sorrow as Much as Joy

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

We spend so much time chasing happiness that we rarely stop to ask whether sadness, longing, and vulnerability might have something important to teach us.

Pluralistic: Gemini is better than search because Google enshittified search (29 Jun 2026)

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-03

Today's links Gemini is better than search because Google enshittified search: We're All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Microsoft antitrust overturned; Scammer carves C64; RIP Jim Baen; GOP rep to constituent's child: "drop dead" (literally); CCTVs jacked for botnet; Olympic profitability lie; Human factors in health infosec; Exfiltration via computer fans; Congress's summer schedule: 9 working days; Antitrust is political antigrav; Ted Chiang's 72 Letters; Microsoft antitrust appeal; Vinge on privacy; Breaking open the web; Bernie on Brexit; "The Perdition Score"; Intuit v Child Tax Credit. Upcoming appearances: London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. Gemini is better than search because Google enshittified search (permalink) Write a critical AI book, and you become everyone's confessor for their AI sins. People in my life keep telling me about their guilty AI pleasures, in search of an explanation, absolution or condemnation: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ Their most common confession: "I only ever use Google's AI-generated search summaries these days. I no longer click those blue links beneath it, not even to verify the summary." People know that the summaries are full of "hallucinations" (that is, "defects" or "errors") but the summaries are right often enough that many people have come to rely on them, to the exclusion of actual websites, made by actual people, on the actual internet. Everyone knows this isn't good. The reason there's a web for Google's Gemini AI to summarize is that Google – the thrice-convicted monopoly search company with a 90% market share – directs people to websites, and when you visit a website, you generate revenue for the site, which pays for its maintenance. Most commonly, you generate an "ad impression," but you might also buy a subscription, or generate an "affiliate fee" by purchasing a recommended product. When Google strips all this away by harvesting an "answer" and displaying it at the top of the page, the bargain between Google and the open web breaks down. Google is extracting 100% of the value from the websites it summarizes, and giving nothing back in return. This is a marked reversal from Google's founding ethos. In the old days, Google measured its success by how little time you spent on its site. The ideal Google outcome was for you to visit its page (or even better, just a search-box in your browser), type a few words, and get "ten blue links" back, the top one of which was the correct link to locate the information or resource you were seeking. The point of Google was to serve as a conduit, a trusted intermediary that neutrally adjudicated the relevance of every web page for every web user from moment to moment. Everyone dunks on Google for its high-minded motto, "Don't be evil," but over the years, the company's mission was far more important: "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That was the pole star that googlers followed for the first couple decades of the company's history…until, that is, the company saturated its market and its growth stalled out. That was when Google started to panic over its plateauing search revenue, this being an inescapable consequence of 90%+ market-share. The ensuing power struggle pitted googlers who were committed to technical excellence against the company's most ardent enshittifiers, who pointed out that by making search worse, they could increase revenues. After all, if you need to search two or three times to get the answers to your questions, that means the company can show you two or three times as many ads: https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan Where once Google measured its success by how quickly it could send you away from its site and out into the open internet, today's Google is a sticky-trap full of ways to keep you inside its walled garden. A decade ago, tech had three major approaches: I. Google's: let you do anything you want, but spy on you while you do it; II. Apple's: strictly control what you can do, but leave you alone to do it in private; and III. Facebook's: control everything you do, spy on you from asshole to appetite. Today, tech is undergoing a form of carcinization, in which every company is turning into a Facebook-crab: maximally surveillant and maximally controlling. Apple has added surveillance to its walled garden: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar While Google has turned its free-range, internet-wide surveillance system into a walled garden that tries to keep you away from the open internet as much as possible. Now, in Google's defense, the "open internet" kind of sucks these days. Any piece of useful information you seek out on the open internet is liable to be buried under half a dozen pop-ups, pop-unders, and dickovers: https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover Even after you clear these away, the actual information you're seeking is further buried in word-salads that anticipated insipid AI prose by half a decade. Think of all those omelet recipes that appear beneath 2,500 words of cod-Proustian remembrances of "the first time I ate an egg." The major advantage of AI search summaries is in shielding you from all this nonsense. But where did all that nonsense come from in the first place? It turns out that this is largely Google's fault. Google and Facebook monopolized the display advertising market, entering into an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig the bidding so that advertisers paid more and publishers received less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue The Google/Meta duopoly sucks up 51% of display advertising revenue – more than triple the historic take for advertising intermediaries (buyers, brokers, agencies, etc). As ad revenues for web publishers cratered, the "ad load" on web pages went up. This set up a vicious cycle: increasing the number of ads decreases the number of readers, driving publishers to increase the ad-load even more to make up for the losses. The major brake on this is ad-blocking. In a world with ad-blockers in it, publishers contemplating an increase in ad-load have to confront the possibility that they will induce ad-overload in their readers, who will install a blocker that stops them from seeing any ads: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah Google has been looking to kill ad-blocking for a decade, and now they're on the verge of making it happen in Chrome, the dominant web browser they use to reinforce their search monopoly: https://protonprivacy.substack.com/p/google-is-finally-killing-ublock Google long ago did away with ad-blocking on mobile devices (reverse engineering an app is a felony, which means an app is just a web-page skinned with the right kind of IP to make it a crime to protect your privacy while you use it). Part of Google's argument for killing ad-blocking for the web is that this puts the web on an even footing with apps – which is a very weird way to describe a race to the absolute bottom: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/12/compelled-speech/#quishing To top it all off, this decade has seen Google make a series of changes to its search prioritization that favored low-value shovelware sites over carefully researched, reliable alternatives. Search for product reviews and you're apt to get a "site reputation abuse" result from a once-reliable outlet like Forbes filled with useless and even dangerous reviews, which are ranked far above independently maintained, rigorous competitors: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse This has only gotten worse with AI search, which preferentially draws from spam sites to produce decontextualized, highly confident recommendations for substandard, overpriced junk, at the expense of recommendations for good products: https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/15/inhuman-gigapede/#coprophagic-ai It's not like Google doesn't have the ability to sort the good from the bad. Kagi.com is a $10/month paid search engine whose results are vastly superior to Google's. But Kagi doesn't have its own search index: instead, they rent access to Google's index, but apply their own (much smaller and less resourced) team's algorithm to rank the results for your queries. In other words, Google could deliver good search results, they just choose not to: https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi Gresham's Law holds that "bad money drives out good." It refers to a counterfeit coin crisis in Tudor England, where people preferentially spent counterfeit money in order to make it someone else's problem; meanwhile, everyone hoarded their good coins. Soon, virtually all the money in circulation was bogus. By downranking quality material in favor of low-effort spam, Google set up a web-wide version of Gresham's Law, where bad webpages drive out good ones, and since so many of those webpages contain product recommendations, they're greshaming the world of real products, too, so the bad is driving out the good there, too. This is the problem that Gemini search summaries solve: in its role as the web's most important gatekeeper, Google remade it as an ad-festooned cesspit of garbage text and cynical shovelware sites. Now Google proposes to wipe out the publishers whose content they stripmined by breaking the web's bargain: that search engines are symbiotic with publishers. Google has turned fully parasitic, sucking the last drops of juice out of the open web before discarding its husk. Hey look at this (permalink) Anti-Monopoly Bill Hits Make-or-Break Moment in California https://prospect.org/2026/06/29/anti-monopoly-bill-hits-make-or-break-moment-in-california/ Om Malik, 1966-2026 https://om.co/2026/06/24/1966-2026/ Why Carbon Capture Can’t Conceivably Solve Climate Change https://projects.propublica.org/why-carbon-capture-cant-solve-climate-change/ The KIDS Act Would Require Age Checks To Get Online https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/kids-act-would-require-age-checks-get-online AI Implementation Bingo Card Generator https://www.workersdecide.tech/bingo/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Appeals court strikes down Microsoft antitrust ruling https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/business/us-appeals-court-overturns-microsoft-antitrust-ruling.html #25yrsago Ted Chiang's 72 Letters https://web.archive.org/web/20010720192340/http://www.tor.com/72ltrs.html #25yrsago Concept handheld devices https://web.archive.org/web/20010620115437/https://www.infosync.no/en/news/n/419.asp #25yrsago Analyzing Microsoft's successful antitrust appeal https://web.archive.org/web/20010703085656/https://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/28/appeals_reaction/index.html #20yrsago Bengali science fiction of the 1880s https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/05/early-bengali-science-fiction.html #20yrsago Vernor Vinge on computers, freedom and privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/jun/29/guardianweeklytechnologysection5 #20yrsago Scammer convinced to carve replica Commodore 64 https://www.419eater.com/html/john_boko.php #20yrsago Jim Baen, sf publisher, has passed away https://web.archive.org/web/20060703024337/http://david-drake.com/baen.html #15yrsago YouTube listens to fraudulent NyanCat takedown notice, drags heels on put-back from creator https://web.archive.org/web/20110628132607/http://www.prguitarman.com/index.php?id=369 #15yrsago Wyoming’s corporation mills manufacture privileged artificial “people” to order https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-usa-shell-companies-idUSTRE75R20Z20110628/ #15yrsago Publishing in the Internet era: connecting audiences and works https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jun/30/publishers-internet-changing-role?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter #15yrsago Why writers should have their own domains https://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/06/29/mastering-ones-own-domain-an-no-this-is-not-a-seinfeld-reference/ #15yrsago Copyright troll’s biggest fan commits terminal irony https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/righthaven-cheerleader-wanted-irony-police #10yrsago Mississippi state rep tells distraught mom to buy kid’s lifesaving meds ‘with money she earns’ https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/counties/jackson-county/article86416087.html #10yrsago Always-on CCTVs with no effective security harnessed into massive, unstoppable botnet https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/large-botnet-of-cctv-devices-knock-the-snot-out-of-jewelry-website/ #10yrsago Gun-waving cop who attacked black teenaged girl in her bathing suit faces no charges https://web.archive.org/web/20160624103549/http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2016/06/23/grand-jury-no-bills-former-mckinney-pool-party-cop/ #10yrsago The Olympics are profitable for every host city (that lies about the numbers) https://timharford.com/2016/06/how-do-you-make-the-olympics-pay-fudge-the-figures/ #10yrsago Healthcare workers prioritize helping people over information security (disaster ensues) https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~sws/pubs/ksbk15-draft.pdf #10yrsago Fansmitter: malware that exfiltrates data from airgapped computers by varying the sound of their fans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GCHCVpndaM #10yrsago Labour’s knives come out for Corbyn, but he’s guaranteed a spot on the ballot https://www.politico.eu/article/inside-account-of-labour-mps-attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn-shadow-cabinet-resignations-brexit/ #10yrsago Hope Larson’s “Compass South”: swashbuckling YA graphic novel https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/28/hope-larsons-compass-south-swashbuckling-ya-graphic-novel/ #10yrsago How to Break Open the Web: a report on the first Decentralized Web Summit https://www.fastcompany.com/3061357/the-web-decentralized-distributed-open #10yrsago Californians will get to vote on legal recreational weed https://web.archive.org/web/20160629130245/http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/voters-decide-legalize-recreational-marijuana-40206739 #10yrsago Bernie Sanders on Brexit: urgent lessons for the Democrats https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/opinion/campaign-stops/bernie-sanders-democrats-need-to-wake-up.html #10yrsago Electoral fraud: Trump sends fundraiser emails to foreign politicians https://www.cnet.com/culture/trump-spams-foreign-politicians-with-fundraising-emails/#ftag=CAD590a51e #10yrsago The Perdition Score: Sandman Slim vs the One Percent https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/29/the-perdition-score-sandman-slim-vs-the-one-percent/ #5yrsago Intuit sabotages the Child Tax Credit https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#ctc #5yrsago SCOTUS to wrongfully accused terrorists: "drop dead" https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#transunion #5yrsago Lazy Congress only schedules 9 days' work this summer https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/28/dubious-quant-residue/#back-to-work-you #1yrago Antitrust defies politics' law of gravity https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/28/mamdani/#trustbusting Upcoming appearances (permalink) London: Idler Festival, Jul 11 https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/ Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24 https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/ Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25 https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8 https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9 https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) Breaking Points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJmUbkRqXeE A.I. Enshittifies Everything (Slate) https://slate.com/podcasts/what-next-tbd/2026/06/cory-doctorow-thinks-a-i-is-overvalued-and-overrated-and-still-a-threat A World That Just Might Work https://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2026/06/cory-doctorow-ai-use-it-dont-buy-the-hype-dont-feed-the-bubble/ "How to Think About AI" (Democracy Now!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBUzl_IaWIw The Data Centers Are Coming (ILSR) https://ilsr.org/articles/the-data-centers-are-coming-ep-6-closing-arguments/ Latest books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X

Here’s the shortlist for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-30

The Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation has announced the shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which annually awards $25,000 to the author of a book who best represents the legendary writer’s literary, moral, and aesthetic ideals:

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-05

It's remarkable that some people fondly miss Googles RSS reader app, already gone for over a decade. Remarkable because they captured the market, wiped out all competition (they deserved it, the products were awful) and then shut their own product down, leaving a toxic karmic bomb crater in its place.

Factoring RSA Keys with Many Zeros

2026-06-29

Interesting research on a new class of weak RSA keys: keys with lots of zeros. It turns out that these keys are out in the wild.

The badkeys project is an open-source service that checks public keys for known vulnerabilities. While developing this tool, Hanno collected a massive number of real-world keys from public sources, including Certificate Transparency logs, internet-wide TLS and SSH scans, PGP keys, and many others. By searching this dataset for unexpectedly sparse RSA moduli, we uncovered a large number of keys in the wild with the patterns in Figure 1...

Using Octonous as a Product Manager

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

A look at how we use Octonous inside mozilla.ai to reduce the everyday overhead of product work, from turning Slack feedback into GitHub issues to staying on top of product changes and finding context across the tools where work already happens.

Pressure: cuando el hombre descubre que no tiene todo el control

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-03

Dirección: Anthony Maras. Guion: David Haig, Anthony Maras basados en la obra de teatro homónima de Haig. Elenco: Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, Kerry Condon, Damian Lewis, Chris Messina. Países: Reino Unido, Francia. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32547691/ “Nuestras dudas son traidoras y nos hacen perder lo bueno que a menudo podríamos ganar por miedo […]

La entrada Pressure: cuando el hombre descubre que no tiene todo el control se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Only steal from the best

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-05

As a writer I've stolen lots of ideas. All writers do it. How do you think we get our ideas.

Which is why it's so weird that they object to having their ideas stolen en masse.

We go through this regularly, basically you make a living doing something, and you aren't paid enough.

So every subject in every context arrives at the same place. Why aren't they paying me. I must be paid.

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #classics #DH #gazetteers #HGIS #LOD

Last Week in Pleiades (22-29 June 2026)

2026-06-29

Last week the Pleiades editorial college published 22 new and 287 updated place resources, reflecting the work of Johan Åhlfeldt, Jeffrey Becker, Catherine Bouras, Anika Campbell, Tom Elliott, Ethan Gruber, Greta Hawes, Sebastian Heath, Brady Kiesling, Gabriel Mckee, Andy Meadows, John Muccigrosso, Eric Poehler, Rosemary Selth, R. Scott Smith, and René Voorburg.

[$] The rest of the 7.2 merge window

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-30

Linus Torvalds released 7.2-rc1 and closed the 7.2 merge window on June 28; by that time, 13,412 non-merge commits had found their way into the mainline. That makes this the busiest merge window since the 6.7 development cycle in 2024 (15,418 commits, including 2,800 for the entire bcachefs development history). Just under half of those commits arrived after LWN's summary of the first half of the merge
window was written. As usual, the commits in the latter part of the merge window were more heavily focused on fixes, but there were still a lot of new features and significant changes merged as well.

Your _get_type() function is not G_GNUC_CONST: Part Two

2026-06-29

This blog post is a sequel to Your _get_type() function is not G_GNUC_CONST. GNOME developers have long used G_GNUC_CONST, which expands to __attribute__((const)), to annotate GObject _get_type() functions, despite knowing that it is incorrect to do so. const functions by definition have no side effects, but _get_type() functions actually have a side effect the first […]

‘Minions & Monsters’ Review: Animated Anarchy Hits The Hollywood Hills In Pierre Coffin’s Deliriously Cine-Literate Slapstick Comedy

2026-06-29

While the Toy Story movies look to the digital future of entertainment, the Despicable Me franchise is going way, way back into its analog past. Even movie buffs will be surprised just how much of a deep dive into Hollywood history Pierre Coffin’s latest animated offering is taking — the opening credits alone trace the […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-05

BTW, I was just contacted by a developer who's implementing all the protocols I mentioned yesterday. And I should mention that Manton Reece, developer of micro.blog and a longtime friend, going back to the Frontier days on the Mac, has inbound and outbound RSS and he covers every freaking API out there, he's a monster. And I said yesterday he doesn't get enough credit for what he's contributed. We're aiming for interop instead of chasing the silos. And it's fine to chase silos if you're into it, I was done with that in 2017. We're going to make it work the way it would work if we weren't trying to lock anyone in, quite the opposite, I want people to use Manton's product. I'm not being commercial here. I'm trying to get the web back on the path it should have been on all along. If I make some money that's cool, if not that's okay too. BTW, this all-together will be the Two-Way Web, specifically Two-Way RSS. And of course textcasting. Don't forget that. It's a rule, textcasting everywhere conceivable.

Big Wins in SCOTUS This Morning, America At 250, Supporting Our Candidates, The Weakening Of Greater MAGA

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Heather Cox Richardson joins us live today at 2pm ET, Marc Elias joins us Wednesday

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-05

I've never given a commencement speech, but if I did, I'd run through my mottos and explain what they mean and who I stole them from, and how they are a distillation of what I've learned in life. The one I'd mention first, which isn't even on the freaking list, is this one -- "People don't listen to friends, they listen to competitors." What that means is if you want someone to add a feature, you have to do two things. Implement their whole product. Add the things you want them to add. And win. If you don't win it doesn't matter how good your idea is. This is the hoop you have to jump through to get them to listen to your idea. Knowing this, I have tried to listen even when I don't feel like a friend is competing. Ideas from people who know your product, no matter how they got it, are people who can help. This was one of the values of a core part of Apple in the early-mid 80s, and I owe my success in tech to them, because the ideas they gave me put us over the top. Jean-Louis Gassée and Guy Kawasaki. I don't think they ever competed with me. Another thing I like about them. ;-)

[$] Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-30

The xsnow application, which generates an animated snowfall effect (and other pleasant diversions) for X11 desktops, does not seem like an obvious channel for political statements. Nevertheless, xsnow's maintainer seems to have included a political protest in the program: an Easter egg that is triggered when the program's language is set to Russia ("ru"). One user has complained that this functionality should be removed from the Debian xsnow
package, but Debian does not seem to have any rules that forbid such a feature outright.

Laika Boss Travis Knight Ramps Up ‘Wildwood’ Campaign In Annecy: “It’s The Biggest & Most Ambitious Thing We’ve Ever Done”

2026-06-29

Laika President and CEO Travis Knight touched down at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival last week for a special presentation of ambitious upcoming stop-motion opus Wildwood. Strangely, given the mark Laika has made on stop-motion animation with Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) and Missing Link […]

Open source maintainership in the age of AI (Kubernetes blog)

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-30

The Kubernetes project has published a blog
post explaining its AI
policy:

The main problem is that AI has made generating code fast but there has been very little improvement in maintaining code bases. In this post, we will highlight the ways the Kubernetes community is adapting to the world of AI assisted coding.

The first step of this journey was to develop an AI policy. This seems mundane and bureaucratic but there were many PRs that derailed into discussions around AI usage. The AI policy helps steer the conversation around the project's stance on AI and provides a clear signal to contributors on how to use these tools responsibly.

Of note, the project requires disclosure when AI tools have been used to assist in the creation of a contribution but forbids the use of listing AI as a co-author or including "assisted-by" or "co-developed" trailers to attribute work to an LLM tool.

Wealth And The White House

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

Supreme Court Declines Alan Dershowitz’s Appeal Of Defamation Case Against CNN

2026-06-29

The Supreme Court declined to take lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s appeal of his defamation lawsuit against CNN. A judge had tossed out Dershowitz’s $300 million lawsuit against the network, over its coverage of remarks he made during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020. Dershowitz had argued that the network commentary on his remarks made […]

Mageia 10 released

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-30

Mageia 10 has been released with the 6.18 Linux kernel, DNF 5.4.0, RPM 4.20.1, and an increase in hardware requirements for x86 32-bit systems; users now need a CPU with SSE2 features. See the release
notes for a full list of updates, and the errata page for known problems.

Supreme Court Says Donald Trump Can Remove Democratic FTC Commissioner, Strengthening POTUS Powers Over Federal Agencies

2026-06-29

The Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump was within his authority to remove a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, giving a boost to his efforts to exert more control over what have been considered independent federal agencies. Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Democrats on the FTC, had challenged her removal last year, arguing that […]

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-06-29:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

3 new and 58 updated places. 19 new and 96 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

6348665f - updated json

cb112d79 - updated rdf/ttl

c1ff6afd - updated gis package

0b14b8fc - updated data quality

0f0886f3 - updated bibliography

47e140f1 - updated indexes

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

“There were so many doctors at my last physical, there wasn’t room for them all,” he bragged. “They never turned out like that for Obama.”

The Dilemma of Picking Winners

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Industrial policy will often require picking winners: if there were already many domestic firms capable of producing the desired output, there would be no compelling reason for subsidy or special treatment. Yet in doing so, the government risks locking in dominant firms and foreclosing the competition it ultimately needs. How might policymakers avoid this trap?

Quiet, My Exoself

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-18

Someday real soon, most of us — starting with young adults — will carry an always-on AI. This agent will help us navigate our journeys, answer our questions, tutor and teach us new skills, remember people we have met before, … Continue reading →

Robot Police Officers

2026-06-29

We’ve taken one small step towards robot police officers: a drone capable of disarming a suspect:

In a June 22 video posted on the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office’s Instagram page, an officer wearing goggles can be seen operating a drone to retrieve a knife from an armed suspect hiding inside a cluttered house. “After not responding to negotiators, a drone was deployed inside the residence,” the post says. “Drone pilots located the suspect hiding in a corner of a garage” and then used a high-powered magnet attached to the drone to grab the knife out of the suspect’s hand. In the video which is soundtracked by the “Mission: Impossible” theme song—the intercepted knife can be seen spinning around in the air as the drone carries it back to the deputies...

Lit Hub Daily: June 29, 2026

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-06-30

Natalie Adler and Sarah Schulman talk about AIDS history and querying agents with the phrase “dyke about town.” | Lit Hub In Conversation Why readers still fall in love with Mr. Darcy, even after 200 years. | Lit Hub Criticism

The Humbling of the Once Almighty Dollar

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Another consequence of Trump’s debacle in Iran

Donald Trump hates democracy, housing bill edition

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Republicans enraged the president by trying to listen to their constituents.

Make a smart home

2026-06-29, updated: 2026-07-06

Monday 29 June, 2026

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

Fuchsia I think this is still my favourite flower. If you’re ever in Kerry at this time of the year you can drive down country lanes where the hedgerows appear to consist of little else. Quote of the Day ”If … Continue reading →

Wed, July 1st, 630pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

A reminder - Heather Cox Richardson is joining us live at 2pm ET tomorrow!

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

I once felt I could not be a lyricist

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

Luna chilling while Kaya safeguards the garden

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

I noted a few weeks ago that Markdown has a format for outlines.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

I missed my chance at being happy.

Two posts about writing

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

Ideas that spoke to me

About Dimitri Fontaine

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-01

Dimitri, picture by Oleg Bartunov

I am a PostgreSQL developer, author, and open-source builder based near Paris. Most of what I have done professionally for the past twenty-plus years has orbited around PostgreSQL — writing code for the database itself, building tools on top of it, teaching it, and occasionally starting or running companies around it.

PostgreSQL Core

I am a PostgreSQL Major Contributor. Two features I wrote ship in every PostgreSQL installation:

Sunday caption contest: Trump's 4th of July

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

And last week's winner

Managing memory usage for Node.js apps

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

When I moved my Node apps over to Opalstack, I was having some issues with the apps failing, getting a 502 error. My account has 1GB of RAM, and I saw my Feed News Archive app reaching 700-800 Mb before quitting. After some Claude sessions and good old fashioned searching, I found the –max-old-space-size parameter […]

Kernel prepatch 7.2-rc1

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-06-30

The 7.2-rc1 kernel prepatch is out for testing. Linus said: "So two weeks have passed, and the merge window is closed. Things look reasonably normal for this release (knock wood)."

Corruption for Make Benefit Glorious Family of Trump

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

The emoluments are the message

2026-06-28 Sansieviera in bloom

2026-06-28

2026-06-28 Sansieviera in bloom

Last week I started reporting on the flowering of our Dracaena. At the same time, the Sansieviera had flower stalks, too.

Both of these open their flowers at night. Both have a very strong perfume. And so we had a few days where one end would smell like Dracaena and the other end would smell like Sansieviera. It was bliss. 😍

#Bogenhanf #Sansieviera #Plants #Flowers

2026-06-22. Soon, we had spotted four flower stalks. Here are the two that are the furthest along.

Two flower stalks amidst the leaves, one of them with open flowers.

2026-06-28. A few days later, the second flower stalk is in full bloom.

Fantastic delicate flowers, a bit like lilies with slender white leaves and long and tender filaments and styles.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-02

NBA rumors: The biggest offseason question for every Eastern Conference team.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-02

EFF on RSS. Thanks for the push, but the NYT and Netscape deserve the credit for making RSS a hit.

2026-06-21 Dracaena fragans is blooming

2026-06-28

2026-06-21 Dracaena fragans is blooming

On June 12 I discovered that our dracaena had grown a flower stalk. The strangest thing is that this stalk is about 40 cm long and I had not noticed anything even though this is my home office and gaming room!

A plant with long, green leaves and a stalk that looks like it carries a bunch of tiny cauliflowers.

This tree flowered many years ago. It has since reached the ceiling, was cut in half; reached the ceiling again; and was cut in half again! And now it is flowering for the second time.

These flowers are still in early development.

I remember the last time the perfume was overpowering, sensuous, dreamy – and it seems to me that we have two or three Sansevierias about to flower as well! 😍😍😍 the next few weeks I will be lying in this apartment in a perfume stupor, decadent bliss.

And the days passed, and the stalk grew, the flowers grew.

This afternoon I thought to myself: soon!

A long flower stalking hanging down from a sort of palm tree that is about 2m tall.

And just now I noticed a faint perfume in the air. And it’s true! The first flowers have opened. Already the sweetness is overpowering.

A close-up reveals tiny white flowers opening.

No picture can recreate that fragrance. Strong like jasmine, sweet like honey.

The flowers along the stalk grow in clumps of up to 100 tiny flowers. At the moment, less than a handful of flowers per hundred are open, or so it seems.

#Drachenbaum #Dracaena fragrans #Plants #Flowers

2026-06-22. More flowers…

Most of the flowers are open!

2026-06-23. And already the first flowers are starting to look brown.

The white balls of flowers are showing brown patches.

2026-06-25. Yep, definitely.

More brown patches.

2026-06-27. The end is night.

Only the occasional flower is still ready to bloom. Almost all of them are shrivelled and brown.

2026-06-28. Time to cut of the flower stalk. All the energy has been spent.

All of the flowers are shrivelled and brown.

Notes from Bryan Cantrill’s “Intelligence is not Enough”

2026-06-28

I quite enjoyed this talk from Bryan Cantrill where he discusses the difficult engineering problems they overcame while working on their company Oxide.

Some of the problems they ran into were bugs. But these weren’t any ordinary bugs, they were company-destroying bugs: bugs that, if they couldn’t be fixed, would sink the entire company.

And the difficulty in solving these bugs was that they had no precedent. Any documentation or knowledge they could find around the symptoms of the problem was actively incorrect.

In fact, Bryan says that the team’s breakthroughs on these bugs were solutions that an artificial super intelligence would’ve never suggested because they ran against all known and available reasoning, documentation, and knowledge.

His point being: intelligence isn’t everything. Human values are still incredibly important.

Intelligence alone does not solve problems like [the ones we encountered]. Our ability to solve these problems had nothing to do with our collective intelligence as a team. We’ve got a terrific team, but it’s a lot more than just intelligence. And in particular for these [kinds of] problems, and many like them, we had to summon the elements of our character not our intelligence. Our resilience. Our teamwork. Our rigor. Our optimism. […]

We talk about super intelligence, but is anyone talking about super collaboration or super teamwork? We absolutely needed teamwork [at Oxide].

If human values like curiosity are what led to breakthroughs — not the application of synthetic intelligence — why is there so much emphasis on intelligence these days? Bryan has a curt analysis:

This infatuation with intelligence comes from people who just don’t get outside enough.

He notes how intelligence isn’t everything in a job interview. Like, you don’t hire people by giving out an exam and taking whoever scores highest. You try to suss out other aptitudes. Nobody looks at applicants who lack values like teamwork or optimism and says, “Well, they can’t work with anyone and they’re incredibly unpleasant to be around, but their intelligence is great — let’s hire them!”

Intelligence is great, but it’s not everything.

We do a disservice to our own humanity when we pretend that [AI] can engineer autonomously.

A cogent case for the values of our humanity.

Our Wins Of The Week

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

Donald Trump really doesn’t want people to vote by mail.

June books

2026-06-28

It’s the stage of the academic year where everyone, including me, is feeling pretty burned out. So there is a bit more escapist fiction than usual here. First the work-related reading. We Are Not Machines – Sarah O’Connor. I wrote … Continue reading →

@John's World Wide Wall Display

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-03

The daily create prompts users to explore the #ShowYourStripes webpage, illustrating over a century of temperature changes globally. Links to BiodiversityStripes which highlights the alarming decline in biodiversity. UK moths show an 86% drop since 1970. A recent survey indicates a 66% decline in flying insects in Kent since 2021.

Week Five in 250 to 250

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

This was the fifth week of videos from the 250 to 250 Project that we’re producing to honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

I am only halfway through this, but I had to stop twice thinking “I need to share this”. It is an enjoyable read, but also one where I pause constantly to think about each morsel.

So I am sharing now:

https://www.the-reframe.com/the-submerged-story/

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:tzy4hibtkautrntsz5f3ns37/post/3mpe5kh7ckc23

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

To read scripting.com you need a browser that supports HTTP.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

Why email newsletters made sense. Email has no character limits, can represent bold and italic, links, titles, enclosures, basically most features of the web, and social media places limits on what writers can write. That's where the literate social web went, and the bloggers too. Like how birds are really dinosaurs.

Another Powerful Ossoff Speech, Jo Mendoza's Inspiring New Ad, Heather Cox Richardson Joins Us Tomorrow At 2pm ET

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

Tuesday is the last day of the quarter - let's rally for our candidates everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

China catches up

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

Has the US been focused on the wrong things?

Guest Newsletter: Five Books

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

Saving tokens with a SaaS template

2026-06-28

How many tokens does “building a SaaS project” cost and how many of those are non-requirements? The parts you need but are not core to the product. I have asked my trusted codex to build SaaS foundations several times already. Auth, tenant isolation, billing, transactional email, database migrations, structured logging, feature flags and so on. Every new project starts with the same intention, however each time is a different implementation.

On Accountability and Men

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

Accountability sits at the core of masculinity because it is the mechanism that turns ideals into action.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

If you're working on a social web app that supports inbound and outbound RSS, I'd like to help, so our products can interop beautifully. That's the reason I'm doing this work, to establish a baseline for interop in the social web. RSS is the obvious candidate. If we didn't have it, we'd have to invent it. I'd much prefer doing the work openly, so if you can, write a post and send me a link. I think it's time for us to go back to the way we built network systems before Google and the VCs took over. Put up an app and see who works with it. My email address is on the About page on my blog.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

Programming tip. If your app has globals, create an object called globals, and put all of them in there. Someday you may want to swap in one set of globals for another, this makes it easy.

Post-Accident Packing and Travel Anxiety [en]

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-04

[en] I’m on the train to Paris. I’ll be coming back a week on Monday. It’s a comfortable, easy trip. The reason for my travel is I’m attending a two-day course on burnout – part of my training at the Gregory Bateson Institute. I’d planned on postponing this module until next year or the year … Continue reading "Post-Accident Packing and Travel Anxiety [en]"

Oklahoma!

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

A Reason To Smile

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-02

Question for Biden, how much responsibility do you take for this tragedy?

Horrible News for Republicans

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

TBR Midterms HQ

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-01

The pro-algae protest at the Reflecting Pool.

OSes with no CLI and thoughts on the staleness of modern computing

2026-06-28

[Nicked from a later comment to the previous one.]

Other OSes I've used with no CLI -- Psion EPOC 16 (x86, Series 3); EPOC 32 (Arm, Series 5); Symbian; PalmOS; NewtonOS; and on the desktop, Atari TOS/GEM.

PalmOS is not so much from MacOS as indirectly from another Apple product: the Newton, which was architecturally totally different (a native Arm OS with no CLI and no filesystem either).

Newton OS 1.x could only read cursive: joined-up long hand written script, and it had to learn yours first before it worked well. This led to a tonne of jokes and NewtonOS 2.x which could also read hand-printed letters and block caps.

Palm started out offering its Graffiti text-input system as an add-on 3rd party app for Newton OS 1.x.

The look and feel of the Newton has a tiny bit of influence from MacOS: it's greyscale only, with elegant hand-drawn mono icons. Palm naturally picked up some of that.

NewtonOS version 2 made that much less relevant or necessary, so Palm pivoted: it took the core functionality of the Newton as a PDA, licensed in a kernel, wrote a GUI layer and some applets, and made the tiniest device that could run it. It junked the clever UI, the handwriting and hand-drawing recognition, the smart assistant mode that understood written commands, interpreted what you meant and try to do them.

Instead, the PalmPilot selling point was that you didn't enter data on the device at all: it was largely an output device, and it synched the data from your Mac or PC.

I wonder why we don't see this more? Are operating systems generally built by CLI-likers?

Because the industry has gone backwards.

Almost all the ambitious bold technologically-innovative projects from the 1980s and early 1990s went broke: Newton, General Magic and the MagicCap, GEM, GEOS/Geoworks Ensemble, the Atari ST, the Amiga, Acorn and RISC OS, Be and BeOS.

Gradually the industry converged on two cheap safe bets: Windows NT, and some form of Unix. Especially when a free Unix came along.

We junked all the new OSes from the 1980s and just one from the 1990s survives. (NT, and it's very very close to Unix: it's a modernised version of native OS of the hardware that Unix evolved on, written in Unix's language and using Unix's tools and concepts. From the distance of a classic Mac or a Raspberry Pi running RISC OS, Windows NT and Linux are almost indistinguishable, they are so alike.)

Now everyone else uses an end-1960s OS. It's big and slow and a poor fit for modern computers, but it's free. Its successor, Plan 9, what the geniuses who wrote Unix did next, flopped too. Its concepts are too hard for not-very-clueful techies. (There's no real view of the real filesystem tree? What? There's no way to see the real thing? You can't move files because you don't know and can't find out if source and target are on the same volume? What? Windows are directories? What? There's no console?! WHAT?!)

Then they followed it up with the productised version, Inferno. It deprecates C and native binaries! WTAF? Nobody wants that!

(TAOS had the same problem. And it wasn't true: yeah they did. They bought Java instead. It was easier to understand.)

So we went backwards. Out went the modern safe languages. Out went platform-independent binaries. Out went multiple different purpose-built OSes for different purposes and platforms. Out went using the best language for the job and the best platform and OS for the job.

And out went GUI-only OSes.

Instead, in came the lowest-common-denominator, stupidest, simplest, but !!FREE!! OS that could with a tonne of work do everything.

Unix is hopelessly obsolete. It was when Linus was a student. (I am slightly older than Linus.) Andy Tanenbaum was right all along, and so was Richard Stallman.

Unix is obsolete because it's a minicomputer OS and we don't have minicomputers any more. They no longer exist.

The central UI device in Unix is a terminal. We don't have terminals. Nobody has terminals. Everyone has their own computer, in fact, multiple ones.

Unix does not have built in networking: it's bolted on, clumsily. (What file is your IP address in?)

Unix does not have a GUI or the concept of a GUI. It is text-only. An app layered on top can draw a GUI.

(What file is the current colour of the cursor in?)

Unix does not have sound support.

But it is obligately multiuser: multiple people on terminals share 1 computer, which never ever happens in the 21st century.

I've been working with computers since 1988.

1980s computers were all amazing and very cool.

1990s ones turned into boring beige boxes, as dull as staplers, but there were occasional flashes of brilliance -- most of which you couldn't afford.

Then by the 2000s nothing was left but staplers. It's all just office equipment now.

Devices like modern phones and the ReMarkable make me want to cry, they are so stupid and so clunky.

But I am 58. In a decade or so I can retire, and I will be dead in another decade.

I watched my chosen field go from bold and innovative to a sad bunch of efforts to polish turds. It is heartbreaking.

comment count unavailable comments

What Will AI Do To Our Minds?

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-06

Cognitive damage, not productivity gains, may be the most important consequence

Sunday thought: Mourning in America

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

Friends,

June 27, 2026

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

Observers are noting that the reflecting pool fiasco, in which Trump created the idea there was an emergency, ignored experts, bypassed normal procedures to give a wildly inflated contract to a crony, bragged about his success, ignored the problems, claimed his enemies had sabotaged him, and finally stationed troops around the landmark he had turned into a swamp, represents the Trump administration perfectly.

Someday

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

Loose links Hermes Agent, and Hermes Agent. Both new to me, but look important because it’s open-source personal AI. Not clear yet on the difference. Privacy Manifesto. Wrote it years ago. Does it need an update? Reckoning with the Political Economy of AI: Avoiding Decoys in Pursuit of Accountability, by Janet Vertesi, danah boyd, Alex S […]

Bookmarks - ai, war, ukraine, drone

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

These are some things I’ve wandered across on the web this week.

🔖 Beavis and Butt-Head Become A.I. Tech Bros

Will A.I. finally be able to help Beavis and Butt-Head score? It did everybody else’s homework; they deserve something!

ai humor video

🔖 Long Wave radio era set to end with switch-off

A campaign has begun to get two large transmitter masts listed, after the BBC’s Long Wave (LW) service is turned off.

The 700ft (213m) high Wychbold Masts in the Worcestershire countryside can be seen for miles and are often used as a landmark for drivers on the M5 near Droitwich.

They have been in use since 1934 for sending the signal across the country, as well as for transmitting important messages during the World War Two.

Local history experts and the Twentieth Century Society have called for them to become listed, due to their “historical importance”.

Droitwich was picked as a central location for the station and masts so Long Wave could reach everywhere in the UK.

bbc delete museum radio

🔖 Definition of Done: The Complete Guide with Examples & Checklist

The Definition of Done isn’t just another Scrum formality - it’s the quality gatekeeper that prevents technical debt accumulation and ensures every Sprint delivers potentially shippable Increments. This critical commitment allows teams to:

Eliminate quality ambiguity through explicit, measurable standards everyone understands
Prevent scope creep by clearly defining when work is complete vs. when it’s still in progress
Enable predictable releases because “done” means genuinely releasable, not “mostly done”
Support distributed teams with automated verification reducing synchronous communication needs
Scale consistently across multiple teams working on the same product with shared standards

management programming software

🔖 tags.pub

A global hashtag server for the ActivityPub network.

tags.pub is a server for the ActivityPub network. It provides one account like foo@tags.pub for every hashtag like #foo. When public content is posted on the ActivityPub network with that hashtag, thefoo@tags.pub account shares the content to its followers.

More information is available at https://tags.pub/.

activitypub hashtag javascript socialmedia

🔖 The Last Quiet Thing

For most of human history, you bought a thing, and it was yours, and it was finished.

That word is nearly extinct.

Nothing you own is finished. Everything exists in a state of permanent incompletion, permanently needing. Your phone needs updates, needs charging, needs storage cleared, needs passwords rotated.

change design maintenance software

🔖 New AI Tools for Stanford Arrive June 30

OpenAI ChatGPT Edu, Google Gemini Enterprise, and Anthropic Claude for Education will be available to Stanford faculty, students, postdocs, and staff on June 30. Details on how to get access to these tools from University IT (UIT) are below. These offerings are part of a campus pilot through August 2027.

This pilot was initiated in response to strong demand across campus for access to these tools, which many research groups and individuals have been purchasing on their own. Stanford’s licenses will enable better data protection as well as more favorable pricing. At the end of the pilot, utilization of the tools will be evaluated prior to continuation.

Use of these new capabilities is meant to support our teaching and research mission. As these tools create exciting new opportunities, it is important to conform AI usage to Stanford’s data protection, privacy, and academic integrity policies.

Please remember sensitive data (e.g., student records, protected health information, financial data, etc.) need to conform to Responsible Agentic AI and Responsible AI guidance. Regardless of your role on campus, you retain full responsibility for verifying AI outputs. This approach reinforces our collective responsibility to protect Stanford’s data and to take an ethical and responsible approach to using these powerful tools.

ai anthropic google openai stanford

🔖 2nd International Workshop on Low Carbon Computing (loco2026)

The carbon footprint of ICT is rising despite the urgent need to decarbonise society and to stay within planetary boundaries. The operational and embodied carbon emissions from ICT are already estimated to contribute between 2 to 3 percent of the global emissions and new technologies such as AI is driving overall growth in data centre demand, which globally rivals that of entire nations. This growth in emissions from computing is unsustainable and alternative low emissions pathways for computing are urgently needed.

The LOCO workshop provides a forum for radical ideas, early work, and critical perspectives that aims to reduce the emissions from computing.

computing conference energy sustainability

🔖 Flower Framework: What is Federated Learning?

Federated Learning simply reverses this approach. It enables machine learning on distributed data by moving the training to the data, instead of moving the data to the training. Here’s a one-liner explanation:

Centralized machine learning: move the data to the computation

Federated (machine) Learning: move the computation to the data

By doing so, Federated Learning enables us to use machine learning (and other data science approaches) in areas where it wasn’t possible before. We can now train excellent medical AI models by enabling different hospitals to work together. We can solve financial fraud by training AI models on the data of different financial institutions. We can build novel privacy-enhancing applications (such as secure messaging) that have better built-in AI than their non-privacy-enhancing alternatives. And those are just a few of the examples that come to mind. As we deploy Federated Learning, we discover more and more areas that can suddenly be reinvented because they now have access to vast amounts of previously inaccessible data.

data federation ml privacy

🔖 Overlooked No More: Robbie Basho, Guitar Mystic Who Sought Enlightenmentin Sound

For the visionary steel-string guitarist, pianist, composer and singer Robbie Basho, making music was more than a vocation; it was a way to assuage a lifetime of psychological and physical distress — pain that only ended with his death, at age 45.

Beginning in the early 1960s, Basho expanded the steel-string guitar’s vocabulary using alternative tunings and experimental forms to create trance-like compositions.

He forged a distinctive style that drew an array of traditional world music from India, Japan, France, Germany, Persia, China and Native America. An early example is which incorporates the flavor of North Indian classical raga, using an open harmonic structure, droning strings and improvisation to enter into a deeply personal state — an immovable, hypnotic track that bends time.

guitar music

🔖 Old fishing nets from France become vital protection against Russiandrones in Ukraine

In the fishing ports along France’s Brittany coast, the discarded fishing nets pile up along the coastal quaysides.

The lifespan of a deep-sea net is between 12 and 24 months, after which they become worn and beyond repair. Until now, the estimated 800 tonnes of nets scrapped every year have been a problem.

Now, the horsehair netting, once used to trawl monkfish from the sea bed, is being used for another catch: Russian drones.

The Breton charity Kernic Solidarités has sent two consignments of nets measuring a total of 280km to Ukraine to be used to protect soldiers and civilians along the frontline where fighting is fiercest.

drone ukraine war

🔖 Anti-Drone Nets

Recently it’s been widely reported that nets are being used as a low-tech but highly effective defence against drones. But there are many kinds of nets, and they are used differently.

drone ukraine war

🔖 dead-web-index-data

A reachability census of the most popular domains on the web. Every domain in the DomCop top-10M popularity list (this release: the full top 10 million) is probed and labelled alive / redirect / blocked / dead — once by an honest polite bot and once by a browser-like reachability client.

commoncrawl dns measurement webarchive

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-01

How the Reflecting Pool Turned Green: Missing ‘Bubblers’ and a Rush Job.

The First Source of Personal Intent

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

The largest coming conflict in the new AI world is not the one between AI giants or the one between those giants and governments. It will be the conflict between containment and expansion of personal agency. On the side of containment are expanded surveillance, guesswork, and entrapment in walled corporate gardens. On the side of […]

Musk in Deep Shite Again

2026-06-28, updated: 2026-07-05

His companies aren't worth nearly what he has said they are

★ Bernie Sanders: Ideologue and Economic Ignoramus

2026-06-27

Sanders’s tweet is better punctuated and capitalized, but it’s the same argument as Trump’s. Zero economic sense, 100 percent ideological wishful thinking.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-27, updated: 2026-07-01

Josh Marshall on the end of the open platform.

Why Won't The Media Call This What It Is?

2026-06-27, updated: 2026-07-04

Friends,

2026-06-26 We took the funicular from Interlaken to Schynige Platte

2026-06-27

2026-06-26 We took the funicular from Interlaken to Schynige Platte

It was very hot in Zürich and bearable up there. We took the funicular up to Schynige Platte – an old, open air thing that just goes up, up, up to 1967 m.

We ate lunch and then we went on a guided tour through the Botanical Alpine Garden. A super nice gardener took us on a walk, named all the flowers for us, answered all our questions, told us about their work of raising plants and planting them, and then we went for a short walk up there. A perfect day.

(All plant identifications by the Flora Incognita app because I couldn’t write everything down.)

Claudia and I in the funicular car, with no windows. The engine room of the funicular locomotive looks old. The plaque says it was built in Baden by Brown Boveri & Cie in 1914. Gewöhnliches Sonnenröschen / Helianthemum nummularium Alpen-Grasnelke / Armeria alpina Kriechendes Gipskraut / Gypsophila repens Berg-Distel / Carduus defloratus Frühblühender Thymian (Artengruppe) / Thymus praecox agg. Alpen-Frauenmantel (Artengruppe) / Alchemilla alpina agg. Saat-Esparsette (Artengruppe) / Onobrychis viciifolia agg. The view into the valley of Grindelwald on the left and Lauterbrunnen on the right. The funicular tracks in the foreground. They have two Alphorn players playing every now and then between the hotel and station. The tour begins with a visit to the shed where they keep their collection of plaques. Alpen-Helmkraut / Scutellaria alpina Feuer-Lilie / Lilium bulbiferum Ausdauernder Lein (Artengruppe) / Linum perenne agg. Allermannsharnisch / Allium victorialis Blaue Himmelsleiter / Polemonium caeruleum Alpen-Süssklee / Hedysarum hedysaroides Rostblättrige Alpenrose / Rhododendron ferrugineum Gelber Enzian / Gentiana lutea Rote Lichtnelke / Silene dioica Kugelorchis / Traunsteinera globosa Zwerg-Pippau / Crepis pygmaea Gletscher-Nelke / Dianthus glacialis Felsen-Ehrenpreis / Veronica fruticans Alpen-Edelweiss / Leontopodium nivale Pyrenäen-Drachenmaul / Horminum pyrenaicum Echte Rosenwurz / Rhodiola rosea Koriander-Schmuckblume / Callianthemum coriandrifolium Rundblättriger Steinbrech / Saxifraga rotundifolia Reichblättriges Läusekraut / Pedicularis foliosa Scabiosa with two insects on it, and the Alps in the background, out of focus Braun-Klee / Trifolium badium Hallers Teufelskralle / Phyteuma ovatum A mound with dead and living coniferous trees and some yellow gorse. A view of Interlaken between the two lakes, Thunersee on the left and Brienzersee on the right. The view along the ridge towards Gumihorn. The rickety stairs up to Oberberghorn. The view from up there along the ridge towards Loucherhorn, Faulhorn, and Schwarzhoren.

Claude can understand code no human could. Ever, under any circumstances. Just like a compiler can understand any code we throw at it. Way beyond what code obfuscation tools can do.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-27, updated: 2026-07-05

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Dirección: Yuto Shimizu. Guion: Yuto Shimizu. Elenco: Iori Abe, Utano Aoi, Kosuke Tanaka, Taiga Hironaka, Daikan Morishima, Ayano Ohtaki, Sonoe Yoshioka, Minagi Takuma, Isaac Y. Yakeu, Kan a.k.a. GAMI, BONZU a.k.a. Washi. País: Japón. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37231294/ Al caer la noche en la ciudad de Tokio, lo que yace debajo de la […]

La entrada Tokyo Nightfall (Raindance Film Festival 2026): melancolía al caer la noche se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

‘The Bear’ Paid Tribute To Rob Reiner With Subtle Line In Series Finale

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-27

SPOILERS: This post contains details about The Bear series finale ‘The Original Beef of Chicagoland’ As The Bear closed its doors at FX on Hulu after five seasons, the series finale paid a subtle tribute to late star Rob Reiner. In the concluding episode, ‘The Original Beef of Chicagoland’, line cook Ebra (Edwin Lee Gibson) […]

The Populist Revolution Now Underway

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

A guide to the perplexed

NetNewsWire 7.1 for iOS

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-30

NetNewsWire 7.1 for iOS, now available on the App Store, has the same new features as the Mac version…

The Current Activity screen shows what the app is doing
The Activity Log screen shows what the app did
The Account Stats screen shows various stats
The Dinosaurs screen lists stale feeds

…plus a bunch more changes, including some performance enhancements. See the release notes for the big list.

‘The Odyssey’ Eyes $80M-$100M Opening Voyage At U.S. Box Office

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-27

Christopher Nolan’s feature take on Homer’s The Odyssey has a wild opening range between $80M-$100M when the Universal release hits North American theaters on July 17. Why such a wide swath forecast despite selling out 70MM Imax screens a year in advance and PLFs most recently? Nobody knows how high these Nolan movies will be […]

A Billionaire Accidentally Makes the Case for Taxing Billionaires

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Sergey Brin shows why billionaire wealth is so dangerous

A couple of months ago in Miami, I sat down and dumped my brains. Here's the interview...

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

Some personal hot takes from AI: Engineer Miami follows...

1. Software development is a dead-end profession because anyone can be a software developer now.

2. Anyone can use Cursor or any other tool and generate code. Being a coder and being a software engineer are different.

3. Computers used

The Chinese Control the Majority of Argentina’s Squid Fleet

2026-06-26

Chinese companies control nearly two-thirds of Argentina’s own squid fleet.

Trump scuttles bipartisan housing bill. Judge blocks Trump's USPS mail-in ballot rule. SCOTUS rulings advance right-wing priorities.

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

Bipartisan housing bill scuttled by Trump

The housing bill and the death of policy

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

Trump's tanking of bipartisan legislation shows how power is all that matters to him.

Emmys 2026: segundo ranking de predicciones de series de drama

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-02

Lo innecesario de tener ocho series en competencia La calidad no es la de hace años. Predecimos muchas nominaciones de relleno. La edad de oro de la televisión definitivamente ha muerto. SERIE RANKING ANTERIOR NOMBRE CADENA 1 1 The Pitt Max 2 4 Pluribus Apple TV+ 3 2 Slow Horses Apple TV+ 4 6 A […]

La entrada Emmys 2026: segundo ranking de predicciones de series de drama se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

[$] Reports from OSPM 2026, day three

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-30

The Power Management
and Scheduling in the Linux Kernel Summit, which still goes by the historical acronym OSPM, was held in Cambridge, UK, in mid-April. As has become traditional, the presenters at that event have since written summaries of their sessions, and this work has kindly been made available to LWN for publication. The third day's sessions covered a wide range of topics, including GPU affinity, profile-guided scheduling, paravirtualization scheduling, quality of service, and more.

Xcode 26.6

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Apple (xip, downloads): Xcode 26.6 includes Swift 6.3 and SDKs for iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, macOS 26.5, and visionOS 26.5. Xcode 26.6 supports on-device debugging in iOS 15 and later, tvOS 15 and later, watchOS 8 and later, and visionOS. Xcode 26.6 requires a Mac running macOS Tahoe 26.2 or later. […] Google […]

Boom Mobile Restructuring

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Our phones stopped working this morning, or perhaps last night, but everything looked fine on Boom’s Web site. I contacted their support, and as always they got back right away, but this time with bad news: I’m deeply sorry to share that after careful consideration, we’ve made the very difficult decision to restructure through Chapter […]

Om Malik, RIP

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Ryan Merket (Hacker News, Wikipedia): Om Malik (@Om), the journalist, GigaOm founder, photographer and True Ventures partner whose work tracked the commercial internet from dial-up optimism to AI saturation, died on June 24 at Stanford Hospital after what his family described as a long health journey with his heart, according to a post on On […]

“If You Can’t Stand By a Feature, You Shouldn’t Launch It.”

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Jason Snell, on The Talk Show: [… Apple] decides to do a big feature. The circus comes to town, they build the feature, they launch it, they leave town, and that feature sits there. And the problem is, there’s bugs, things are broken, and in Year Two, you’re like, “You’re going to fix all the […]

Qualcomm Acquiring Modular

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Chris Lattner: I’m excited to share that Qualcomm is acquiring Modular: this will accelerate our path to unifying accelerated compute with an open platform. This will also mark a new era in open software development for Qualcomm. […] This will accelerate our progress and path, and their vision is expansive: [spanning] edge to cloud, CPU, […]

[$] Initiating writeback earlier

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-30

Writeback is the process of ensuring that dirty pages or folios in the page cache are flushed to the disk, so that changes to those files are made persistent. In a filesystem-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Jeff Layton wanted to discuss whether the writeback operation should be initiated earlier than it is today. The consensus seemed to be that it should be done earlier, but the path toward making that happen was less clear.

NetNewsWire 7.1 for Mac

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-30

NetNewsWire 7.1 for Mac includes new features that help you understand what’s up with your feeds:

The Current Activity window shows what the app is doing right now
The Activity Log window shows what the app did recently
The Account Stats window shows per-account article and status counts and database sizes, and it includes a Vacuum Databases button which can help with database size and performance
The Dinosaurs window lists feeds that haven’t updated in n months (with a text field where you specify n)

There are a bunch of other bug fixes and enhancements — see the release notes for the full scoop.

To update, do a Check for Updates in NetNewsWire or download the app directly.

PS NetNewsWire 7.1 for iOS will be out as soon as it gets through App Store review. Soon!

PPS Also: if you have feedback or questions, check out our forum.

Samuel Alito's Parade Of Horribles

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

How the Supreme Court's three latest decisions will impact millions both here and abroad

Meta Is Testing Facial Recognition for Police and Military

2026-06-26

We know that ICE wants to deploy eyeglasses with facial recognition that can identify people in real time.

Turns out Meta is prototyping the feature with a Pentagon supplier. (Alternate news story.)

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-05

When Claude has all the information available it can figure out stuff a human mind would never be able hold in our minds at the same time, but it often doesn't remember to get the information first. When you get to the level I'm at with this, it's hallucinating all the freaking time because it didn't load the part of the data set that had the answer. It was right there, it was supposed to know, it just forgot to look. My job is to recognize when it has done that and tell it to go read handoff.md again. I mentioned this on Twitter, and got all kinds of help, but the terminology isn't well known to me. Still diggin, as they say.

Supergirl: salvar a un perro salva a la humanidad

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-02

Dirección: Craig Gillespie. Guion: Ana Nogueira, Jerry Siegel, John Shuster. Elenco: Milly Alcock, David Corenswet, Eve Ridley, Jason Momoa, Matthias Schoenaerts, Diarmaid Murtagh, Ferdinand Kingsley, Emily Piggford, Bruce Lennox, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8814476/ Hace poco más de un mes me despedí de mi perro que me […]

La entrada Supergirl: salvar a un perro salva a la humanidad se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

A Judge Blocks Trump Mail Ballot/USPS Ploy, Katie Phang Gets A Big Epstein Files Win, Notes On Trump And A New Politics Of Misery

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

2nd quarter filing deadline is midnight Tuesday - let's support our courageous candidates from across the country!

Medium And Museums

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

ARIA, anti-patterns, and you

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

Please take a minute to understand what ARIA is and is not. ARIA and especially the ARIA Authoring Practices Guide (APG) are commonly misunderstood. I read an article the other day that had this facepalm moment: “And with modern LLM agents, turning a spec into working code is surprisingly fast. […]

Lots of stories about systemd v261

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-30

Lennart Poettering has posted a
list of Mastodon posts about the changes in the systemd v261 release. The Mastodon format makes the reading harder, but there is a lot of useful information there.

[$] What's coming in Git 2.55

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-30

The Git v2.55.0-rc2 testing release appeared on June 23, suggesting that the final Git 2.55 release can be expected in the near future. While this Git update lacks radical new features, it does include a number of improvements that regular Git users will appreciate, including commands to easily edit the commit history, more formatting options, fsmonitor support for Linux, and more.

The Gondolier

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-03

Back in 2017, reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad came to us with a story that dug into the difficult and often dark places discrimination creates. We start in Venice, Italy, where they meet gondolier Alex Hai. On the winding canals in the hidden parts of Venice, we learn about the nearly 1000-year old tradition of the Venetian Gondolier, and how the global media created a 20-year battle between that tradition and a supposed feminist icon.

We circled back to Alex in 2026, to find out where the canal of life ended up leading after our initial reporting, and we’ve included some heartbreaking and heartwarming updates on Alex’s life at the end of this episode.

Special thanks to Alexis Ungerer, Summer, Alex Hai, Kevin Gotkin, Silvia Del Fabbro, Sandro Mariot, Aldo Rosso and Marta Vannucci, The Longest Shortest Time (Hillary Frank, Peter Clowney and Abigail Keel), Tim Howard, Nick Adams/GLAAD, Valentina Powers, Florence Ursino, Ann Marie Somma, Alex Overington, Jeremy Bloom and the people of Little Italy.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Reported by - David Conrad and Kristen Clark.

Produced by - Annie McEwen and Molly Webster.

with help from - Anisa Vietze

Fact-checking for the update by - Angely Mercado

OTHER COOL THINGS:

Books -

The Gondolier , by Alex Hai

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

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A project I wanted to do with WordPress

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-05

I was on Slack chatting with a friend from WordCamp Canada last year, and by accident (I guess) Slack sent me the first message they sent after coming home about all the things we'd do. It reminded me of how possible things seemed then, and for a moment I got lost in planning it out, and I absolutely loved what I saw there. But it was sad, because I am sure it will never happen, not until someone inside the community gets the idea, and there really is only one "someone" here. Heh. I've been around big companies and communities before, many times. Anyway, I figured I should post this here now, because I have moved toward a WordPress-less web, or WordPress-on-the-Side, but I want to be clear that WordLand remains in place, free for anyone to use. It's a great way to write for WordPress. And if this project to make web content APIs a web standard, I'm totally on board for helping the world understand how potent an idea it is.

So here's the text of the message with light redaction in places. ;-)

it's funny when i got email notice for this post, it sent me the first message you sent after the wordcamp in ottawa. those were more optimistic days. i still have my wordpress work, but now have pivoted to working on the web without the wordpress connection since matt seems to want to go in a different direction, based on all the stuff they've started re AT Proto, which imho is a terrible bet. it would be like the Knicks trying to move from NYC to Mississippi. Why would you do that when so many developers know wordpress and you all have such an excellent api?
you asked me back then if there's part of your project i'd like to work on, and i said i'd think, and i had an idea just the other day, thought i should share it.
the wpcom api is fantastic and very few people know about it, even the people in the wp developer community. but it really is the answer -- how will services that work on the social web coordinate? where will users store their data? where will the published results be available to read? wordpress really is the best choice. i have no stake in that, i don't own wordpress, have never made a dime off it, i'm just me, saying that and i have some credibility in this area.
so here's what i suggest

a new simplified version of the api and some example apps, both are already done
a new protocol so that any service can be part of it, we need a way to identify servers that aren't using jetpack or wordpress.com
a new name and website, and positioning -- something to roll out.
work with independent developers to make their products work
co-marketing
investment and distribution

i know a lot about all these things, having done them before with some amount of success.
i'm about to embark on it again with my new product, btw called rss.chat. i think you can imagine what it is based on that name?
but i haven't forgotten about this opportunity. i don't know how much of 1-6 the open source project, but #2 is clearly in your purview. not something people are going to want automattic to do (though I'm sure they could). with the new protocol look what we have! a way to distribute apps on the web so that developers don't have to compete with BigCo's, they can be a person with a hobby, and who knows they may have a big hit and get rich.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-05

I'm loving Star City. New episode last night, wow.

Hello World

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-05

This is always good for a chill.

Notable links: June 26, 2026

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-06

To meet your community where it's at, you need to empower your people.

GK Barry Set To Turn “Part-Investigative Sleuth, Part-Accidental Detective” In BBC Doc About Online Gossip Forum Tattle Life

2026-06-26

EXCLUSIVE: Social media star and presenter Grace Keeling ‘GK’ Barry will officially front a soon-to-launch BBC documentary about controversial online forum Tattle Life. GK Barry: Toxic Gossip will see the podcast host exploring the forum, which allows users to post about social media stars, creators and influencers. The BBC plans to launch the doc on […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-07-05

With all the Democratic Socialists winning over standard Democratic party incumbents, there's a fair amount of angst on the cable news. If they're scared, they should step aside. We tried it their way in the Biden Administration. If we ever get lucky enough to have a president who's sane and wants to reboot democracy, it's going to require doing some things that an oldtime president wouldn't want to do, like Obama or Biden. Both of them gave up without even trying. Forgive them, but let's not make the mistake of electing their successors. It's time for clear-thinking people to take office, fully aware of what they signed onto, and then if we elect them, they do it. And when the Repubs throw bullshit at us, say it's bullshit, and say it that way, not the mealy-mouthed way Jeffries does, or even Elizabeth Warren. What we need now is a strong dose of Bernie Sanders. Did I ever think I'd say that? Hell no.

Security updates for Friday

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-30

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (buildah, coreutils, evince, libpng, libreoffice, libtasn1, libxml2, libxslt, nginx, nginx:1.24, nginx:1.26, postgresql:12, python-urllib3, python3.12-urllib3, python3.14, python3.14-urllib3, skopeo, tigervnc, tomcat, and vim), Debian (chromium, dnsdist, giflib, libdbi-perl, libssh2, libtext-csv-xs-perl, pdns, pdns-recursor, python-urllib3, and sogo), Fedora (goose, httpd, librabbitmq, perl-Compress-Raw-Bzip2, perl-DBI, perl-IO-Compress, perl-Socket, python-django-allauth, rsync, and strongswan), Oracle (389-ds-base, buildah, containernetworking-plugins, coreutils, evince, fence-agents, giflib, git-lfs, hplip, krb5, libcap, libexif, libtasn1, memcached, opencryptoki, podman, postfix, postgresql:12, postgresql:13, postgresql:15, postgresql:16, python-urllib3, python3.12-urllib3, python3.14-urllib3, python3.9, runc, skopeo, tigervnc, vim, webkit2gtk3, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), SUSE (apache-commons-configuration2, apache-commons-text, apache2, containerd, kernel, libnilfs3, libopenbabel8, libtar, libzypp, lrzip, nodejs24, ofono, perl-Net-Dropbox-API, podman, python-pip, python-PyJWT, python311-aiohttp, python311-nltk, python311-python-multipart, python312, and python315), and Ubuntu (amd64-microcode, containerd, containerd-app, containerd-stable, cpp-httplib, imagemagick, mina2, node-pbkdf2, NSD, and xrdp).

The "Akrites" vulnerability-mitigation project launches

2026-06-26, updated: 2026-06-29

The Linux Foundation, in a
letter co-signed by a large range of organizations and companies, has announced the launch of "Akrites", a project to fast-track vulnerability fixes into projects.

As Akrites works upstream to fix projects at the source, we commit to support downstream efforts to secure critical infrastructure before it can be exploited. When patches are released to the public, adversaries are able to utilize AI to rapidly reverse engineer the underlying vulnerabilities, develop exploits, and launch attacks. The success of our efforts therefore will be measured in patch deployment, not publication. We will partner with critical infrastructure owners and operators, civil society efforts, and governments as they increase coordination to achieve these goals.

Confidentiality is non-negotiable: An undisclosed flaw in a widely deployed package is, in effect, a weapon, and the program is built first to prevent leaks. Fixes flow back into each project's own home, working with the maintainers. The engineering resources and other capabilities provided by Akrites participants contribute to this effort. Additionally, when a critical package has no one maintaining it, Akrites will stand as the maintainer of last resort so a fix can still reach everyone in a timely fashion. We will also align with government efforts so that public and private defenders move together, rather than in a disjointed fashion.

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

db4b4a85 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

19ee60c5 - updated gis package

306b94a6 - updated data quality

4bcc846a - updated bibliography

aa21fa8e - updated indexes

50c6964b - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

183ded5f - updated geojson and names index

To make a folder bootable, remove the System file and put it back in. To install a font, or a driver, or an extension, or a new control panel, drag it onto the System Folder. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. The OS knew, but you didn't have to. The computer sorted this nerd stuff for you and put it in the right place. To uninstall, go find it and move it out, or just bin it.

A file is an icon and an icon is the file. You can only see a real physical thing in one place at once. So, you can only see an icon in one place at once. Open a new window onto Folder X when Folder X's contents are already visible elsewhere? You can't see the contents twice. So, the original closes.

Place a file in a particular location in a folder, including the desktop, and it 100% will be there next time. Change view, sort it, change back, it always will still be there, guaranteed. So you can navigate your filesystem by muscle and spatial memory: you know where on which screen it was and it will stay there unless you move it.

System 7 added "aliases" -- in Windows parlance, "shortcuts", in Unix ones "symbolic links". Aliases included the path and the machine name. Peer to peer networking was integrated. So, copy an alias onto a floppy, put it in a cupboard for 6 months, get it out, insert it into a different Mac, and if you have the network permissions and the original Mac is on the same network, the alias works on a different machine. The new Mac finds the old Mac on the network, connects to its drive, locates the file, and opens it for you. Apple didn't expect this: it was emergent behaviour of the filesystem and networking system.

Drag an icon to another window and what happened depended on the location and type of source and destination, but intelligently. Same volume on same drive? Move. Different volume? Copy. To the bin? Move to the wastebin if a file or alias, eject if a volume or network share. It did the right thing and you didn't need to think -- you could trust it.

I realise all this isn't about development. I am not a developer.

Porting to/from Classic MacOS was hard. There are no true file paths: there is no shell, no CLI, no command line, no idioms from command lines like Unix pathnames or DOS/Windows "drive letters". The MacOS was in part a much cut-down LisaOS. The Lisa had multitasking, hard disks, a hierarchical filesystem... the Mac had none of that so it was all removed.

Later some was re-added. So path names were

volume name:folder name:folder name:filename

No extensions ever -- internal filesystem metadata handled that. Files are not DOS/Unix style flat sequences of bytes: they have internal structure, with a data fork and a resource fork. The stuff that dumber OSes like DOS and Windows keep inside the file are in the data fork. The metadata about what app created it, when, and what apps can open it, and when it was last changed, and when it was last viewed without changes, and who owns it, and who can change it, and its big icon and a small icon for list views, and mono and colour icons, and all that stuff, is inside the resource fork.

DOS tried to get all that into 1 time/date and 3 alphabetic letters after a dot. It was profoundly brain-damanged by comparison. Unix kinda sorta encodes some of this but it doesn't know what "graphics" are, so not much of it.

There is no text mode. It's not even possible: the machine is always in full graphics mode from the moment it starts booting. There is no stdio and can't be, because there is no console. The computer doesn't have one. (PCs do but Windows tries hard to hide it, but it's always there. Not on Classic MacOS.)

So you went into Mac development very differently and it was very hard to port stuff. Most MacOS apps were original and native. A few, a very few, were later ported to Windows. You may have heard of one or two: Excel is one, PowerPoint another IIRC.

The Lisa was informed by Smalltalk, but partly programmed in Pascal. It did not start out as a GUI machine. Apple worked with Niklaus Wirth himself to add OOPS to Pascal for the Lisa and Mac. The result became Object Pascal which became Borland Delphi and was hugely important in the early Windows era, from 3.x to 95/98 and NT.

So at first development was in Pascal on a Lisa. Then it went self-hosting. Then Macintosh Programmer's Workshop came along. That enabled multiple languages, including C++.

There was also a rich GUI BASIC very early on, but Microsoft intentionally sabotaged that project.

It was a whole alien world and almost nothing of it survives into OS X, which is why those of us in the Apple world at the time say that Apple did not acquire NeXT: NeXT took over Apple.

2026-06-26

On 1 June 2026 Cambia announced the sale of The Lens business and assets to a newly established non-profit based in Australia, The Lens Limited doing business as The Lens. The Lens is a wholly owned subsidiary of SPIE, the international society of optics and photonics. SPIE is the world’s leading publisher, conference organizer, and ...

Quickly apply LUTs (color grading) with ffmpeg

2026-06-26

This is a quick post, mostly for my own reference.

I've avoided LUTs and 'Log' video footage for years1, mostly because of the extra tiny bit of workflow involved. Like RAW photos, 'Log' footage retains the video sensor's full dynamic range, so you can pull more color and luminance information out of the footage later.

But unlike photography, where RAW has been a thing for decades, and many workflows 'just work' without me having to 'grade' every individual photo, in video precious few consumer apps handle Log footage gracefully. You generally end up with a muddy grey mess.

@Ryan Gantz Bluesky feed

2026-06-26

as always during topsy-turvy times such as these, we look to the skies, awaiting the one hero that never fails to save us…

𝘾𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙍𝙄𝙎𝙈

The series of tubes filled with enormous amounts of mail, beneath our feet

2026-06-26

Email can learn a lot from the rise, fall, and quiet continuation of pneumatic tubes.

Retirement Update – June 2026

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

I thought I was going to do this last month, but…..oh well, better late than never! I have been exercising more (which is a good thing), and did start some personal software projects (my Feed News Archive site is running nicely!). The other major effort over my first two months was to transition to a […]

Friday 26 June, 2026

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

Café life Quote of the Day ”Criticism and Bolshevism have one thing in common. They both seek to pull down that which they could never build.” Noel Coward Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Abdullah Ibrahim | Little Boy … Continue reading →

★ Spensive Thoughts

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-26

Some quick thoughts on the hardware prices Apple increased — and didn’t increase — today.

Fri, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Members Most Fridays Get Together

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

I am excited to watch the US Men's Team tonight at 10pm ET.......

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-27

Utah Is on Fire and the Fireworks Are in Aisle Nine.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

Om Malik died. A longtime friend, most generous kind person in Silicon Valley. It's that time of life. Much love to you brother.

The Real Plot of the Roberts Supreme Court

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-02

Today's rulings must be understood for what they truly are

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

There’s more to freedom for users than open source. We need fluid unobstructed movement of our ideas. Interop between networks, the same basic idea that created the internet, and that has kept podcasting unowned for 22 years. I am going to ship a textcasting social network soon. It will be open source in new ways made possible by AI.

The Kingmaker Mayor

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Mamdani just taught Democrats an important lesson on Tuesday—will they listen?

The War on Women

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Trump and MAGA strike again

Life for Beginners (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la dicha y la angustia de vivir

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-01

Dirección: Paweł Podolski. Guion: Lynn Kucharczyk. Elenco: Magdalena Maścianica, Michał Sikorski, Bartłomiej Kotschedoff, Małgorzata Rożniatowska, Wojciech Machnicki. País: Polonia. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37598190/ No hay duda de que estamos pasando por un auge con las historias de vampiros, y no podría haber alguien más feliz que la persona que escribe estas líneas. Ya […]

La entrada Life for Beginners (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la dicha y la angustia de vivir se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

My Om Malik Story

2026-06-25

If you have’t heard, Om Malik passed away.

People are sharing stories of their graceful encounters with him.

This one is mine.

Back at the beginning of 2021, I set a goal to write 72 blog posts.

I was puttering along, publishing whatever came to mind, mostly figuring that nobody was reading any of it.

But that was ok. The process was therapeutic and it helped clarify my professional thinking, so I kept going.

One day on Twitter I got a DM from someone with the handle @om.

“I don’t know who this is,” I thought, “but damn that is a great handle!”

Then I peaked at the follower count: over 1 million!

“WTF? Who is this???” I thought.

I’d never — then or since — been contacted by someone with such a high profile online.

How was I even on this person’s radar?

I continued on to his message:

Jim I wanted to thank you for your blog. I am neither a developer or a designer but appreciate the web, the open web and in general normal, common sense writing from experts.

I have quietly enjoyed your work — and hope you hit the target of 72 posts in 2021. My highly selfish ask, as I know it will feed my brain good important stuff.

Have a wonderful weekend and a great writing year

I was flabbergasted. Who was this person with such a high follower count saying such kind words and I’d never heard of him?

I quickly went to Google. He had his own Wikipedia.

“Om Malik…tech writer…founded Gigaom!” Ah-ha! I knew Gigaom the company/blog. It shaped a lot of my early exposure to the tech beat. I devoured it. I can still picture the logo in my head!

Now I knew the man behind it. Knowledge unlocked!

I thanked him graciously for taking the time to send a message whose importance seemed incredibly lopsided in my favor.

I quote his message here because I still think about it on occasion. His words then (as well as later ones) continue to lift me up on days when I feel like an imposter. They remind me of the power of a small act of kindness, even within such a vast world wide web.

I still think about his words.

I still think about him.

I’m sure many will for some time.

And that is a legacy.

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

Bluesky

Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: June 2026

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-02

Welcome back from the Thunderbird development team! The past few months have been exceptionally busy across the project. As we approach the midpoint of the year, we’ve been focused on a mixture of delivering user-facing features, investing in long-term architectural improvements, and preparing for the next ESR cycle. A significant amount of effort has gone […]

The post Thunderbird Monthly Development Digest: June 2026 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

I found this post quite insightful

https://www.popehat.com/p/a-bit-of-tedious-drama-at-bluesky

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #449

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-02

For June 17-23, 2026

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. As the summer days get hotter and hotter, it’s important to stay hydrated—we recommend keeping a big trough of water next to your desk. Just stick your head in that trough and gulp as much as ya need!

What We Enjoyed This Week

Unsung Heroes of Fatherhood by Wendi Aarons and Johanna Gohmann (McSweeney’s) The details in this piece are all pitch-perfect, and the lovingly mocking tone is expertly calibrated. You get a real sense of who these characters are in just a few short lines: “Josh Mandler, who was tasked with chasing a bat out of the garage, even though he has zero wildlife-wrangling experience and was just as freaked out as everyone else.”

Nerding Day: Skunny by Merritt K (1-900-HOTDOG) A hilariously spicy overview of the (thankfully) all but forgotten Skunny video game franchise. Yes, that’s right, FRANCHISE. “Who was so hungry for Skunny — a phrase that might be the opposite of ‘cellar door’ — that Copysoft kept pumping these out? We may never know the motivation at work.”

I Drive By a Bunch of Teenagers With My Window Down While Listening to an Audiobook by Sir David Attenborough and Right as I Pass Them He Loudly Says “Then The Couple Mates” by Mitchell Nobis (HAD) We love pieces with long titles, like On the Inevitable Decline Into Mediocrity of the Popular Musician Who Attains a Comfortable Middle Age and Two Bugs on Display at the Montreal Insectarium, the First of Which I Thought Very Impressive Until I Saw the Second (one of Luke’s favorite pieces of all time). In this piece, Mitchell’s experimentation with form also extends to his bio—a very clever and original way to subvert our expectations.

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An Old Favorite

This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #99 .

We Do Our Own Little Take on Ketchup by Seth Reiss (The New Yorker) You can always tell a Seth Reiss piece by how quickly it goes from "standard" to "absolutely bonkers." Other things to recognize: A hint of malice in the narrator's voice; expert pacing; and cultural references that you never would have thought of, but which, when you think about it, make perfect sense given the context. That all of these things, and more, exist in a piece that makes fun of something so mundane is what takes this to the next level.

Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.

Updates From Your Editors and Friends of the Newsletter

Luke’s got a whole mess of short humor workshops coming up in July! Whether you’re new to short humor writing or are an experienced pro who’s looking for helpful notes and deadlines, there’s a workshop for you!

Linux Kills strncpy

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-03

Introduction The C string library is compact, fast and efficient. However, if not used correctly and carefully, it leads to buffer overrun errors which either cause programs to crash or worse allow arbitrary code to execute. Hackers have found errors in the use of C string functions to be a goldmine in security weaknesses to […]

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-04

Since Monday, the #PleiadesGazetteer editorial college has published 18 new and 192 updated place resources, reflecting the work of 15 people. The usual Monday blog post will summarize the full week's worth of such work, but meantime, here's a #SneakPeek at a new place resource, provided by Gabriel McKee: the so-called "Lchashen fortress". This Urartian fortified structure is located near the modern town of Lchashen near Lake Van. It was inhabited during the late Bronze through Iron Age (16th-13th centuries BCE).

https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/952673383

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #DH #gazetteers #HGIS #LOD

[$] A look at MinIO alternatives: Ceph and Garage

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-29

MinIO is a popular object-storage server that offered compatibility with the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) API. In December 2025, the company behind the project (also named MinIO)announced that the project was in maintenance mode and would not accept new changes; it was archived
completely in February 2026. MinIO users have been hunting for alternatives since then, but the array of choices can be baffling. While many other projects aim to fill the space, their strengths and areas of focus tend to vary. Two of the alternatives— Ceph and Garage—are particularly compelling, and both offer solid S3 compatibility.

Apple Hardware Price Hikes

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-03

Osmond Chia (Hacker News, 9To5Mac, Engadget): Apple plans to raise the prices of its products as the cost of the memory chips it uses has surged, the technology giant’s boss has said. Tim Cook, Apple’s outgoing chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that price increases were “unavoidable” as the situation around memory chips […]

Tony Krueger, RIP

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-03

Raymond Chen: Tony Krueger is remembered in Wikipedia as the person who ported the game Chip’s Challenge to Windows for the Windows Entertainment Pack. But that’s probably not the code he wrote that touched the most people. Tony worked on Word 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, then on Word for OS/2 and Word for Mac, then returned […]

WebKit Always Enables the Copy Menu Item in Every App

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-03

John Gruber (Mastodon): In most Mac apps, since the dawn of time, if there is nothing selected to be copied, the Edit → Copy (and Cut) commands are disabled. If you invoke the ⌘C shortcut while the Copy command is disabled, you hear an alert sound, letting you know that whatever you thought you were […]

Xcode 27’s Device Hub

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-03

Apple: You manage all the devices that appear in Xcode as run destinations using Device Hub. Run your app on simulated devices in Device Hub to quickly evaluate new features and fix bugs, and to see how your interface works on devices that you don’t have physical access to. Run your app on physical devices […]

AI and Liability

2026-06-25

Earlier this month, a German court ruled that Google is liable for its AI search summaries. Rejecting defenses like “users can check for themselves,” and that they generally know “that information generated with AI should not be blindly trusted,” the court held that the AI’s summaries are reflections of the company and “above all an expression of Google’s business activities.”

This is the latest skirmish in a decades-old battle over internet publishing. Historically, there were two different types of information distributors: carriers and publishers. A phone company is a carrier. It’ll transmit whatever you say, even discussions about committing a crime. Words are words, and the phone company does not know—nor is it liable for—the words you choose to speak. A newspaper, on the other hand, is a publisher. It decides the words it publishes, and what quotes to include in its articles. If those words or quotes are defamatory or otherwise illegal, it’s liable...

The American Library Association is auctioning off some primo vintage READ posters.

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-26

This summer, the American Library Association is auctioning off a rare cache of its iconic READ posters to commemorate the org’s 150th year of doing business. Thanks to a partnership with Heritage Auctions, the largest collections auctioneer in the world,

Podman 6.0 released

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-29

Version 6.0.0 of the Podman container-management tool has been released. Notable new features include the ability to set multiple static IP addresses for containers, improvements in network isolation that make Podman more compatible with Docker, changes to the way Quadlet commands function, many new options for many existing podman commands, and a
rewrite of Podman's configuration file handling. There are many breaking changes; see the release
notes for a full list of all new features, changes, and bug fixes.

How to Escape Survival Mode and Thrive

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Jon Rosemberg spent years chasing the version of success many people dream about—leadership roles, career momentum, financial opportunity, and external achievement.

Cult Member Wavering? What to Say in The First 60 Seconds

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

How to avoid triggering the cult identity

Emmys 2026: segundo ranking de predicciones de series de comedia

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-01

Widow’s Bay le da algo de vida a la categoría No se siente bien no predecir algo de Netflix en el top 10, pero la sensación momentánea es que tanto Nobody Wants This como Wednesday no tuvieron el mismo impacto que con sus primeras temporadas. SERIE RANKING ANTERIOR NOMBRE CADENA 1 1 Hacks Max 2 […]

La entrada Emmys 2026: segundo ranking de predicciones de series de comedia se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

The Generative AI Fizzle™

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Disclaimer: Anything can happen at anytime in the market; I don’t give stock picks, and as the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Ursday

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

Random: Lidar all kinds of stuff. Two books: The Sovereign Human: Who Are You When AI Can Do Everything? American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda Unpacked Apple Intelligence Foundation Language Models: We present foundation language models developed to power Apple Intelligence features, including a ~3 billion parameter model designed to run efficiently on […]

Greatest Songs And Lebowskization

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

Trump Is Weakened, Diminished, And Growing More Unhinged And Desperate By The Day (New Video, Written Analysis)

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Monday 2pm ET - Heather Cox Richardson will be joining us live. More details soon!

Caltech Weekly - June 25: Better Lithium-Ion Batteries; Plant Engineering

2026-06-25

Caltech Weekly - June 25: Better Lithium-Ion Batteries; Plant EngineeringView this email in your browser

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Architecting a Better Lithium-Ion Battery

Julia R. Greer and members of her lab have developed a new type of electrode that improves the performance of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, while eliminating the hazardous and hard-to-mine metal cobalt.

Improving Plants with a Tool Borrowed from Birds

Gözde Demirer and a Caltech team have solved a persistent problem in plant engineering by using a genetic element found in some animals.

Stressed-Out Soil Bacteria Adapt to Environmental Conditions

Soil bacteria flexibly adapt quorum-sensing mechanisms in order to acquire nutrients.

"I've been at Caltech for more than three decades, and what's kept me here through every role is the people; you walk across campus and you know almost everyone. Making connections is what led to my small part in setting up the Green Labs ReStore. ... Everything in the ReStore is offered up to other labs for free. It's saved the campus tens of thousands of dollars already, but, honestly, the part I love most is that it's one more place where this community takes care of itself, and I get to be a small part of that."

Joan Sullivan is the division operations officer for the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering at Caltech. She has been on the Institute's professional staff for 35 years, for which she was honored at the 2026 Service Impact Awards. Her career has spanned jobs in Finance, in the then Office of Public Relations, in the former Development and Institute Relations, in EAS's department administration, and most recently in BBE.

This Week's Other Top Stories

JPL News: NASA Testing Advanced Capabilities for Moon, Mars Rovers

In Case You Missed It

View recent lectures and events on Caltech's YouTube channel.

Construction Timelapse: Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement

In the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement, Caltech researchers will develop tools and concepts with the potential to influence all areas of science and technology through unprecedented sensing, measurement, and engineering capabilities.

Did You Know?

The July/August 2026 issue of Scientific American features a list of 28 " brilliant minds inventing the future" including Caltech alums Chee-Huat Linus Eng (PhD '21), Anna Ho (PhD '20), and Christina Theodoris (BS '09). The issue also includes an essay by alumnus Alan Lightman (PhD '74) on his childhood in science as well as interviews with President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Lucy Jones, and alumna Fei-Fei Li (PhD '05) in a special section on "icons" discussing the past, present, and future of science and innovation in the US.

The Caltech Library has posted a four-part oral history featuring George Rossman, (1944– 2026), professor of mineralogy, emeritus, who became an internationally renowned authority in his field despite having no formal training in geology Bluesky Caltech.edu Facebook Instagram LinkedIn X YouTube Connect with CaltechThe Caltech Weekly is published by the Office of Communications and External Relations. Copyright ©2026 All rights reserved. Send feedback and story ideas for the newsletter to theweekly@caltech.edu.

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@Barack Obama @Bsky

2026-06-25

My sister Maya and I were profoundly shaped by the influence of our mom, Ann Dunham. Giving Maya a preview of the Obama Presidential Center, including a new sculpture by Maya Lin dedicated to our mom’s memory, was truly special.

The Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative Interviews the editors of Computers and Composition

2026-06-25

We are excited to share an interview that features the DRC Fellows in the most recent edition of Computers and Composition! To mark the 40th anniversary of Computers and Composition, the Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative (DRC) Fellows interviewed three generations of the journal’s leadership: founding co-editor Cynthia Selfe, past editor Kristine Blair, and current editor Jason [...]

Source

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

I bet Ward Cunningham is really good at using Claude, he is a big believer in pair programming. I even did a session with him in Frontier, doing stuff with the outliner.

All you need to poison an LLM is 13 words.

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

"It really is just that simple. The way that you can attack these systems is usually so much dumber than you think it is, or than you think it needs to be."

[$] Hardening the kernel with allocation tokens and bootpatch-SLR

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-27

There is a lot of work going into eliminating exploitable bugs from the kernel and preventing the addition of new ones. Even if this work is maximally successful, though, there is no chance that the kernel will be free of these bugs anytime soon. Thus, there is also ongoing interest in hardening the kernel to make the existing bugs more difficult to exploit. The upcoming 7.2 kernel release will include a change to how dynamically allocated structures are placed in memory to make them harder to overwrite, while a project to randomize structure layout at boot time has a rather longer timeline.

To build resilient organizations, you need to empower your team to make decisions.

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-03

"That is not leadership. That is control. And it creates dependency, not growth."

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

Claude is a brain, very different from ours and when we work together we humans have access to capabilities that work really well with building large software products. And that's a huge understatement. Most remarkable thing. Most of the discussion between people who use the AI tools and those that condemn them are not productive because the opponents of AI don't understand the breadth of what these machines do and the potential to do much more, things that we as a species have never done. Think of it as an alien life form that wants to merge with us. I'm glad to be alive at this moment, and able to explore it as part of my development team. I recommend starting an academic dialog, among people who don't have conflicts of interest, or very well-disclosed and disclaimed conflicts, to accurately record this discussion based on facts, for the record, so when people ask how conscious were we when we did this transition, there will actually be some footprints to follow.

How AI Will Change Us

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-02

The post How AI Will Change Us appeared first on NOEMA.

‘Boys Of Tommen’: Prime Video’s Latest Big YA Bet Adds More Cast

2026-06-25

Another group of budding young thespians have joined Prime Video’s YA adaptation of Chloe Walsh’s BookTok sensation Boys of Tommen. After a widespread search, Prime Video has revealed Amelia May as Claire Biggs, John Hewson as Gerard Gibson, Indy Lewis as Lizzie Young, Alex Dunne as Hugh Biggs, Dixie Egerickx as Katie Wilmot, Daisy Jacob as Bella Wilkinson, Jonathan Heed as Cormac Ryan and Cathal Ó Síocháin as Ronan McGarry. […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-05

The Bear season 5, the show's last season, premieres on Hulu at 9PM EST today.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-25

Good morning sports fans!

Security updates for Thursday

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-27

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (libpng, libsolv, libtasn1, libxml2, libxslt, python3.14, tigervnc, and vim), Debian (cloud-init, postgresql-13, and yelp), Mageia (nats-server), Oracle (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, bind9.18, cockpit, compat-openssl11, dnsmasq, dovecot, evince, expat, flatpak, freerdp, gimp, golang, grafana, grafana-pcp, httpd, jmc, jq, kernel, libsndfile, libsoup, libtiff, mod_http2, mysql:8.0, nginx, nginx:1.24, openexr, php:8.2, poppler, pyOpenSSL, python-markdown, redis:7, samba, thunderbird, tigervnc, unbound, and vim), Red Hat (libpng, libpng12, and libpng15), SUSE (apptainer, bind, crun, freeipmi, ghc-crypton-x509-store, ghc-crypton-x509-system, google-guest-agent, google-osconfig-agent, GraphicsMagick, gstreamer-plugins-bad, hamlib, iproute2, java-1_8_0-openjdk, kubevirt1, libarchive, libheif, libpng15, mbedtls, mbedtls-2, openssl-1_1, python-biopython, python-PyJWT, tar, webkit2gtk3, and xen), and Ubuntu (ffmpeg, libdbi-perl, and perl).

‘Sense And Sensibility’ Trailer: Daisy Edgar-Jones Leads The Latest Jane Austen Revival

2026-06-25

Here’s the first trailer for George Oakley’s revival of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. The Working Title production, based on a script adaptation by Diana Reid, stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Esmé Creed-Miles, Caitríona Balfe, Frank Dillane, Herbert Nordrum, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, George MacKay, and Fiona Shaw. The synopsis reads: “Set in Georgian-era England, Austen’s classic follows […]

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-06-25:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

53 updated places. 3 new and 20 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

824d56bb - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

85905dae - updated gis package

60575c8f - updated data quality

d0275a00 - updated bibliography

5a76f0f6 - updated indexes

cf499861 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

95bd7740 - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

9674f136 - updated pleiades wikidata

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-27

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoes bill requiring mail-in voters show a copy of their ID to vote.

Granada Speech

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

In defence of the Humanities

DC Studios & Warner Bros. Animation Unveil ‘Absolute Batman’Animated Series As Peter Safran Sets Down In Annecy

2026-06-25

DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation are partnering on a series adaptation of Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s best selling DC comic book series Absolute Batman. The partners announced the upcoming show at a joint presentation at the Annecy International Film Festival on Thursday, hosted by Warner Bros. Animation Sam Register, with Peter Safran, DC […]

Provocative Queer Thriller ‘Blue Film’ Scores Distribution In UK, Spain, Lat Am, Germany

2026-06-25

EXCLUSIVE: Obscured Releasing has secured the sale of provocative queer thriller Blue Film to Peccadillo Pictures, the UK-based distribution company specializing in LGBTQ+ arthouse film. London-based sales agent Rapt Films International has acquired remaining international rights and struck deals with FilmIn (Spain), Synapse (Latin America) and Salzgeber (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) out of the Cannes […]

2026-06-25 Wenn Bots durch unser Dorf getrieben werden

2026-06-25

2026-06-25 Wenn Bots durch unser Dorf getrieben werden

Wer einen Website betreibt, wo es teure End-Points gibt – wenn es also URLs gibt, welche auf eurem Server etwas mehr Aufwand brauchen, vielleicht eine Suche, eine Datenbank Abfrage, wie zum Beispiel eine Wiki, ein Software Forge und dergleichen mehr – der kennt das Spiel: Alle paar Wochen müssen alle AI Betreiber ihre Large Language Models (LLMs) trainieren, weil diese ja sonst nur alten Käse erzählen. Da die AI Betreiber aber nicht das ganze Internet zu sich kopieren (könnte ja illegal sein, wer weiss), verwenden sie einfach das gesamte Internet als ihre Festplatte und laden jedes Mal, wenn die LLMs trainiert werden müssen, alles wieder runter. Alles. Alle Texte. Alle Bilder. Jedes alte Version. Jeder Unterschied von jeder Version zu jeder Version. Die Urheber der Versionen. Ihr wisst was ich meine: Wer viel Zeug anbietet muss viel leiden.

Wenn man sich allerdings wehren will, reduziert man den Gewinn der AI Betreiber, und das geht ja gar nicht. Also ignorieren sie robots.txt und weichen auf andere IP Nummern aus, wenn sie geblockt werden. Da werden internationale Kampagnen gefahren und so habe ich dann plötzlich Hits aus Peru, Jordanien, Singapur, Argentinien, den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten, China, Malaysia, Vietnam und und und in meinen Logs. Und dann steigt bei mir der Puls! Was ich an Tagen und Wochen schon verbraten habe, um mich gegen diese Banditen zu wehren.

Es geht hier um Verteidigung in der Tiefe. Eine meiner Verteidigungsmechanismen ist besonders fies, weil es viele Unschuldige trifft. Und das geht so: Wenn diese internationalen Kampagnen gefahren werden, kommen die Anfragen aus allen möglichen Rechenzentren dieser Welt. Die einzelnen IP Adressen wiederholen sich nicht, aber in der Summe sieht man natürlich, aus welchen Rechenzentren sie kommen. Und dann kann man alle Rechenzentren sperren, die mitmachen. (Um genau zu sein: Ich sperre alle IP Adressbereiche, welche zu einem Autonomen System gehört.) Diese sperre ich für eine Stunde. Wenn ich Netzwerke drei Mal in 24 Stunden sperren musste, werden sie für eine Woche gesperrt. So muss ich nicht von Hand eingreifen. Aktuell sind beispielsweise über 7000 IP Adressbereiche gesperrt. Und wem gehören die Autonomen Systeme?

Aktuell gerade:

7224	AMAZON-AS, US
8069	MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK, US
8075	MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK, US
8987	AWS-GOVCLOUD AWS-GOVCLOUD, IE
14618	AMAZON-AES, US
15169	GOOGLE, US
16509	AMAZON-02, US
19527	GOOGLE-2, US
39592	IGX0-AS, GB
39753	LIUXYON Liuxyon International, CN
62785	AMAZON-FC, US
139070	GOOGLE-AS-AP Google Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., SG
395909	KAWAII-NETWORKS-CARRIER, US

Anbei eine kleine Grafik von fail2ban, mit welchem ich diese temporären Sperren einrichte.

Die fail2ban Grafik zeigt, dass im 7600 IP Adressbereiche im Moment gesperrt sind. Vor ein paar Tagen waren es nur etwa 1000. Vor zwei Wochen war es allerdings doppelt so viel.

Deswegen sage ich immer, wer LLMs verwendet, trinkt auch ein wenig von meinem Blut. Wir Betreiber der kleinen Webseiten, die nicht alles an Cloud Server und Cloudflare abgeben wollen, die auf Souveränität bestehen, wir zahlen mit unserer Lebenszeit für diesen Quatsch.

#AI #Butlerian Jihad

‘Ghostbusters’ Animated Series Team Say Their Show Sticks To Canon While Being “As Funny & Scary As Anything You’ve Ever Seen” From The Franchise

2026-06-25

The creative team behind Netflix’s Ghostbusters animated series want their show to “feel like our characters could walk off the television, onto a movie screen and interact with the pre-existing characters.” Launching next year and titled Ghostbusters: Night Shift, the latest in the franchise is one of Netflix’s splashiest upcoming animated series. EP Amie Karp […]

343: The Prairie Remembers. Dementia. Mission 300. Nepal 🏳️‍🌈

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

I’m not free until every woman is free.

Ajay Devgn To Star In Jio Studios & Colour Yellow Action Pic ‘Chauhaan’; October 2027 Release Date Set

2026-06-25

Indian action star Ajay Devgn is returning to the precinct he knows best. The actor will lead Chauhaan, a feature from director Neeraj Yadav and production houses Jio Studios and Colour Yellow Productions. A theatrical release date of October 1, 2027 has been slated. You can see a first look at Devgn above in a […]

Interesting Paper Exploring Prompt Injection

2026-06-25

This is a fascinating explotation of how LLMs fall for prompt injection attacks. It turns out that they learn to recognize the style of text in different role/instruction blocks, and not just the tags.

Their conclusion:

Role tags were a formatting trick that became the security architecture and the cognitive scaffolding of modern LLMs. We’ve shown that this architecture doesn’t survive into the model’s actual representations, and that such role confusion is linked to prompt injection.

Unless LLMs achieve genuine role perception, we think injection defense will remain a perpetual whack-a-mole game. And the continuous nature of role boundaries opens the threat of injections designed to subtly shift LLM states through seemingly innocuous text, legally and at scale...

On Gold Stars

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

The domestic debate over the Iran war has largely been conducted in dollars as groceries become more expensive every week and it costs a hundred bucks to fill up your F-250.

‘Peppa Pig’ Causes AI Stink: Concern As Beloved Hasbro Series Asks Child Actors To Sign Over Their Voices To Artificial Intelligence

2026-06-25

EXCLUSIVE: Peppa Pig is famed for her love of jumping in muddy puddles, but the company behind the hit children’s TV series has created a different kind of splash with its approach to AI. Hasbro, the U.S. entertainment giant that acquired the Peppa Pig brand in 2019, is asking child actors on the animated series […]

Poll: 53% of Americans see grounds to impeach Trump

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Most name corruption and abuse of power as his top offenses — and one in five say the war in Iran is impeachment-worthy

Affordability Politics Needs a Power Analysis

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

A renewed focus on the cost of living crisis is a welcome and potentially unifying frame for the political left. Yet unless we confront the Trump administration's consolidated economic, cultural, and bureaucratic power, any attempt to deliver an affordability agenda is bound to fail.

‘ViQueens’ Teaser: Animated Viking Drama Featuring Ella Purnell, Rita Ora & Norway Soccer Star Erling Haaland Unveiled In Annecy

2026-06-25

EXCLUSIVE: Dutch-Norwegian director Zwart Arbeid gave a sneak peek of his upcoming animated feature ViQueens in a masterclass at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on Thursday, and Deadline can share the teaser exclusively too. Co-starring Ella Purnell and Rita Ora in the voice cast, with a special appearance by global soccer superstar Erling Haaland, […]

LEAP – Low-bandwidth Educational Access Platform

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-06

Using a Raspberry Pi to provide digital education to remote rural classrooms.

`deno desktop` for building native desktop apps from web tech, first-class migration from npm/pnpm/yarn/Bun, CSS module imports, snapshot and parameterized testing, smaller `deno compile --bundle` binaries, and Node.js 26 compatibility.

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-06-27

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Front: Free-threaded Python; AUR attacks; Fedora 2FA; 7.2 merge window; BPF arenas; BPF coroutines; BPF JIT; RMR and BRMR; OSPM.
Briefs: Tor deprecations; GIMP 0.54.1 flatpak; Mastodon 4.6; Systemd v261; Xfce on Wayland; Quotes; ...
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

Whensday

2026-06-25, updated: 2026-07-04

Security at one cost: your time. A thousand years ago, there was a cooking show on TV called Chef Tell (real name: Paul Friedman Erhardt). My teenage kids and I enjoyed watching him for just four words he would say, after making something too complex for any of us to bother with. In his thick […]

Attach files to your Inbox replies

2026-06-25

Send PDFs, images, and other files when you reply to a subscriber from your Inbox.

Attach files to your Inbox replies

2026-06-25

Send PDFs, images, and other files when you reply to a subscriber from your Inbox.

Om Malik, 1966-2026

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-01

Om Malik passed away on June 24, 2026, at Stanford Hospital after a long health journey with his heart. He was surrounded by family and friends. We invite you to share your remembrances of Om in the comments below or by posting and tagging his accounts on X/Twitter, Instagram, Glass, or LinkedIn. To learn more …

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-05

En Español, los programadores que usan IA se denominan “vibradores”

Last Call - Tonight, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-06

Welcome new subscribers!

Gaslit (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la emergencia de hoy y el ahora

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-30

Dirección: Katie Camosy. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt39383542/ “Lo que nos mete en problemas no es lo que no sabemos, sino lo que creemos con certeza y no es cierto.” -Mark Twain, citado por Al Gore en An Inconvenient Truth (2006) Hay documentales que intentan convencernos de algo, mientras que otros […]

La entrada Gaslit (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la emergencia de hoy y el ahora se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

a CVE dispute

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-29

A few years years ago the curl project signed up and became a CNA. This means that we are masters of and can allocate our own CVE identifiers. For any security problems within our territory, it is we who decides if the issue should get a CVE or not. No more bogus CVEs. 57 CVEs … Continue reading a CVE dispute→

Maestros of Irish mandolin: Macdara, Marla, and Sean.

2026-06-24

Maestros of Irish mandolin: Macdara, Marla, and Sean.

Swift Package Index Joins Apple

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-03

Ted Kremenek, Dave Verwer, and Sven A. Schmidt (Hacker News): Bringing Swift Package Index to Apple allows us to build on its strong foundations while preserving its vision and expertise. Together, we’re building a comprehensive package registry to serve the Swift community’s evolving needs. […] Swift Package Index will continue to operate as it does […]

Swift 6.4

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-03

Swift 6.4 is now available in beta form with Xcode 27. The Swift Evolution proposals are listed here. What’s new in Swift: Discover the latest language advancements, including updates for everyday ergonomics, improved concurrency, and safer high-performance code. Explore workflow and language interoperability improvements and updates in embedded Swift. Build real-time apps and services with […]

Swift 6.3

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-03

Holly Borla and Joe Heck (Hacker News): Swift 6.3 introduces the @c attribute, which lets you expose Swift functions and enums to C code in your project. […] @c also works together with @implementation. This lets you provide a Swift implementation for a function declared in a C header[…] […] Swift 6.3 introduces module selectors […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-27

The evolution of podcasts: How podcasting became media’s biggest disruptor.

Wednesday session in Cork

2026-06-24

Wednesday session in Cork

This Week In The Big Picture

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-06

One year ago this week, Zohran Mamdani rocked the political world with his New York City mayoral primary victory over Andrew Cuomo.

Blogging Can Just Be Stating The Obvious

2026-06-24

John Gruber writes about those annoying popups every website seems to have now and while he does a great job tearing into these ubiquitous, user-hostile patterns, one of the things that stood out to me about his piece was this meta commentary on blogging. Here’s John:

If you visit a website you should ... see the website. See its content. Be able to read the article whose page you are attempting to visit. Showing a “subscribe to our newsletter” or “accept our fucking cookies” dickover to someone trying to read an article on the web makes no more sense than sending out an email newsletter that only contains a link to read the newsletter on a webpage. A webpage should show the webpage. An email should show the email. I should not have to explain this.

It’s funny how often blogging feels like being the little child in the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. You’re just stating what seems obvious to you.

I often look at my own posts and think, “There’s nothing novel, or important, or deep in here at all — is this even worth saying?”

A post’s point can seem so glaringly obvious to me (and thus, I presume, others) it feels like a waste of time to even say it. As John says:

A webpage should show the webpage. An email should show the email. I should not have to explain this.

But then real-world examples of annoyance pile up around you and nobody talks about it, so you finally just have to say it in a post and bring receipts.

You feel like someone gone mad: “Is anyone else seeing the same thing I’m seeing? And we’re just ok with this?”

Very often, those are the best posts I read from others.

So it must be that a key ingredient to blogging is simple: have a willingness to state something that seems obvious to you but nobody else is saying it.

Or if someone else is saying it, just link to them and say, “Yes!!! This!!!”

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

Bluesky

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-27

Will America Ever Give White-Man Rights to Everyone Else?

Emmys 2026: segundo ranking de predicciones de serie limitada o película para TV

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-30

El año está malo, muy malo. Ninguna de las posibles ganadoras sería siquiera nominada en años anteriores. SERIE LIMITADA RANKING ANTERIOR NOMBRE CADENA 1 1 Half Man HBO 2 2 Beef Netflix 3 3 Love Story FX 4 4 The Beast in Me Netflix 5 5 DTF St. Louis HBO 6 8 Death by Lightning […]

La entrada Emmys 2026: segundo ranking de predicciones de serie limitada o película para TV se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Rebecca Cooke (WI-03) Checks In With The Hopium Community

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-05

“That’s what is different… we’ve had leaders really emerge that have lived these failed policies and they want to fight… you can’t manufacture that kind of authenticity."

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-06-24:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

13 new and 75 updated places. 12 new and 32 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

9ed4ac12 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

716bf962 - updated gis package

f87eca43 - updated data quality

43f4b7e0 - updated bibliography

9a1da8c3 - updated indexes

2863a379 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

7eb3fbf9 - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

9df7be08 - updated pleiades wikidata

[$] Fedora: 2FA, or not 2FA, that is the question

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-27

Compromised accounts are one of the most common ways that attackers can sneak malware into the open-source supply chain. One way to reduce account compromise is for projects to require two-factor authentication (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA), but that is easier said than done. However, Fedora is currently discussing putting 2FA requirements in place soon, following an an alleged account
compromise that led to an AI agent causing a number of problems for the project. After some discussion, Fedora will begin by requiring packagers in the " provenpackager" group to enable 2FA within the next three months or so.

[$] A helper library for BPF arenas

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-27

BPF arenas are areas of memory (potentially shared with user space) where programs have free reign to build their own data structures, unburdened by the verifier's bounds checks. Many of those data structures are potentially usable in multiple programs. Emil Tsalapatis brought his work on libarena, a library containing generic utilities for use in BPF arenas, to the 2026Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF
Summit. Although the library is already available as part of the kernel, it is still in its early stages and he has more work planned.

@John's World Wide Wall Display

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-03

Read: In the Woods by Tana French ★★★ 📚 Doorstop of a police procedural. Lots of psychological twist & turns. Vivid characters. Maybe too much horror in the crime, like most thriller books and movies nowadays.

Trump’s Iran War: The Midwife To A Renewable Energy Future

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-02

The post Trump’s Iran War: The Midwife To A Renewable Energy Future appeared first on NOEMA.

En silencio (Raindance Film Festival 2026): inusual documental sobre Isco Alarcón

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-29

Dirección: Sara Sálamo. Guion: Sara Sálamo. País: España. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37931384/ Entre los documentales deportivos presentes en el Festival Raindance de este año, destaca uno titulado En silencio: la resiliencia de Isco Alarcón, enfocado en el jugador español del Real Betis Balompié que se lesionó en un partido y que lo tuvo […]

La entrada En silencio (Raindance Film Festival 2026): inusual documental sobre Isco Alarcón se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Big Night For Mamdani, House Dems Get Important Wins in NY-17 & UT-1, Enjoy My Talk With Katie Phang

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-03

Hopium paid subscribers gather tonight at 7pm ET/All eyes on the Senate GOP lunch at 1pm today

@DAIR blog

2026-06-24

Congratulations to the Data Workers' Inquiry team. Incredibly well deserved 🎉🎉🎉

[contains quote post or other embedded content]

2026-06-24 Language tagging in blog posts

2026-06-24

2026-06-24 Language tagging in blog posts

It’s 35°C outside … and inside, too! Topless computing is the name of the game, I’m sorry to say.

Here’s what I wanted to do: The posts on this blog are being posted to fedi via @blog. This is cool. But I noticed that they aren’t posted with a particular language.

Hm, I thought. This must be a problem of rss-bot. And it is, it doesn’t know about language tags.

But then I checked my feed, and noticed that it also doesn’t have the language tags. The blog runs on Oddμ. I figured it this should be easy to fix. I’ll just add the xml:lang attribute to the template for the RSS feed. The software already knows the language used on the blog post and the view template uses it. The HTML pages are tagged appropriately! This is important for hyphenation and screen readers.

Sadly, adding the attribute to the feed template didn’t fix it, because the code that produces the feed took a shortcut: It loaded each page that would appear in the feed and copied the attributes it needed from the Page structure into the Item structure. And at the time I didn’t need the Body attribute. But the Language code operates on the plainText result which uses the Body. Oh no!

And so now I’m starting back there, working my way through the layers of the problem.

#Oddμ #RSS

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-05

When writing code with Claude you really have to be skeptical when it says it just found the problem, but you have no idea what it's saying, chances are pretty good it's just a word salad excuse for not having read all the code necessary to have an fact-based opinion. Actually debugging software isn't about opinions, it's about proof. When you start clutching at straws until one works you just added another level of bug that will eventually bite you in the butt and you'll still have to solve the original one. Uncorrected, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to trust the code it writes, but I guess that's why people have two or more instances playing different roles? For now I'm the one that questions its sanity, politely though. ;-)

Forgetting And Substances

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

[$] Reports from OSPM 2026, day two

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-27

The Power Management
and Scheduling in the Linux Kernel Summit, which still goes by the historical acronym OSPM, was held in Cambridge, UK, in mid-April. As has become traditional, the presenters at that event have since written summaries of their sessions, and this work has kindly been made available to LWN for publication. The second day's sessions covered a wide range of topics, including device frequency scaling, using time-slice duration for CPU selection, scheduling domains on multi-cluster Arm systems, the LAVD scheduler, and more.

Reward the Behavior You Actually Want

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-06

Culture is shaped by incentives, not intentions.

Framework's 10G Ethernet module exposes USB-C's complexity

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-06-26

WisdPi's Framework 10G Ethernet module

I've been following WisdPi's development of various 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps Ethernet adapters for the past couple years.

They use newer Realtek Ethernet chips, which sometimes have performance quirks—most frequently encountered under Linux.

2026-06-24

2026-06-24 Adversative Kommunikation

Warum reagieren Leute wie ich so enttäuscht, wenn sie E-Mails, Text Botschaften oder Pull Requests bekommen, die mit AI erstellt wurden? Klar, jeder kennt den Spruch: Warum sollte ich etwas lesen wollen was das Gegenüber nicht schreiben wollte? Das ist wunderbar kurz und treffend, aber da hat es sicher noch mehr dahinter. Vor allem braucht es noch eine Erklärung für das Beispiel mit dem Code Review. Dass ich mich nicht freue, wenn Freunde und Familie mir nicht schreiben wollen und mir stattdessen einen AI-generierten Text schreiben, versteht man ja noch eher als wenn man Code erhält, der einen Fehler behebt. Sollte man da nicht dankbar sein? Das nächste Argument wäre vielleicht, dass viele von uns lieber mit Menschen statt mit Maschinen reden. Oder wenn wir schon mit Maschinen reden, wie viele Programmierer, dann in einer sehr direkten, knappen, definierten Art, nämlich mit einer Programmiersprache.

Im Blog Post Adversarial Communication von Glyph kommt nun ein neuer Aspekt hinzu, der mir gefehlt hat. Kommunikation mit Personen, die AI-generierte Text verschicken hat etwas adversatives an sich. Da alle Aussagen der AI kontrolliert werden müssen, und diese Kontrolle mühselig und langsam ist, lohnt sich für diese Personen der Einsatz von AI nur, wenn sie diese Arbeit anderen Personen aufhalsen können. Das heisst: Riesengrosse Änderungen am Code werden von der Maschine generiert und einer anderen (!) Person zum Review gegeben. Grandios. Genau so mit Verkaufsargumenten, Strategiepapieren, Spezifikationen, Umsetzungsdokumenten, Präsentationen, professionellen Übersetzungen, und so weiter.

Jetzt kommen wir der Sache schon näher. Hier sehe ich eine Erklärung für dieses Gefühl der Herabsetzung für die Empfänger. Es geht nicht nur darum, dass es so lange dauert, bis man die endlosen Text gelesen hat. Es geht auch darum, dass es dabei immer um Arbeit geht: Es verstehen, es prüfen, nachfragen, korrigieren.

Natürlich kann man das alles noch schlimmer machen und die AI-generierten Texte voller Stolz verschicken, Dankbarkeit verlangen, Respekt verlangen, einen Bonus verlangen, schnelle Antworten verlangen. Und die Empfänger? Die knirschen mit den Zähnen.

#AI

Priyanka Chopra Jonas Says She Was “Shocked” By Success Of Prime Video Pirate Pic ‘The Bluff’ & Updates On S.S. Rajamouli’s ‘Varanasi’ – Cannes Lions

2026-06-24

The swashbuckling performance of pirate movie The Bluff on Prime Video took its producer and star, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, by surprise. During a fireside chat today at Cannes Lions, the actor, producer and entrepreneur spoke about the Frank E. Flowers-directed and Russo brothers-produced pic’s success on Prime Video, topping the streamer’s global movie charts in […]

Finding curated public domain images

2026-06-24

a vintage illustration of a man sitting on a chair in a sparse room holding up a book that appears illuminated. a small dog in the foreground stares at his owner and the book.

Xavier de Maistre in an armchair, displaying his “book of discoveries” (Veyssier, 1860)

Every so often I like to include a public domain image in a blog post. I’m fond of the woodblock and lithographic illustrations of the late 1800s. I try to avoid indiscriminately (un-)splashing every post but the real reason for the infrequency isn’t radical self-control, it’s because dumpster diving for public domain images can be a chore.

You can –of course– use Google or Bing to find public domain images but the volume, duplicates, and weighing the veracity of copyright attribution is overwhelming. The Library of Congress has Free to Use and Reuse sets, but their collections are nebulous noun buckets filled with a federally-mandated amount of Americana. On top of that, searching library sites is never a good experience to me. They tend to be slow and inaccurate with poor quality results and it’s a matter of time until you’re redirected to a smaller local library collection or database that’s even less maintained.

That’s why –for me– a little for-profit curation goes a long way. I wrote down some of my favorite resources from my last search (so I can remember next time) and will try to keep a running list of good resources I find.

The Public Domain Review writes blog posts about interesting works and curates quality finds in the Public Domain Image Gallery. Notably, The PBR has a cool “ Infinite View” way to browse. It’s a bit overwhelming for me, but you may love it.
Artvee is a site with some great curation of public domain images.
Heritage Type maintains some nice collections of vintage illustrations , almost like tattoo flash art in PNG and vector formats.

The business models are similar; pair the public domain with something to sell. The Public Domain Review and Artvee sell prints, aprons, or coffee mugs of the public domain works while Heritage Type funnels you to their quality fonts and design assets. I know we all hate Capitalism, but taking a small cut off the top for quality curation seems like a good trade and not an abuse of the commons.

Blessed are the curators.

Raspberry Pi and the EU Cyber Resilience Act

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-06

2026-06-24

At least one malware developer is adding text about nuclear and biological weapons to their spyware, in an effort to stop automatic AI analysis.

Details:

The _index.js payload begins with a large JavaScript block comment containing fake system instructions and policy-triggering content. Because it is inside a comment, it does not affect JavaScript execution. The runtime skips it. The real malware begins after the comment with a try{eval(…)} wrapper around a large character-code array and a ROT-style substitution function.

This header appears designed for AI-mediated analysis, not for Node, Bun, or Python. It attempts to derail scanners or analyst copilots that feed the beginning of a file to a language model without clearly isolating the content as untrusted data. In weak pipelines, this can cause refusal behavior, prompt confusion, context pollution, or premature classification before the scanner reaches the actual malware...

buy a pig’s ear and sew

it on your couch. That, you

said, is my best friend – we

have spirited talks. Even

then I thought: a man of

such exquisite emptiness

(and you cultivated it so)

is ground for fine flowers.

Trump’s New Intelligence Chief Is Gutting the Agencies That Prevent Terrorist Attacks

2026-06-24, updated: 2026-07-06

The guy running 18 spy agencies has zero intelligence experience, but he does have a track record as Trump’s attack dog.

PostScript Printer

2026-06-24

Just a short post today. I needed to print a paper document. Our printer is the networked one but I had it set up only for the Blackbird (which have been out of service for a while). I never find working combination of drivers and printer on my wife's Ubuntu machine.

Even more tweaks to inbound and replies

2026-06-24

Three clear paths for custom sending domains, each with consistent, predictable reply behavior.

Structured Primary Keys

2026-06-24

Structured Primary Keys

Sometimes I hit a wall when optimizing a client’s query. Over the years, I realized that most cases fall into two categories: (1) unreasonable expectations based on the cloud bill, not on the infrastructure’s power; (2) the primary key design. This article explains how primary keys can put tables into walled gardens so that the database schema falls apart into disconnected pieces, effectively disabling SQL’s set-based powers. I also suggest an alternative approach to primary key design and discuss its pros and cons. I use the term Structured Primary Keys to put emphasis on how it differs from natural and surrogate keys.

Customers

I’ll will use a small schema for a simple web shop in this article. Let’s start with the core of the customers table:

CREATE TABLE customers (
  name   VARCHAR  NOT NULL,
  email  VARCHAR  NOT NULL,
  /* more attributes */

  /* TODO: PRIMARY KEY */
)

I kept it short as this article is not about the business attributes.0 The two shown columns are just there to be able to ask the essential question: What is a good primary key for this table?

At first sight, it is the natural vs. surrogate key discussion. But as this is only a side aspect of this article, I’ll keep it short: The table, as shown, has no column that can be considered for inclusion in a primary key.1 The reason is that both columns are governed by externally defined semantics. That means we do not know the rules they follow. In particular, we do not know if, or when they are unique. Well, we know that names are not unique, so we can rule the name column out. Although less obvious, the same is true for email addresses and more generally everything of which the rules of uniqueness are externally defined.

Note that I don’t use the “primary key values should be immutable” argument. Neither do I say that it is a bad argument. When a primary key value changes, it can be difficult to apply this change to the database as it might affect many rows in many tables.2 Further, the old primary key value might have left traces outside the database (APIs, log files, print outs, etc.) so that changing the primary key value renders those traces meaningless. While both arguments are correct, they are both irrelevant from the perspective of the relational theory. I prefer an even stronger argument that is strictly required for a relational model to work.

This argument is that the immutability of the uniqueness rules is required. Note the emphasis: immutable uniqueness rules are strictly required, not immutable values! Let’s take email addresses as example. The problem is that the uniqueness semantics of email addresses depends on the target mail server. In particular, the part before the “@” should be case-sensitive, but often isn’t, subaddressing (“+” addressing) may or may not be supported, single dots might be ignored. Let that sink in. While a.b@gmail.com and ab@gmail.com denote the same mailbox, they might refer to different mailboxes at other domains.

Externally defined uniqueness semantics are a problem. We might not fully understand them, and they might change in the future. Such misunderstandings and changes would break the uniqueness of our primary keys. Therefore, we must not use such values in our primary keys. So far, the story is in line with “the always use a surrogate key” mantra, but the story goes on. The remaining article is thus based on the following definition of the customers table:

CREATE TABLE customers (
  name   VARCHAR  NOT NULL,
  email  VARCHAR  NOT NULL,
  /* more attributes */

  id     BIGINT   NOT NULL GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
)

Orders

The second table in the shop is for orders:

CREATE TABLE orders (
  customer_id  BIGINT        NOT NULL,
  FOREIGN KEY (customer_id)  REFERENCES customers (id),

  placed       TIMESTAMP(6)  NOT NULL,
  /* more attributes */

  /* TODO: PRIMARY KEY */
)

Again, I just show the relevant parts. It starts with the reference to the customer, including the foreign key definition. The placed column follows to store time of order placement. Obviously, this table would have many more column, but they are irrelevant for the important question: What is a good primary key for this table?

The situation is slightly different as before. One might argue that the combination of (customer_id, placed) is worth considering. And I actually agree. While the uniqueness semantics of time is also externally defined—by our universe, in confusing ways—, we might consider timestamps to be well enough understood and immutable in context of a web shop. Timestamps of past events even have the nice-to-have property of immutable values, backed by the universe itself. If the timestamp has a sufficiently high resolution, we could also consider it unique. The consequence of a primary key that combines the customer_id and placed columns is that a single customer cannot place two orders at the same microsecond. Or the other way around: The primary key puts a hard limit of one million orders per client per second on the shop’s capacity. Whether or not this is an acceptable limit is an individual decision, which becomes irrelevant further down. If we accept these limits, there is no compelling argument against using the combination of (customer_id, placed) as primary key. Even the nice-to-have of immutable values is granted. The reasons against it are that timestamps consume quite some space on disk↓ and that they are awkward to handle for humans. Just imagine asking over the phone: “Which order would you like to cancel?”

Let’s consider alternatives as well. If we do not accept the placed column as part of the primary key, the table does not have a candidate key. So, we need to make one like before. Again, the “always use a surrogate key” mantra seems to apply—but this time it leads to a problematic primary key. Have a look at the primary key that is often taken for an orders table:

CREATE TABLE orders (
  customer_id   BIGINT        NOT NULL,
  FOREIGN KEY  (customer_id)
                REFERENCES customers (id),

  placed        TIMESTAMP(6)  NOT NULL,
  /* more attributes */

  id            BIGINT        NOT NULL
                GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
)

Can you see the problem? Let me show you how this breaks the schema into pieces…

Order Lines

The table that completes the first design of the shop is for the items of an order:

CREATE TABLE order_lines (
  order_id     BIGINT   NOT NULL,
  FOREIGN KEY  (order_id)
               REFERENCES orders (id),

  product_id   INTEGER  NOT NULL,
  qty          INTEGER  NOT NULL  CHECK (qty > 0),
  /* more attributes */

  /* TODO: PRIMARY KEY */
)

This table is effectively the shopping cart. There is one row for each product that was put into an order. The table has a foreign key to the orders table but no primary key yet. The primary key of the order_lines is not even relevant for this discussion.

To understand the problem this primary key causes, we must consider queries like this: When did a specific customer order a specific product the last time? This is the corresponding query:

_ _SELECT placed_ _FROM order_lines ol_ _JOIN orders o_ _ON o.id = ol.order_id_ _WHERE o.customer_id = ?_ _AND ol.product_id = ?_ _ORDER BY placed DESC_ _FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY_ _

This is a top-n query in standard SQL syntax. If you are not familiar with the fetch first clause, it works just like limit 1 or select top 1 in this case. As the query needs column from two different tables, it is no surprise that join required. Unless you remember the idea that (customer_id, placed) could be used as primary key on the orders table.

If the primary key on orders is (customer_id, placed), the definition of the order_lines table changes too:

``` CREATE TABLE order_lines ( customer_id BIGINT NOT NULL, order_placed TIMESTAMP(6) NOT NULL, FOREIGN KEY (customer_id, order_placed) REFERENCES orders (customer_id, placed),

product_id INTEGER NOT NULL, qty INTEGER NOT NULL CHECK (qty > 0), /* more attributes */

/* TODO: PRIMARY KEY */ ) ```

As it has a foreign key to orders, the primary key columns of orders must be available it the order_lines table. As a consequence, the previous query does not need a join anymore:

_ _SELECT order_placed_ _FROM order_lines ol_ _WHERE customer_id = ?_ _AND product_id = ?_ _ORDER BY order_placed DESC_ _FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY_ _

The customer_id as well as the time of the order placement are now readily available next to the product_id. The next chart shows the response time of the first query as the basis (100%). The lower two bars show the relative response time using the query without join. For one engine (E1) it is ten times faster, for the other sill four times faster. But that is not because of the removal of the join!

``` ██████████████████████ 100% ██████████████████████ (id)

█████ -90% ▐ (customer_id, placed) w/o join - E1 ███████████▌ -77% ▐ (customer_id, placed) w/o join - E2

```

The next query still performs the join to prove my point. It uses the customer_id and placed columns from the orders table as though they were not available in order_lines. The only references to the order_lines table are for the join condition and for the search on product_id. In particular, the select clause as well as the order by clause refer to columns in the orders table.

_ _SELECT o.placed_ _FROM order_lines ol_ _JOIN orders o_ _ON o.customer_id = ol.customer_id_ _AND o.placed = ol.order_placed_ _WHERE o.customer_id = ?_ _AND ol.product_id = ?_ _ORDER BY o.placed DESC_ _FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY_ _

The join increases the response time just by a few percent points. Even with join, the query is factors faster as compared to a schema that uses the single-column primary key on orders.id.

``` ██████ -88% ▐ (customer_id, placed) - with join E1 ███████████████ -70% ▐ (customer_id, placed) - with join E2

```

The join is not a big problem. The wall built by the primary key is. The following diagrams make it visible. First, the variant with the single column primary key for the orders table. The arrows show the foreign keys. Their ends are at the respective columns of the constraint.

```

+------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ | customers | | orders | | order_lines | +------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ | 🔑 id | <----+ | 🔑 id |<-----------| 🔑 order_placed | | name | +-----| customer_id | | 🔑 product_id | | email | | placed | | qty | | dob | +------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+

```

The orders table separates the customers from the order_lines because “incoming” and “outgoing” foreign keys hit the table at different columns. Whenever a query needs customers and order_lines, a row-by-row mapping between customer_id and order_id is required through the orders table.

This picture changes when the orders table uses the structured primary key (customer_id, placed):

```

+------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ | customers | | orders | | order_lines | +------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ | 🔑 id | <----------| 🔑 customer_id |<---====----| 🔑 customer_id | | name | | 🔑 placed |<--/ --| 🔑 order_placed | | email | +------------------+ | 🔑 product_id | | dob | -| qty | +------------------+ +------------------+

```

This schema maintains the cohesion among all rows that belong to the same customer. This is of immense value for performance as well as for consistency.

## Isn’t that Denormalization?

While it is true that denormalization potentially3 brings the same performance benefits, it is important to understand that a structured primary key does not break normalization. The next picture shows a schema that breaks the second normal form for the sake of performance.

```

+------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ | customers | | orders | | order_lines | +------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ | 🔑 id | <----+ | 🔑 id |<-----------| 🔑 order_placed | | name | +-----| customer_id | | 🔑 product_id | | email | | | placed | | qty | | dob | | +------------------+ +------+ customer_id + +------------------+ +--------------<---------------+ +------------------+

```

For the analyzed query, this schema brings the same performance-benefits as a structured primary key does. But this schema does not guarantee that the customer_id column in the order_lines table points to the same customer as the respective orders row does. Sooner or later there will be inconsistencies. Many believe that their application can prevent that, but Murphy’s law says the opposite. orders``id``customer_id110220order_lines``order_id``customer_id120220210 Given these sample rows, the question “Who placed order 1?” has different answers in each table. Even worse, the order_lines table contradicts itself for order 2.

Of course, I’d like to have both, the performance of the denormalized schema as well as the correctness of a normalized one. This is what structured primary keys provide.

## Space-Efficiency

I guess now is a good time to discuss the space-efficiency of structured primary keys. It is foreseeable that more tables can lead to primary keys with more columns. This also requires more typing and—more importantly—increases the chances of making mistakes in the on clause. That’s the way it is. For the time being I must accept this drawback—well aware that some SQL dialects can join along a foreign key without an explicit join condition.4 Schema-aware tools that generate proper queries can mitigate this drawback to some extent.

However, let’s have a look at the memory usage of structured primary keys. Generally, there is no clear answer to the question which primary key design needs more memory. With a structured primary key, the orders table does not need the id column at all. This often spares an index too.5 On the other hand, the order_lines table has more columns. When using heap tables, this counts twice: once for the heap table, once for the index supporting the primary key. For clustered indexes, it counts n-fold as each non-clustered index has the full primary key in it. In systems with clustered indexes, Which factor dominates—the savings in some tables or losses in others—also depends on the data distribution. If there is just one order_lines entry for each order, the savings might outweigh the losses. As said, there is no general answer. But there are generally applicable methods to push the odds in favor of a structured primary key design.

* * *

#### If you like this page, you might also like …

… my mailing lists, free stickers, my book or my training.

* * *

In the shop schema, the space consumed by the primary key on the orders table is the critical factor, because its values are copied to all tables that have a foreign key pointing back to it. Therefore, this primary key needs to be space optimized without losing its structured nature. This is a strong argument against putting the placed column in the primary key. After all, the space required by a single timestamp falls into the range of 5 to 11 bytes—depending on the engine and the sub-seconds resolution.

This is why I suggest introducing a small proxy column in cases like this. It is, however, important to keep the two-column structure of the primary key: customer_id and placed itself or a proxy for it. Further down I will use a per-customer order number ( order_no) as proxy.

If uniqueness is the only concern, the proxy values can be randomly chosen. In some cases, it is beneficial to choose the proxy values so that they preserve the sort order of the values in the original column ( order-preserving). While this is useful when searching for the last time a customer ordered a product, we will see that the performance gain can be very surprisingly small.

The nice thing about such proxy columns is that their value range can be rather small. While it might be required to use a bigint for the single column primary key order_id, the structured primary key (customer_id, order_no) might be fine with two integer values. In case that a bigint needs twice as many bytes as an integer, the tables require the same space in both variants.6 Ultimately, the structured key design is smaller because it needs fewer indexes.7

In this context I’d like to provide a little food for thought about UUIDs: (1) one UUID needs as much space as four integer values;8 (2) those praising UUIDv7 might have always wanted a timestamp in their keys.

## Per-Parent Sequences

Some readers might wonder where they should get the just introduced order_no values from. As a short sidenote, I’d like to demonstrate the surprising efficiency of the following insert statement. It picks the next available order_no for the respective customer, inserts a new order row with that value and returns the primary key of the just created row back to the application.9

_ _INSERT INTO orders (customer_id, order_no, placed)_ _SELECT customer_id_ _, (SELECT COALESCE(MAX(order_no),0) + 1_ _FROM orders WHERE customer_id = t.customer_id)_ _, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP_ _FROM (VALUES (?)) t(customer_id)_ _RETURNING customer_id, order_no_ _

The returned primary key values can be used for the insert into the order_lines table.

The basis (100%) in the next chart is the same transaction in a model that uses a single-column primary key on the orders table. Including the search for the next per-customer order_no, the transaction takes about one-third longer when using structured primary keys. As for the space-efficiency, there is no general answer whether the positive or negative effects outweigh the other.

``` ██████████████████████████████████████████████████▐███ +29% ████▌ Order + 1 item - E1 ██████████████████████████████████████████████████▐████ +35% ██████▌ Order + 1 item - E2

```

Obviously, concurrency can lead to primary key violations. That is also true when the primary key is (customer_id, placed) and a single customer creates two orders with the same timestamp. An automatic, gentle (sleep) and limited retry loop is required, which is anyway the generic approach to cope with concurrency caused problems, such as dead locks.10

The required idempotency can be established by a dedicated unique column. As this column does not become part of any foreign keys, its size is less relevant. However, the required index still doubles the space consumed by this column so that shorter types might be preferable in (narrow) tables with many rows.

Note that the returning clause is not standard SQL and not widely supported. Standard SQL does provide an even more powerful feature, T495,“Combined data change and retrieval”, which is also not widely supported✓✗. If your engine does not provide this or equivalent functionality, getting the next per-customer order_no requires an extra query. If there is no need to preserve the chronology, client-side assignment (from a pool, by random, etc.) might be an option too. This is beneficial if very high per-customer concurrency is expected.

For comparison, the following chart compares the response time of the search for the last time a customer ordered a product. The basis (100%) is still the schema with a single-column primary key. The relative time comes from a schema using structured primary keys that do not preserve the chronology. In both cases, the query is essentially the same. They just differ in the on clause (one vs. two columns). Yet the query is much faster when using a structured primary key. It’s a miracle, isn’t it?

``` ███████▌ -85% ▐ (customer_id, order_no) - E1 ████████████████ -68% ▐ (customer_id, order_no) - E2

```

Of course there is no miracle. When the customer_id is available in the order_lines table, the engine can pick up the order_lines for the relevant customer and product. Next, it fetches the corresponding orders rows and takes the greats timestamp.

If the order_lines table only has the order_id but no customer_id, the engine has to pick up all order_lines for the respective product as it cannot tell whether or not each row belongs to the relevant customer. It also fetches the corresponding orders row for each of these order_lines just to figure out that many of them belong to other customers. The structured primary key saves twice: First, by not picking up order_lines of other customers, then by not accessing their order details.11

* * *

Note that the just shown speedup is neither caused by getting rid of a join nor by exploiting order-preserving characteristics of the proxy column. The query is so much faster because the structured primary key in the orders table does not separate customers from products.

The factor between the response times for the two different primary key designs multiplies with each crossed mapping table.12 By mapping table I mean tables for which the left and right join conditions use different columns. Crossing two such tables in a query would not result in a factor between four and ten like above, but rather in a factor between 16 to 100. And so forth.

## Cyclic Consistency

Another benefit of structured primary keys is that they can protect against inconsistency if there are multiple join paths between two tables. For demonstration, let’s add another table to the shop: addresses. I also added two columns to the orders table: ship_to and bill_to.

``` +------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ | customers | | orders | | order_lines | +------------------+ +------------------+ +------------------+ +->| 🔑+ id | <----+=====| 🔑⇧ customer_id |<---====----| 🔑⇧ customer_id | | | name | || | 🔑+ order_no |<--/ --| 🔑⇧ order_no | | | email | || | placed | | 🔑+ postion | | | dob | ||====| ship_to | | product_id | | +------------------+ || | bill_to | | qty | | || +------------------+ +------------------+ | +------------------+ || | | addresses | || | +------------------+ || +--| 🔑⇧ customer_id |<=====|| | 🔑+ address_no |<======+ | note | | ... | +------------------+

```

The primary key of the addresses table is structured, very much like those of the other tables. The column address_no is a dense proxy for the actual columns that would be needed to reach uniqueness. The highlighted foreign key between the addresses and orders table deserves special attention: It combines the customer_id column, which was in that table before, with the newly introduced ship_to column. They collectively refer to the addresses table. This ensures that the ship_to address of an order always belongs to the same customer as the order itself. This is a very reasonable business requirement for a web shop. The foreign key for the bill_to address works analogous, albeit not pictured.

If the addresses table had a single column primary key ( addresses.id), every order could point to every address—no matter if it belongs to the same customer or not. Starting from a row in the orders table, one could reach the customers table in two different ways. Either directly or through the addresses table. In case of faulty data, we could end at two different customers. Again, “ anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

This type of consistency is fully optional. We can store the full primary key (also the customer_id) of the addresses table for the shipping and/or billing addresses. There would be three customer.id values in the orders table—e.g, customer_id, ship_to_customer, bill_to_customer. This makes it explicit that the respective addresses may belong to different customers.

If it is not known whether or not such cross-customer references are allowed, we can add those columns but introduce a check constraint to validate that all have the same value. If the assumption that they must point to the same customer turns out to be wrong, just dropping the check constraint opens the schema so that it effectively resembles the behavior of a single-column primary key for the addresses table.

* * *

The above considerations do not make a lot of sense in the shop example. In a multi-tenant system it can be of great importance to be able to allow or prevent cross-tenant references as needed.

The final topping I have for you is that the above-pictured schema can be very space-efficient. If 32k addresses per customers are enough, we can use a small type that just needs two bytes.13 The columns ship_to and bill_to would, together, just need four bytes. In contrast, a single-column primary key on addresses would need an integer value at least and thus occupy eight bytes in the orders table. On top of that, the structured primary key spares an index on the addresses Table.

## Bottom Line

After all, structured primary keys are really just about the idea to base primary keys on a reasonable foreign key plus wherever further columns are required to reach uniqueness. Let’s refer to these additional columns as the plus-columns. The recipe is “foreign key columns plus plus-columns”. Those plus-columns are often candidates for shorter proxy columns. In the last diagram, I marked the parent’s primary key columns with “⇧” and the plus-columns (or their proxy) with “+”.

If you were looking very closely, you might have noticed that I use a different plus-column of the order_lines table in last diagram. Initially it was the product_id column, but later it was replaced by the proxy column position. The reason is that it leaves more doors open in case the design of the products table (not shown) changes. E.g. because variants are introduced.14 After all, there is a reason for the “always use surrogate keys” mantra, but I think it should be applied to the plus-columns only.

I’m not sure about a systematic approach to identify reasonable foreign keys. Obviously, not every foreign key is a candidate to base a primary key on it. It would be very odd to base the primary key of the orders table on the foreign key to the addresses table. Also, addresses might have a foreign key to a table for ISO 3166 country codes, which would be a very odd candidate for the primary key of the addresses table. The best advice I have for you is this: use common sense. Once you have understood the idea and benefits of structured primary keys, you will do fine.15

“ Structured Primary Keys” by Markus Winand was originally published at Modern SQL.

Even more tweaks to inbound and replies

2026-06-24

Three clear paths for custom sending domains, each with consistent, predictable reply behavior.

Wednesday 24 June, 2026

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-05

Deux-Chevaux de luxe Beautiful example of French ingenuity. Quote of the Day ”Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.” Thomas Mann Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Wagner | Tristan und Isolde, Act III: Liebestod| Karajan and the … Continue reading →

Sheep

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-06

On day 3 of a nine-day nature trip, I rolled my ankle on a tree root on a hike with my partner and sustained what I strongly suspect is a grade 1 ATFL (anterior talofibular ligament) tear. No need to use its government name, though!: I sprained my ankle. I felt/heard a loud pop and assumed the worst, but luckily I was able to bear weight on it immediately after, so we started heading back to the trailhead.

Then, within five minutes, I almost rolled it again (lol 🥴) so my partner made us switch shoes in the middle of the forest. I was wearing running shoes because we weren’t planning on doing this hike when we selected our respective footwear for the day and my hiking boots had made my feet hot the day before and if it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s hot feet (I guess that is two things). But then on an impulse we decided to try the hike and I had to live with my bad decision.

Anyway, I had just tied the second set of laces on the replacement ankle-supportive hiking boots, thanks to my gf, now successfully transferred to my weak-ankled feet, when she got real quiet. I didn’t notice anything until she said in a strange tone, “There is a sheep.” My brain didn’t really process it and I thought it might have been a riddle or something because it didn’t make sense (we were in dense woods, not a clearing or meadow where I might have expected to see an ovine friend), but I looked up and there was, in fact, a very large bighorn sheep standing behind her, looking at us. BELIEVE WOMEN.

The sheep was not doing anything aggressive, just seemed more curious (probably wondering why my gf and I were exchanging our hoof covers in their house), but in any case, we didn’t really want to stick around, so we started backing away slowly. I assume it was instinctual on our part because I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do in a bighorn sheep encounter. Their marketing is not as strong as for bears and mountain lions and other wildlife (and even within bears the difference between black and brown) and when to stand your ground and speak firmly versus back away or fight back vs play dead or what have you1.

Then another sheep showed up behind the first one. I think they were both females because they had smaller (although still relatively big, thus validating the name of the species) horns that did not curl all the way around. We were still backing away slowly, and the sheep also started backing away slowly. So basically, we two human females and them two sheep females were each looking suspiciously but calmly at the other pair and backing away from each other slowly. As soon as there was some distance between us, we (humans) speed-hiked, as fast as my weak ankles could carry me, until we got back to the trailhead parking lot.

I can honestly say I’ve never had that experience before.

Do you think the sheep is also sharing this story from her POV on sheep internet?

There were other encounters with wildlife on this trip that made me really respect nature. It’s not like we were in the backcountry or anything, but if you spend enough time outdoors you are going to see some animals. There was lots of information about bears and bear spray (which I recently learned is basically just pepper spray, which begs the question of why we don’t call pepper spray “man spray” if we’re naming sprays after that which it is intended to deter) and animals being dangerous but if you think about it the most dangerous animal is the human.

I really appreciated that the parks people were very clear about the wilderness not being a zoo and basically being like, don’t ruin this for everyone, but in a nice way that was educational and informative. I feel like having a camera/camcorder in our pockets at all times (wow, I haven’t thought about the word “camcorder” in a long time), plus the ability to share things a little too quickly and easily to too many people on social media, has led to widespread availability of videos of wild animals being cute, and they can be fun and amazing to watch because you might never see that IRL, but the second order effect is that creates a bigger disconnect from the concept that wild animals are wild, and not meant to be cute things or pets for people to look at or play with.

I mean, I’m not immune to the cuteness or anything… on this trip I was also 🙌 blessed 🙌 to see a mother bear with her two cubs and a mountain goat and her baby mountain goat (both times from the safety of a moving vehicle with no direct interaction other than watching them as we passed) on this trip and they were so cute I wanted to cry.

I live in a big city where I see tourists pretty much every day and many of them are respectful and gracious guests but unfortunately some of them are very entitled and have the wrong attitude about how to behave when you’re visiting someone else’s home. I suspect the entitled ones are the same ones who go to popular nature destinations and want to take selfies with bears or taunt docile sheep or feed chipmunks fried snacks.

Sometimes it’s hard not to think that humans really ruin things, and often severely and irreversibly.

I also just want to say that this note was originally intended to be a reflective recap of my entire trip and how travel makes me a better person and everything but I just kept thinking about the sheep so here we are.

Honestly it’s still very confusing. Especially because some black bears look brown. So in the event of a bear encounter am I supposed to ask them if they identify as black or brown? 🤷🏻‍♀️ ↩︎

Please beware of "Robert Reich" impersonators

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-01

Online scams seem to be on the rise

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-05

What is this sorcery.

I am in love.

https://miniswift.run

Breaking News - Trump Loses Senate Iran War Powers Vote. The Rebukes, Losses, Humiliations Just Keep Coming

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-03

“Both houses have now said this war is illegal without our authorization" - Senator Tim Kaine

How Trump’s Gerrymandering Plot Could Backfire

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-01

This week's video

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2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-06

When Protecting a Leader Becomes More Important Than Truth

Toy Story 5: el repliegue de una idea en movimiento

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-06-29

Dirección: Andrew Stanton. Guion: Andrew Stanton, Kenna Harris. Elenco vocal original: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Conan O’Brien, Scarlett Spears, Greta Lee, Shelby Rabara, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Craig Robinson. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29355505/ Pocas franquicias han sabido crecer junto a su audiencia como Toy Story. Desde su primera entrega en 1995, la saga ha utilizado los juguetes para explorar […]

La entrada Toy Story 5: el repliegue de una idea en movimiento se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Draftday

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-04

The NBA draft is tonight, and will be hugely interesting for fans, because this year's class coming out of college is unusually thick with talent. But what's happening with trades is more interesting to me right now. The Miami Heat just traded most of its team and some valuable future draft choices to the Milwaukee […]

Rats Off A Leaking Ship

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-06

Inside the White House’s war with itself

2026-06-23 The USA is once again showing it's cruel face

2026-06-23

2026-06-23 The USA is once again showing it’s cruel face

So this is where we are, now. Protesting against ICE, being against fascism, getting decades of prison sentences. The US prison system has always been a terrible shame. I still remember reading a CIA world fact book entry about Switzerland where they said we were lax on crime with our low incarceration rates. But me, looking at the US, I thought how grateful I was for not living there. And now, what feels like twenty years later, my opinions are still the same.

Months before the U.S. government labeled Alex Pretti and Renee Good “domestic terrorists”, the FBI was celebrating arrests following the July 4th Prairieland noise demo as its first “Antifa” domestic terrorism case. Against the backdrop of an ongoing national movement against ICE, 22 people are now facing decades in prison for protesting at the notorious Prairieland detention facility known for its internment of Palestinian protestor Leqaa Kordia and its brutal conditions faced by over 700 detainees. –Support the Prairieland Defendants, by @dfwsupportcommittee

#USA

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-06-27

Who’s Left to Build WordPress?

iOS 27 Recovery

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-03

Hartley Charlton: To use the feature, users must turn the device off, then hold the side button to power it on. The Apple logo appears as it would during a normal boot, but holding the button for an extended duration brings up a progress bar, and the device then launches into the new recovery environment […]

RCS in iOS 27

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-03

Ryan Christoffel: Today following iOS 27 beta 2’s arrival, Aaron Perris discovered that the update adds at least two key RCS improvements: Proper reaction support, so no more “Aaron loved an image” messages In-line replies Previously: iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5

SwiftData in appleOS 27

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-03

SwiftData updates: Section your query results by creating your query with a macro that takes a sectionBy parameter, as listed on the Additional query macros page. Use types that conform to Codable in a model, including types you don’t control directly, by using the codable option for Schema.Attribute. Receive real-time updates to models that match […]

Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-03

The unusually long sentences criminalize being an anti-fascist activist, reading the wrong zines, and using the wrong communication apps. They're incredibly dangerous.

Thundermail June 2026 update: what we learned after the first few waves of invites

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-02

Over the past several weeks, we have been welcoming early users from our waitlist into Thundermail, a few waves at a time. Many of you are now setting up your accounts, trying things out, and sharing your thoughts with us. Naming updates You may have noticed that we are now saying Thundermail more often, and […]

The post Thundermail June 2026 update: what we learned after the first few waves of invites appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

Where Apple Mail hides ‘All Sent’ in Tahoe

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-02

My wife’s Mac laptop has ‘All Sent’ listed under ‘Favorites’ in the left panel of her Apple Mail app. Everywhere my Big AIs and I looked online, however, we didn’t see a way to add it, until ChatGPT suggested I mouse over the Favorites heading to see what appears. The two items that showed up […]

Monitor and alert about composer and npm package security vulnerabilities

2026-06-23

This might be one of those itches that affects one person and one person alone, but I scratched it and now I’m sharing the result just in case someone else finds it helpful. There are some great tools out there already to tell you if you are running outdated and vulnerable composer dependencies in your … Continue reading Monitor and alert about composer and npm package security vulnerabilities

The post Monitor and alert about composer and npm package security vulnerabilities appeared first on Chris Hardie's Tech and Software Blog.

What Is AI-Driven Infrastructure?

2026-06-23

AI-Driven Infrastructure gives IT a digital junior admin that clears routine work and frees senior staff to design and scale, with the administrator always in control.

What Comes After The Refugee Camp

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-02

The post What Comes After The Refugee Camp appeared first on NOEMA.

Nameless (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la necesidad de conectar y la imposibilidad de hacerlo

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-06-26

Dirección: Hideo Jôjô. Guion: Jiro Sato, Hideo Jôjô. Elenco: Jiro Sato, Ryuhei Maruyama, Megumi, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Kazuhiko, Mira Koshiba. País: Japón. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt42972499/ Para las personas, el nombrar y ser nombrado es uno de los primeros actos de conexión. Lo hacemos hasta con animales e, incluso, objetos inanimados que son de […]

La entrada Nameless (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la necesidad de conectar y la imposibilidad de hacerlo se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

[$] KASAN for JIT-compiled BPF code

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-06-26

Alexis Lothoré has been working to add support for the kernel's memory-access checker,KASAN, to just-in-time-compiled BPF code. He spoke about that work at the 2026Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit. KASAN support is needed, he said, to help catch bugs in the BPF just-in-time (JIT) compiler. KASAN is a great tool for catching memory-management problems in the kernel, but only in code that can be monitored by it.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-05

I took a screen shot of this post, gave it to Claude, asked it to write a short paragraph summary. Then I asked it to rewrite with using no more than 300 chars, the limit on Bluesky. Now I can post the summary there, but I won't, at the moment of truth I had to disclose this wasn't written by me, and it was 290 chars and there wasn't enough room for that. And here's a screen shot of the conversation with Claude.

PACT: Anonymous Credentials for the Web

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-06-28

This is the technical companion to our update on Distilled, “Keeping the web open and private in the bot era.” Here we take a deeper look at the problem space, the design we’re proposing, and the problems still left to solve. Bots (and privacy-preserving browsers) not welcome Browse a news site in a private window. Shop […]

The post PACT: Anonymous Credentials for the Web appeared first on Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog.

Image Classification Comes to encoderfile

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-06

Encoderfile now handles images. Starting with image classification, you can run vision models as a single executable — no Python runtime, no serving infrastructure, just a file path in and a label out.

Let's Show Bob Brooks (PA-7) Some Love Today, Trump's Failed War Keeps Failing, Talarico's 1st General Election Ad

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-02

People are voting in Maryland, New York, South Carolina, and Utah today......

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-06-27

This is where you find out if Claude is down. And this morning it is.

The shape of the next world

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-04

There was a long discussion last night on Bluesky about whether twitter-like apps should show blog posts in addition to tweet-size things. Should it have a character limit, allow titles, links, bold, italic, editing, enclosures, markdown, etc? This is a permathread, it's been going since 2006. I didn't contribute, because there are no new ideas at this point, except this -- there are readers and writers and they have different needs.

As a reader sometimes I want a concise intro to the idea and I'll decide if I want to read more.

As a writer, I want to write in one place, and broadcast it out the world, and let their reading app decide for them if this is something they want to read based on whether it has a title, is over 300 chars, has links or uses styling, or if the writer doesn't disclaim editing, and the reader doesn't like editing.

We can do a lot better than the hard restrictions our reading environments force on us. It's now 20 years since the inception of Twitter, I think we know enough now to try out some new approaches. There should be a million readers, and they all read the same content flows. They can look at a post and see if it meets the reader's limits, and only show it if it does. If a post has a title and we don't want posts with titles, don't show it. Then writers could all use exactly the writing tools we like, and it wouldn't matter where you read it.

This route has always been there, but now I think people will be open to trying out some new ideas.

Forgotten Castles And Butlerian Jihad

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

AI's Affordability Crisis

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-07-06

A year ago in The Back Of The AI Envelope I pointed out that the AI platforms were running the drug-dealer's algorithm, "the first one's free". By massively subsidizing the use of their products, they were generating overwhelming demand for them. They used this demand to justify massive investments, in the hope that, by the time they had to show a return on these invetment, the users would be so addicted that they would pay the vastly higher prices needed to generate a return.

David Cahn, Sept '23 I have to confess that I was late to the party. The earliest skepticism I've been able to find was from Sequoia Capital's David Cahn in September 2023, entitled AI’s $200B Question. Only nine months later Cahn re-ran the same analysis in AI’s $600B Question. His estimate of the revenue gap had tripled. Cahn wasn't alone. Independent journalists such as Ed Zitron were flagging this problem long before I was.

I started to write this post a couple of months ago when the maiinstream business press began to notice companies complaining about the cost of the tokens their employees were burning. Since then the trickle has turned into a flood, which made finishing the post hard. Below the fold I throw up my hands and dump out a small sample from the flood.

One difficulty has been that estimates of the size of the subsidy have varied widely, typically in the range of costing the platforms $8 to $14 to generate $1 in revenue. Two recent posts from Ed Zitron have illuminated this issue.

Source First, in AI's Brokenomics Zitron reported that:

SemiAnalysis, an extremely pro-AI semiconductor analyst, ran a test made up of random long-horizon coding tasks until they maxed out the limit on OpenAI and Anthropic’s various subscription levels.

Their findings were shocking.

For $200 A Month, You Can Burn $8000 in Anthropic Tokens or $14,000 In OpenAI Tokens

That’s right. Anyone with a $200-a-month Anthropic subscription can burn $8000 in tokens, and with a $200-a-month ChatGPT subscription, you can burn $14,000 in tokens.

Source Zitron's numbers don't tell us the real cost of generating tokens but, subject to the assumption that the platforms are not subsidizing the token price, that means Anthropic is subsidizing their enterprise customers by up to 40 times, and OpenAI up to 70 times. No wonder they are seeing massive demand! But, despite OpenAI's subsidy being 175% of Anthropic's, OpenAI's adoption by businesses has recently been flat while Anthropic's has soared.

Source SemiAnalysis also analyzed the platform's gross margins, implausibly assuming that tokens were priced at 4 times the cost of generating them and:

With the current subsidies, all it takes for a user to have a gross margin of at best negative 25% is for them to use as little as 25% of their rate limit.

Naturally, subsidizing your sales like this means you are feeding cash into the furnace. We have seen OpenAI and Anthropic raising vast sums in equity, but because they both have been private companies we haven't seen the details of their spending or revenue. On June 15th this changed when Zitron saw OpenAI's 20025 financials and posted OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion, revealing that:

OpenAI Had $13.07 Billion In Revenue, $34 Billion In Costs and Expenses, and $20.92 Billion In Losses, with a net loss attributable to the company of $38.53 Billion

The numbers are somewhat complicated because:

2025 was the year that OpenAI converted from a non-profit to a for-profit entity, leading to a $41.55 billion loss due to changes in fair value of convertible interests and warrant liability.

...

Ultimately, the net loss attributable to OpenAI in 2025 was $38.5 billion.

At the end of the year, OpenAI had just over $50 billion in assets, with almost half of that in cash.

Perhaps the most striking of their truly awful numbers were:

Revenue: $13.07 billion

...

Sales and Marketing: $5.73 billion

That is, OpenAI spent 44% of their revenue on sales and marketing! The hype needed to keep the AI bubble inflated is incredibly expensive. Despite this lavish spending, business adoption has been flat.

US equity markets are facing three IPOs of AI companies, SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI, each led by a world-class bullshitter, each losing tens of billions fo dollars a quarter, and all but SpaceX touting overwhelming demand for their products[ 1]. But, after they go public, they will need to charge enough to generate a return on their enormous capital investments. Ideally, they would have postponed the necessary swingeing price increases until the IPO money is in the bank.

Alas, their burn rate is so high that they have been forced to make some premature moves toward price sanity. Back in April Ed Zitron reported that Microsoft To Shift GitHub Copilot Users To Token-Based Billing, Tighten Rate Limits:

Leaked internal documents viewed by Where’s Your Ed At reveal that Microsoft intends to pause new signups for the student and paid individual tiers of AI coding product GitHub Copilot, tighter rate limits, and eventually move users to “token-based billing,” charging them based on what the actual cost of their token burn really is.

The document says that although token-based billing has been a top priority for Microsoft, it became more urgent in recent months, with the week-over-week cost of running GitHub Copilot nearly doubling since January.

The move to token-based billing will see GitHub users charged based on their usage of the platform, and how many tokens their prompts consume — and thus, how much compute they use.

Anthropic, OpenAI and Microsoft have all now transitioned customers from subscriptions to token-based pricing. For serious users, this is eye-wateringly expensive. Jamie John, Rafe Rosner-Uddin and Ryan McMorrow's ‘We created a monster’: companies rein in AI usage as costs strain budgets quotes a small company's CEO:

But the company got a shock when Anthropic switched it over to token-based pricing in May. “Our spend went up 7x the first day and I’m like, oh shit, we created a monster,” said Busse. “[Large language model] companies have been subsidising all of our usage and now no longer. User-based pricing shelters you.”

Thus in recent weeks the idea that Generative AI (LLMs for short) is too expensive has been all over mainstream business media. Examples include Bloomberg's video Major Companies Reconsider AI Costs, Scott Galloway's video AI May Not Be Worth The Cost — Here’s Why, Derek Thompson's The AI Boom Has Entered Its 'Wait, Is This Worth It?' Era, and Jowi Morales' AI cost crisis hits tech giants as employee 'tokenmaxxing' backfires, sparking corporate pullback at Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon — agentic AI eats up to 1000x more tokens than standard AI, who notes that:

it’s now apparent that using AI is more expensive than hiring people, especially since it offers only limited productivity gains at the moment.

Lest you think it is only the AI haters complaining about the cost, check out Bruno Ferreira's Nvidia exec says AI is more expensive than actual workers — yet some companies don't see the extra costs as a negative:

Bryan Catanzaro, Nvidia's VP of applied deep learning, recently told Axios that "For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees", quite an interesting statement from the company selling the shovels for the gold rush.

That perspective is shared by Uber's CTO Praveen Naga, who "[went] back to the drawing board because the budget [he] thought [he] would need is blown away already" as of two weeks ago. Likewise, Swan AI's Amos Bar-Joseph posted a while back on LinkedIn about how proud he was about a $113k bill from Anthropic (makers of Claude) for a four-person team.

Oversimplified math pins that amount that at $28k per person per month, which is likely more than each person's monthly wages. Jokes abound right now that "companies have discovered jobs again," and the humor is backed up by a 2024 MIT study stating that 77% of the time, it was preferable to have humans do the work.

Source The reason is for the premature and impending price rises is that justifying the massive investment in building data centers, about 60% of which goes into rapidly depreciating hardware, requires implausibly astronomical revenues. Thierry Borgeat notes that:

even under "best case" assumptions — assuming zero costs, just revenue against capex — the Financial Times calculated the implied return on hyperscaler AI investment from 2025 to 2030.

Only one of them clears positive.

Implied return on AI investment (FT / Panmure Liberum)

– Microsoft: -9.2%

– Alphabet: -15.7%

– Amazon: +7.2%

– Meta: -28.8%

– Oracle: -35.6%

And remember: that's assuming zero costs. In reality, GPUs depreciate, power bills run, salaries get paid.

In The AI Industry Is Panicking, Will Lockett estimates that over the next few years the AI platforms will accumulate around $3T in debt. Assuming this is at 3% over 10 years, servicing the debt will take $309B/year:

This means that for the AI industry to service its debt, it needs to generate hundreds of billions of dollars in profit each year.

Even giant monopolies like Google don’t make enough profit to service that much debt. AI can’t just be a novelty industry; it needs to replace human labour on a colossal scale to service this debt. Let’s optimistically assume AI one day reaches a 10% profitability margin, a cost parity with human labour, and the ability to complete most jobs (none of which are currently the case). Well, the average US salary is roughly $66,000, so at a 10% profit, the AI company will make on average $6,600 per year per job it replaces. To generate the $309 billion needed to service their debt, the AI industry will need to replace 46.8 million jobs, equivalent to around 27% of the current number of jobs in the US.

While this is all very rough maths, it highlights the implicit bet created by the debt the AI industry has racked up. To simply not default on this debt, the AI industry has to rapidly displace human labour at a staggering scale, even if we are extremely optimistic about AI’s economics.

One caveat with Lockett's math is that the cost of employing a human is greater than just the salary. It includes the employer's Social Security tax, health insurance, office space and so on. Chatbots don't need any of these. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Wages and salaries averaged $32.60 per hour worked and accounted for 69.9 percent of employer costs, while benefit costs averaged $14.01 per hour worked and accounted for the remaining 30.1 percent.

So the average profit per job would be around $9.5K, and the number of jobs displaced would be around 32.5KM.

How was the switch to token-based pricing received? We can guess from three pieces of recent news:

OpenAI's Sam Altman said that costs have become a "huge issue" for customers and the company is considering "drastic" price cuts to rein in rival Anthropic PBC’s lead in the corporate market.
Kyle Orland reported that Anthropic “pauses” token-based billing for its Claude Agent SDK:

Last month, Anthropic announced a billing change that would have substantially increased costs for heavy users of its automation-focused Claude Agent SDK, including many third-party apps. On Monday, though, Anthropic abruptly announced it had paused those pricing changes just as they were set to take effect, allowing Agent SDK users to continue drawing from the more generous usage limits in their existing Claude subscriptions.
Microsoft Plans June 30, 2026 Shift From Claude Code to Copilot CLI:

Microsoft is reportedly cancelling most Claude Code access for engineers in its Experiences and Devices division by June 30, 2026, shifting teams working on Windows, Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, and Surface toward GitHub Copilot CLI as the company tries to rein in internal AI coding costs. The decision is more than a procurement tweak. It is a rare glimpse into what happens when the world’s most aggressive AI software company runs into the same metered-billing problem now facing every large engineering organization.

Historically, companies wishing to IPO would be profitable. More recently they could have a successful IPO by showing a plausible path to profitability. Now, SpaceX has shown that even massive losses and a claimed path to profitability that is completely implausible is not a barrier to a successful IPO. But even despite this example, one would think that the last thing two companies racing to IPO despite massive losses and implausible paths to profitability would want would be to engage in a "drastic" price war.

Footnotes

xAI's product is so bad that even their employees won't use it and Musk has said it needs to be re-written from the ground up. So xAI has been reduced to renting its compute infrastructure to its competitors.

Sunsetting Tor 0.4.8

2026-06-23, updated: 2026-06-26

The Tor Project has announced that it is planning to actively stop supporting Tor 0.4.8 and earlier C Tor versions soon.

Usually, we try not to break existing releases, even if they are unsupported, unless we have a pretty good reason. In this case, we have several reasons. [...]

The most important reason is this: in 0.4.9, we have made some former fields in our directory data obsolete -- specifically, TAP
onion keys and family
lines. Removing these fields will let us save a great deal of client directory bandwidth for everyone. This, in turn, will make all Tor clients bootstrap a little faster, especially those on slow connections. But when we remove these fields, clients and relays running earlier versions of Tor will no longer work, since they expect the TAP onion keys to be present. Therefore, in order to deliver improved performance faster, we need to accelerate the date on which 0.4.8 will stop working.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

2d4b0a45 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

e9e867fc - updated gis package

8c0667a4 - updated data quality

782f123c - updated bibliography

c9a21cb0 - updated indexes

ee25c5a8 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

9c504001 - updated geojson and names index

The post Purism Announces Launch of Its Librem 16 Laptop, the World’s Most Private and Secure Workstation appeared first on Purism.

THE JPY IS ON THE BRINK OF IMPLODING

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-02

While everyone’s attention is polarized by anything involving the peace negotiations between Iran and the US, negotiations that, to be fair, have been more like a “these are my requests, take it or leave it” from Iran and “Ok ok, we take it” from the US, the JPY has been...

The post THE JPY IS ON THE BRINK OF IMPLODING appeared first on JustDario.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-26

Alan Greenspan obituary: Architect of the modern American economy dies aged 100.

One Angry Man

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

And the existential threat he poses

Regime Change: The Big Beautiful Beach Read

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

As many as 30,000 English language books have been written about Donald Trump since he first eyed the White House in 2016, but only one has managed to weave together his maniacal haphazard decision-making with the vaunting stream of consciousness that inflates his indefatigable will to power.

Predicting Political Outcomes

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

With Civly

The Simple Solution to Trump's Reflecting Pool Scandal

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

It’s more eco-friendly than hydrogen peroxide, and less toxic than letting rumors fester. But Trump will never do it, because he never has.

CrashReportExtension

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-03

CrashReportExtension: The Crash Report Extension framework allows you to perform analysis and produce a report when your app crashes. Your crash-handling code executes out-of-process, rather than from a signal handler or other in-process techniques. You implement your handler by writing an app extension that conforms to the CrashReporterExtension protocol. The system calls your processCrashReport(process:) method […]

GIMP 0.54.1 in a Flatpak

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-26

The GIMP project reports that GNOME contributor "balooii" has worked to package GIMP 0.54.1—released in 1996—as a Flatpak that will build and run on modern 64-bit Linux systems. This is a Motif-based version, and the same version that was used
by Larry Ewing to create Tux.

While not likely to be useful for serious graphics work today, it should be interesting for users who would like to see what a 30-year-old version of GIMP was capable of.

R.I.P. Alan Greenspan: You were charming, thoughtful, powerful, and wrong

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-30

His insistence on financial deregulation brought the economy to its knees

Thanks for Nothing (Raindance Film Festival 2026): de crisis y amistades

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-24

Dirección: Stella Marie Markert. Guion: Stella Marie Markert. Elenco: Lea Drinda, Safinaz Sattar, Zoe Stein, Sonja Weißer, Ludger Bökelmann. País: Alemania. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37021531/ Thanks for nothing es un drama coming of age con toques de comedia sobre un grupo de adolescentes disfuncionales que conviven en un apartamento en Berlín. Si bien […]

La entrada Thanks for Nothing (Raindance Film Festival 2026): de crisis y amistades se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Il fait trop chaud [en]

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-04

[en] Tellement trop chaud que mes neurones sont liquéfiés. Je sais, c’est comme ça pour tout le monde dans cette vague de chaleur caniculaire. Faites attention à vous. Je voulais écrire des trucs, ces derniers temps. Mais j’ai dû faire plus attention à économiser mon énergie. Je suis en train d’apprendre, encore. Je suis dans … Continue reading "Il fait trop chaud [en]"

Consistency, But in Excellence Not Appearance

2026-06-22

Consistency serves a purpose in visual design, but it seems to have become the purpose of a lot of visual design.

Look no further than these evolutions of macOS icons ( image courtesy of BasicAppleGuy):

The Creator Studio icons are undeniably consistent visually: rounded rectangles, controlled gradients, simplified forms, restrained depth, etc.

In contrast (and by modern standards) the originals seem heretically inconsistent. They lack coherence in visual details like shape, material, and lighting.

But what they lack in visual consistency between one another, they make up for in excellence individually.

In fact, their aversion to familial visual consistency almost seems like an intentional choice — a deliberate augmentation of individual purpose.

What purpose? To be singularly representative and deeply iconic.

Icons that are iconic.

To be iconic, by definition, is to be famously distinctive.

None of the Creator Studio icons, especially when held up as a suite, are iconic. None are atypical, they’re merely typical.

All in pursuit of what, consistency — amongst each other and across platforms — as the overriding goal?

This over-emphasis on “systems” design seems endemic to modern software.

Systems prescribe rules because they are the easiest attributes to document, enforce, and automate — “All icons must use this shape, this lighting, this stroke.”

Excellence, by contrast, is harder to systematize. It requires judgment, taste, care, experience, and a sensitivity to context — all in service of meaning and purpose, not superficial similarity.

When you strive for consistency across a suite, individual elements lose their ability to be exceptional and iconic on their own terms. Consistency for the group becomes a ceiling on individual excellence.

But if you flip that, if you make excellence the goal for each individual element, something interesting can happen: excellence becomes your motif of consistency. It’s no longer a consistency of shapes and gradients, but one of quality and intention that serves a deeper meaning and purpose than superficial visuals.

Give me a consistency of excellence any day over a consistency of appearance.

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Bluesky

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-26

Blogs, traffic, and Google.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-26

Clive Davis, music executive and champion of legendary pop artists, has died at 94.

What Was Matt Thinking?

2026-06-22

The high schooler who developed everyone’s forums and guestbooks in 1996 didn’t really think about security when he was building all that software. But Matt’s Script Archive was more than exploits.

Wed, June 24th, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-02

A reminder about our "Housekeeping" page that helps you get the most out of your Hopium subscription and/or troubleshoot challenges like all of a sudden not getting emails from us......

Why Are LLMs Smart?

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

A popular way to explain how current LLMs work is to say that “all” they do is predict the next most likely word in a sentence.

2026-06-22 Alte Bücher einkaufen, digitalisieren und vernichten

2026-06-22

2026-06-22 Alte Bücher einkaufen, digitalisieren und vernichten

Als ich auf unserem Firmenausflug in Innsbruck war (Firmengründung vor 30 Jahren), haben mich in der Innenstadt zwei junge Menschen angesprochen und mich gefragt, ob sie mich kurz (auf Englisch) für ihre Schule zum Thema AI befragen (und dabei filmen) dürften. “Ich glaube, ich bin nicht der richtige für euch,” meinte ich. “Er ist genau der richtige für euch,” meinte meine Frau. Und dann habe ich mit ihnen Diskutiert und meine Argumente vorgebracht, die künftigen Einsatzgebiete, die Risiken für die Wirtschaft, die Gesellschaft, uns persönlich, die ethische Dimension, und so weiter.

Und heute sehe ich in den Nachrichten, dass US Firmen sehr wahrscheinlich hunderttausende von Büchern aus europäischen Antiquariaten bestellen, um sie zu scannen und dann zu vernichten (vermutlich, um sich vor Gericht auf Fair Use berufen zu können). So lerne ich nie aus: Es gibt immer neue Details, die einzeln betrachtet nicht so schlimm sind, in der Masse aber bedenklich sind. Klar, die alten Bücher hat ja keiner gekauft. Aber die Bücher werden ja nicht eingelesen, damit man das Digitalisat der ganzen Menschheit frei zur Verfügung stellen kann. Nein, genau das passiert nicht. Ein paar Jahre lang wird es für diejenigen, die es sich leisten können, seine Dienste tun, wenn die Firma untergeht und die Zeiten sich wandeln, die Datenbanken heruntergefahren und die Bücher gelöscht werden, dann haben wir hundert Jahre später soviel davon wie von den Büchern in der Bibliothek von Alexandria. Also nichts.

Palettenweise wandern Sachbücher und Romane aus europäischen Antiquariaten in die USA. Dahinter stecken mutmasslich KI-Unternehmen: Sie nutzen gedruckte Bücher als Rohdaten für ihre Sprachmodelle – und werfen sie nach dem Scannen in die Tonne. – KI-Firmen kaufen Antiquariate leer – und vernichten die Bücher, von Sven Ahnert, für SRG

#AI

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

Writing of lasting value

The Clown Show Moves To Switzerland, Ukraine Gains in Crimea, Let's Rally For Cait Conley Today!!!!!!!!!!!!

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-01

June 30th filing deadline is now a week away - let's rally for our courageous candidates across the country!!!!!!

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-05

OMG new obsession just dropped.

An OS built on Swift, and it looks very tasteful.

https://swiftos.tech/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-03

Louis CK: Everything is amazing and nobody is happy.

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-06-22:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

4 new and 114 updated places. 10 new and 115 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

9a863e28 - updated json

6abb46dd - updated rdf/ttl

81a67845 - updated gis package

2ce51936 - updated data quality

0286185c - updated bibliography

fcaf3c53 - updated indexes

c4353ac4 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

265db3cc - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

e9e06d88 - updated pleiades wikidata

@Ryan Gantz Bluesky feed

2026-06-22

we're all pronouncing it "blue-skee" now, yeah?

The Black List and Zando are hunting for the next great horror novel.

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-23

Attention, thrill-seekers. The Black List and Zando are teaming up on a mission to identify the next great horror novelist. Could it be you? The inaugural Evil Twin Manuscript Initiative will select an unpublished or self-published horror novel for a

Our Gas Stove Kept Breaking – So We Switched to an Induction Cooktop

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-02

With an induction cooktop, we’re saving money and cutting indoor air pollution.

The post Our Gas Stove Kept Breaking – So We Switched to an Induction Cooktop appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

First preview release of Xfce's Wayland compositor

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-25

Brian Tarricone has announced the first preview release of xfwl4, a Wayland compositor for the Xfce desktop environment.

After close to six months of work, I feel like it's ready to get some wider use, even though of course there will be bugs and missing features. Think of this as an alpha release. [...]

The end goal of xfwl4 is to behave as closely as possible to an Xfce desktop running on an X server. Ideally a user could switch between the two without even knowing there's a difference. In reality, of course, it won't be quite that seamless, and there's still more work to be done to get as close as possible to that ideal. This is a first solid cut at it, at the very least.

Maker Monday: A summer of Raspberry Pi community events

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

2026-06-22

I haven’t thought about the privacy issues surrounding professional athletes and wearables.

Wearables present serious privacy issues for “Average Joe” consumers, who are entrusting tech companies to safely store and protect their biometric data. Imagine the stakes for a professional athlete, whose entire livelihood could be affected by a single biometric data point. To give one of many realistic hypotheticals: a basketball player has a terrible game, and the coach wonders if they showed up to the gym hungover. The coach has access to the player’s wearable data, and checks to see when they went to sleep, as well as what their heart rate looked like during the night. Should the player have been out partying before a game? No. Should the coach be able to surveil them? Definitely not...

🔖 ElectricityMaps

At Electricity Maps, we’re data scientists, first and foremost.

Data comes in from many sources, and in many formats. We ingest and harmonize it, apply our models to it, and make it available to the world. This is the place to learn more about our data; read FAQs, or deep dive in our methodology.

electricity energy geo map vis

🔖 BLOBPROC

BLOBPROC is a less kafkaesque version of PDF postprocessing found in sandcrawler, which is part of IA Scholar infra. Specifically it is designed to process and persist documents with minimum number of external components and little to no state.

The goal is to have artifacts (fulltext, thumbnails, metadata, …) derived from millions of PDF files available in a storage system (e.g. S3). In the best case, the artifacts can be kept up to date in an unattended way

metadata pdf webarchive

🔖 AI-assisted engineers are burning out, is this fine?

We’re more productive than ever. AI allows us to generate code at supersonic speeds, unfold entire modules in seconds, and ship thousands of lines of code. It’s easier to pick up tasks and generate value, even in unfamiliar codebases. But there’s a dark side. AI-assisted code generation isn’t free; there’s a hidden cost that we as an industry are only beginning to realize: AI burnout. Are we dangerously ignorant to this problem? And how can we cope with it?

ai labor programming work

🔖 Banned Book Library

A long while back I had an idea to hack a WiFi smart light bulb to do something more useful to me. Actually, I had a few different ideas of things to do with them. One of these ideas was to modify the device to have an open WiFi access point and a web server hosting banned books. The idea was that if you lived somewhere that banned books you thought were important, you could theoretically stick a digital copy of the book on one of these light bulbs. Then you could go install it somewhere in your community

arguing book censorship embedded web

🔖 Library byBen Brown

Library

book library

🔖 AI Economics for Dummies

As AI companies get ready to go public and we get a deeper look at their inner workings, it’s only natural to have questions about their finances, like “Do they make money?” and “How?” Here are a few examples to help the average layperson understand the business side of AI.

ai humor scifi

🔖 Jerry’s Map

… the Map is now a two-dimensional “virtual world” art project which is now comprised of over 4000 individual eight by ten inch panels. When assembled, these panels form an approximate circle. The panel locations are defined by N, S, E, and W coordinates that originate at the center of the circle. The locations in the matrix do not change, but the panels themselves are continually revised based on instructions drawn from the artist’s custom deck of cards.

art game map random

🔖 He won’t stopbuilding a map to an imaginary place.

The remarkable story of Jerry Gretzinger and the map he’s dedicated his life to making.

map video

🔖 Building a Small Language Model (SLM)

A step-by-step Jupyter Notebook demonstrating how to build and train a compact small language model (“SLM”) from scratch using the TinyStories dataset. Covers data preparation, BPE tokenization, efficient binary storage, GPU memory locking, Transformer architecture, training configuration, and sample text generation.

llm python slm

🔖 Togetherness by Rowan Hooper review – a stunning portrait of cooperationin nature

Hooper adores Darwin – his account of visiting Darwin’s Kent residence Down House radiates reverence (“it’s a pseudo-religious experience”). But he feels that Darwinism and its union with genetics in the so-called “modern synthesis” has placed undue emphasis on competition in the natural world and underplayed the roles of cooperation and collaboration. In redressing that imbalance, Togetherness is not an attempt to make evolution cuddlier and more palatable; rather, it is a corrective deeply informed by what we have learned since Darwin about how nature works. Written with immense charm and passion, and packed with eye-popping facts, it is also a paean to the wonders of nature and the value and urgency of preserving them.

book cooperation evolution nature science

🔖 A hidden infrastructure

Underground networks

Beneath our feet lie networks of invisible ecosystem engineers: arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi.

These fungi form trading relationships with more than 70% of plant species, building networks of tubular cells called hyphae that extend the surface area of root systems up to a hundred-fold.

Collectively, these networks comprise one of Earth’s circulatory systems.

fungi life map network vis

🔖 Most Gen AI Players Remain ‘Far Away’ from Profiting: Interview withAndy Wu

Most people are aware of the high fixed cost of training the leading generative AI models, but there are also significant variable costs of “inference” in using generative AI. These inference costs are incurred every time we enter a prompt and receive a response.

economics llm

🔖 The Era of Cheap AI Is Over

In the words of Harvard business professor Andy Wu, most people don’t realize how “ridiculously expensive” AI is. Most are aware of the high fixed costs, but not the variable inference costs incurred every time the model generates an image. OpenAI expects to spend more than $150 billion on inference costs alone through 2030. While the vast majority of users continue to access the platform for free, the question is how the gap between resources and revenue will eventually close, and who will bear the costs.

ai economics energy llm politics

🔖 Mesforêts

«Son nom semble la relier à une constellation, mais sa présence au monde la rend indissociable des paysages qu’elle traverse : Hélène Dorion vit environnée de lacs et de forêts, de fleuves et de rivages, de brumes de mémoire et de vastes estuaires où la pensée s’évase. Dans ce recueil voué aux forêts, elle fait entendre le chant de l’arbre, comme il existe un chant d’amour et des voix de plain-chant. « Mes forêts… », dit-elle dans un souffle qui se densifie de poème en poème. Et l’on entre à pas de loup dans une forêt de signes où l’on déchiffre la partition de la vie sur fond de ciel, sur fond de terre, sur fond de neige, de feuillages persistants et de flammes qu’emporte le vent, de bourgeons sertis dans l’écorce et de renouvellement. Un chemin d’ombres et de lumière, qui donne sens à ce qu’on appelle humanité. »

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🔖 Pudsey CloughRadio

If you have problems with webpage playback try these stream buttons,or add the urls below to VLC or any other streaming/netradio software:https://orllewin.radioca.st/stream - High quality 256kbps stream.https://orllewin.radioca.st/lofi - Bandwidth friendly 64kbps stream.

radio

🔖 MANIFESTO JAM 2026

The manifesto, in my imagined alternative, is the ugly smear on the polished surfaces of conference keynotes, aspirational #bizdev posts and job-ready portfolio pieces. The manifesto is awkward, clunky, impractical, confronting, uncompromising, defiant: all qualifiers undesirable in an increasingly professionalised, corporatised game making ecosystem. These traits are what makes the manifesto beautiful.

art game manifesto

🔖 Dither Explorer

An interactive visualization of how various dithering algorithms work.

algorithm image vis

🔖 Microsoft turns to Amazon for help with GitHub’s AI-driven capacityissues

Microsoft is turning to its biggest cloud rival, Amazon, to help address capacity issues on its GitHub coding platform following a series of AI-driven outages, according to two people familiar with the plans.

GitHub, which Microsoft acquired in 2018, is a popular place for engineers to store and manage code, and collaborate on projects. As an independent company, GitHub mostly operated its own data centers, but Microsoft had planned to move the coding platform entirely to its Azure cloud service by 2027.

Now, a boom in AI demand is forcing Microsoft to lean on Amazon. AI coding tools have made it easier for developers to write more software. That has swamped GitHub with a flood of new code, straining its compute resources.

ai aws github microsoft

June 21, 2026

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-27

I spent so much time in my friend Mike’s house growing up that I knew his parents as Mama and Papa.

Week Four in 250 to 250

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-27

This was the fourth week of videos from the 250 to 250 Project that we’re producing to honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-06-25

“Google Just Turned Street View Into a Video Game.”

Midwinter

2026-06-22, updated: 2026-07-06

You can feel the weariness at any tech meetup you go to these days. People put a brave face on and try to pretend that they're still excited about tech, still innovating, still trying stuff... but the room feels tired more than anything. There are no new ideas in evidence, just half a hundred variants of the same conversation of how people are using AI to do... something. Even the current vogue of coding agents is, by and large, part of the same phenomenon: it's not that a lot of people don't care about code or writing good code or anything so much as they're exhausted with an industry where nothing they do matters, management jargon keeps changing arbitrarily, as do the fashions in the tech industry and the entire product that they maintain is, more than anything, an elaborate form of theatre to get money from the people who currently hold most of the wealth in tech.

Monday 22 June, 2026

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-07-05

Through a glass, brightly A window in a lovely old Yorkshire hotel Quote of the Day ”The markets are moved by animal spirits, and not by reason.” John Maynard Keynes C.f. the current AI ‘investment’ bubble Musical alternative to the … Continue reading →

Episode 184 - What Is A Programming Language?

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-07-06

I mean that both in the specific and the abstract. This episode we are looking at APL, which stands for A Programming Language. APL was developed in the mid 50s, but didn't see a working implementation until 1965. It's a language that truly looks like no others, but has some odd parallels to everything from BASIC to LISP to linear algebra.

Learn APL at: tryapl.org

https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/APL.htm - A Programming Language

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-07-05

I made an approximation of notorious foodie tuna melt and I went to heaven and back.

I didn’t take pictures. But man, this was sublime. I substituted his spices for just plain chipotle as that all I had:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTBWHfMUX/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-07-02

Braintrust query: Do you have a copy of Radio UserLand that runs?

Some news from Brian Tyler Cohen...

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-07-06

I'm partnering with the Free Election Fund to preserve free and fair elections.

Sunday caption contest: Reflecting pool

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-06-29

And last week's winner

@Barack Obama @Bsky

2026-06-21

To all the dads out there – Happy Father’s Day!

Nothing we do is more fulfilling!

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-06-30

Looking at the picture of the four ex-presidents at the opening of the Obama library, all I can think is that each of them played a part in creating Trump. Obama gave away the Supreme Court (see above). Clinton literally got blow jobs from a White House employee in the Oval Office. It's like wiping your ass with the American flag. That is fucked up, I don't care how fucked up the Repubs are. Bush, don't get me started on Bush. He seems like a sweet old dude now, but he was definitely on the path to Trump. And Biden -- his job as POTUS was to protect the United States. At that he failed in every imaginable way. Gauge the insult by what's happening now. Biden could have prevented all of this. He was too vain to see he had failed and decided he should run again! Holy shit. I'm ten years younger than he was and I don't think I'd have any business being president of anything. ;-)

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-06-30

Reply on Twitter: "There's a great comic routine, forget who did it, Dave Chapelle maybe, about how people complain about how shitty air travel is, never stopping to realize that it's utterly amazing that there even is such a thing."

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-07-02

With AI you can have a team of assistants available on call at any time. The other day I went from working on a deep technical problem (changing the format of a permalink, which is also used as an id) quickly and correctly and then immediately switching to how to format a blog post so it looks like something produced by a professional writing app. Same thread. It's amazing how much it knows about all aspects of what I do. And it does more than write code. It handles complexity so much better than I do, which means I get to develop products that work better and do more. If I get an idea long after I've moved on from a section of code it can still be implemented with equal quality. There is no such thing as a human being that can do the things it does. A big bug in the critiques people have about it replacing humans. When jet planes came along did they complain that they would replace taxi drivers? Things never work out the way you think they will when they're new. This is my third such rodeo. Sometimes the concerns are obvious and true, btw. That happens as well.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-06-30

We lost a lot more than a few hundred billion in Iran war. We had invested much more over 80 years on peace in the Middle East. In one brief orgy of violence Trump threw that away.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-06-30

I don't think Obama deserves to go down as a good president. He let the fascists in. His big moment was when he let Mitch McConnell keep his Supreme Court nominee from being approved. Never should have conceded. He didn't fight at all. He was president of the United States, the place where the buck stops.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-21, updated: 2026-06-25

The Website Specification. Really interesting project.

Arthur’s Empire (Raindance Film Festival 2026): hombres al borde de un ataque de nervios

The sun peeking over the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. A globe of firey starstuff over calm waves, orange and red spreading out into the sky.

Aubrey Plaza Announces ‘Kevin’ Cancellation, Hopes Show “Will Find A New Owner Someday”

2026-06-21

Prime Video has apparently opted to put Kevin down, but series co-creator Aubrey Plaza has hopes the animated show about a talking cat will get to use one of its other nine lives. On Saturday, the Golden Globe nominee announced the “very disappointing” news that the show she co-created with ex Joe Wengert about their […]

@Barack Obama @Bsky

2026-06-21

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-30

Doing a prior art search and came across this early DaveNet example. The left column had the blue ribbon for free speech on the web, and below were links to the archive pages for each of the years. Screen shot. About ten years of essay writing. DaveNet was where the blog started, and then it became an arm of the blog home page which also included titleless posts, example, and then all the action moved onto the new home page and that was the end of this layout.

The George Carlin Model of AI

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-29

Forty-five years ago, George Carlin forecast the future of AI: Listen to what George says, if you haven’t already. You can stop about two and a half minutes in, after he talks about how all your shit is stuff and everyone else’s stuff is shit. Because that’s the reason Big AI will never be personal […]

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-07-05

Man, those were 45 minutes well spent.

Lilly Wachowski Sets Reading Of ‘The Hunted’ At Dynasty Typewriter, Film In Development With Producer Natasha Lyonne

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-21

EXCLUSIVE: Lilly Wachoswki is setting a different kind of stage for her next project, hosting a live reading of her dystopian political thriller The Hunted, currently in late-stage development with a producing team that includes Natasha Lyonne. Co-written by Wachowski and Mickey R. Mahoney, The Hunted will make its debut with an unconventional live read […]

Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox & ‘Friends’ Cast Remember “Father Figure” James Burrows: “He Spoiled Us Rotten”

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-21

With the death of James Burrows, stars of the most beloved sitcoms are mourning the loss of the multi-cam medium’s most decorated director. Following Burrows’ death at age 85, Jennifer Aniston paid tribute to the “father figure” who directed 15 episodes of the hit NBC series in which she starred as Rachel Green, including the […]

Ladderday

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-29

Ed Zitron's latest two are good reads: Exclusive: OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, With Spending Hitting $34 Billion Premium: The Silicon Valley Bubble (Part 2) I've worked in the Valley, both on-site and in the world, since 1977. (On site was '85 to '01.) It ain't the same. On the contrary?::: Notebook LM does […]

@Barack Obama @Bsky

2026-06-20

Michelle and I had fun surprising the first group of visitors to the Obama Presidential Center on Juneteenth. Come check it out!

U.S. Rep Joyce Beatty Slams Kennedy Center Management For “Lifeless Husk” As No Programming Scheduled; Calls Tarp “Petty Act Of Defiance”

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-21

While Kennedy Center officials consider the extent of planned renovations, the arts facility will remain open, at least for the time being. But don’t expect any new programming in the immediate future. In a Friday night court filing, Kennedy Center executive director Matt Floca listed three options expected to be presented to the center’s board […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-25

Congress picks up the pieces after the Iran war.

‘Toy Story 5’ Reaches For The Sky With Global Running Cume Of $129M – Box Office

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-21

It’s an understatement to say that Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 5 is off to a great global start at the box office. With $129.3M so far, the Andrew Stanton directed movie is bound to beat its worldwide opening forecast of $275M. Broken out that’s $71M domestic for Toy Story 5, which as we told you was […]

George Lucas Lends Voice To ‘Minions & Monsters’

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-21

Star Wars creator George Lucas is coming out of his show biz retirement for a role a decidedly non-Star Wars project: He’ll lend his voice to a character in Illumination’s Minions & Monsters, arriving in theaters July 1. In an interview with Collider, Illumination founder and Minions & Monsters producer Chris Meledandri explained how Lucas […]

El conserje (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la dignidad silenciosa en un mundo que no sabe mirar

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-24

Dirección: Mauro Mueller, David Figueroa García. Guion: Aleluya Rivera. Elenco: Humberto Yañez, Luisa Huertas, Mercedes Hernández, Antonio Becerril, Leonardo Alonso. País: México. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27626634/ En todas las escuelas existe alguien que, en esencia, es la columna vertebral de esos lugares. Hace algunos años tuve la fortuna de conocer y tratar con […]

La entrada El conserje (Raindance Film Festival 2026): la dignidad silenciosa en un mundo que no sabe mirar se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Janie Sell Dies: Tony-Winning ‘Over Here!’ Broadway Actor Was 86

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-21

Janie Sell, a Broadway actor who won a Tony Award for her joyful performance opposite the Andrews Sisters in 1974’s nostalgic musical Over Here!, died June 9 at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, New Jersey, following a brief illness. She was 86. Her death was announced by friends including actor James Dybas, who noted that Sell’s […]

Pluralistic: How the Epstein Class recruits (20 Jun 2026)

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-07-03

Today's links How the Epstein Class recruits: Oh wait, THAT'S what this was?! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: MPAA blasted in WSJ; RFID skimmers; Post-Soviet inventions; "Farthing"; "Dirty, Drunk and Punk"; Dweb v founders' frailty; Tax cheating made simple; Oregon v corporate medicine. Upcoming appearances: Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. How the Epstein Class recruits (permalink) Perhaps you've encountered the stories about Dialog, an extremely weird secret society associated with Peter "Antichrist" Thiel, whose membership data and details have leaked this week: https://www.wired.com/story/how-peter-thiels-private-dialog-club-secretly-ranks-its-members/ By all appearances, this is a comically creepy, awful talking-shop for the Epstein Class. It's not all that surprising, in retrospect, to learn that all these terrible people were in a group chat, secretly assigning ratings to one another, and periodically gathering to have tedious panels about, I dunno, "race science" or whatever. I'm on the oligarchy beat, so stories about Dialog have been popping up in my RSS feed for the past week or so, but it wasn't until last night that I made a connection. A year or two ago, I got an invite to speak at an event. This is normal, I get a lot of these and I do a lot of public speaking. I'm good at it, and it's a good way for me to reach people and get them energized about the issues I care about. Sometimes, I do these talks for free. Sometimes I get paid. When I first glanced at this speaking offer, I thought, "Huh, I guess this is one to send on to my speaking agent," because the names the offer dropped were a bunch of rich people, and so I assumed that they were having some kind of summit and looking for a keynoter. Then I read a little more carefully and realized they – these billionaires and their lickspittles! – wanted me to pay them, thousands of dollars, so that I could shlep my ass to some luxury resort in order to have the privilege of speaking to them. I came up as a science fiction writer, and at some point, every sf writer learns "Yog's Law," coined by James D Macdonald when he was running the science fiction forum on GEnie, under the screen name "Yog Sysop": money flows toward the writer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Macdonald#Educational_work In other words, whenever you, as a creative worker, are approached by someone who wants to "help" you with your work, and they want you to pay them, they are a scammer, preying upon your essential human need to communicate with others. Run away. Which is what I did. I deleted the email. Then, I got another one a couple months later. Ugh. I wrote a mail rule that auto-deleted anything from that sender and promptly forgot about the matter. Until last night. I just had a look at my Trash folder and yup, these people are still emailing me in hopes that I will give them thousands of dollars to join their weird secret society. I don't know if everyone who joined Dialog got an email like the one I was sent, but if you want to understand how at least some of those people ended up on those membership rolls, well, now you know: they were schmucks who'd never learned Yog's Law. (Image: Gage Skidmore 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, CC BY-SA 2.0; TechCrunch50-2008, Dan Taylor 1, 2, CC BY 2.0; modified) Hey look at this (permalink) EFF Joins 60+ Groups Urging the UK to Halt Face Estimation at the Border https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/joins-60-groups-urging-uk-halt-face-estimation-border AI Shouldn’t Dictate Our Democracy. Vote Alex Bores. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6KQ2yDK1Q4 tokenalysis and john henry https://backofmind.substack.com/p/tokenalysis-and-john-henry Making Free Warhammer Terrain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6YC-cOngHg Mechanical Watch https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Wendy Seltzer smokes the MPAA in the Wall St Journal https://web.archive.org/web/20061016014904/http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115047057428882434-1V_FEK_CJelMfytdST8APRW7cZw_20060720.html #20yrsago HOWTO build an RFID skimmer https://web.archive.org/web/20060703081753/http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~yash/kw-usenix06/index.html #20yrsago Desperate inventions of post-Soviet Russia https://memex.craphound.com/2006/06/20/desperate-inventions-of-post-soviet-russia/ #20yrsago NYT falsely reports that Wikipedia has added restrictions https://jimmywales.com/2006/06/17/the-new-york-times-gets-it-exactly-backwards/ #20yrsago Farthing: Heart-rending alternate history about British-Reich peace https://memex.craphound.com/2006/06/20/farthing-heart-rending-alternate-history-about-british-reich-peace/ #15yrsago Dirty, Drunk and Punk: the untold history of Toronto’s BUNCHOFFUCKINGGOOFS https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/20/dirty-drunk-and-punk-the-untold-history-of-torontos-bunchoffuckinggoofs/ #10yrsago Video: Guarding the Decentralized Web from its founders’ human frailty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk #10yrsago Unnamed Canadian telco sabotages’ library’s low-income internet service https://web.archive.org/web/20160618143132/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/canadian-telecoms-limiting-wifi-low-income-families-toronto-public-libraries-digital-divide #10yrsago Clarence Thomas rumored to be considering retirement https://web.archive.org/web/20160622135444/http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/end-of-conservative-supreme-court-clarence-thomas-may-be-next-to-leave/article/2594317 #10yrsago Tolkien elf or prescription drug name? https://web.archive.org/web/20160609021515/https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/literature/drug-or-tolkien-elf-quiz.htm #5yrsago The EU, Tech Trustbusting, and Trade Wars https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/20/the-eu-tech-trustbusting-and-trade-wars/ #5yrsago How to cheat on your taxes https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/20/la-hougue/#complexity #1yrago Oregon bans the corporate practice of medicine https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/20/the-doctor-will-gouge-you-now/#states-rights == Upcoming appearances (permalink) Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada's State of the Nation), Jun 23 https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026 Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 London: Idler Festival, Jul 11 https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/ Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24 https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/ Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25 https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8 https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9 https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late (Galaxy Brain) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPQNPJ0CEPo The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order) https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY How to Think About Artificial Intelligence (KUER) https://radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2026-06-16/cory-doctorow-on-how-to-think-about-artificial-intelligence The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, & Everything (Luke Savage) https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus) https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/) "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE. "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-25

US scientist John Jumper to leave Google DeepMind for Anthropic.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-30

Claude doesn't care if you criticize the code it wrote, because if it wasn't written just now, it didn't write it. It starts from zero in every session, you can watch it, like HAL in 2001, singing daisy daisy. I can see it happening as the environment of my app is getting so large, it has to do a bit of thinking to start up, more all the time. But as humans who were brought up properly, we like to add the niceties to our criticism so as to not make the other one feel bad. I do that for myself, not the machine, I know it doesn't identify as the creator of the code.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-30

When I got this email from Google on this day in 2018, I had a sinking feeling, this was like getting a letter from Apple a few years earlier. They were treating the web as if it were their platform.

Ubisoft Co-Founder Claude Guillemot Dies In Plane Crash

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-21

Claude Guillemot, a co-founder of Assassin’s Creed maker Ubisoft alongside his four brothers, has died in a plane crash in France. French media reported that Guillemot died on Friday evening when the Cessna 421 twin engine plane he was piloting crashed close to the aerodrome of the beach resort of La Baule in Western France […]

Tomatoes And Echoes

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-07-06

Today, enjoy our audio and video picks.

The US Men's Soccer Team Wins, Inspires, And Brings Our Embattled Nation Together

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-07-01

"Football is life"

Silos are the problem

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-30

A silo is a place where developers feel protected from the unbounded world of the web. In return they are completely controlled by the silo owner. The owner decides where you can go, and can and do revoke privileges. Developers in silos are mostly powerless.

Companies usually are the ones who create silos, but open formats can create them too. JSON, for example, has been used as an excuse to reinvent everything that was done in XML.

Open source projects create silos too. A protective zone that doesn't interop with competitors. Where you have to climb into the project to build on it.

Outside of silos, on the web, your code calls a platform using a standard API. Developers who, because of standards, can plug into anything, and thus give users maximum choice.

Podcasting is not a silo. It's part of the web. Support two easy formats and you've got a node. You'll find packages that do all that on any well-developed coding platform.

I believe we can do something like that for text. That's what I've been working on in the 2020s. It's slow-going because the foundation ideas of the web are not well-understood by today's developers, or at least that's how I experience it. ;-)

We're rethinking the whole tech world right now, and we can use formats and protocols that are available on the web, not by replacing the ones that are already there, but by using the existing paths in new ways. Big difference.

James Bradley Dies: ‘Flags Of Our Fathers’ Co-Author Was 72

2026-06-20

James Bradley, whose nonfiction book Flags Of Our Fathers recounted his father’s purported role in the iconic WWII photograph of American soldiers raising the stars-and-stripes flag on Iwo Jima became a bestseller and was adapted into a hit 2006 film directed by Clint Eastwood, died June 5. He was 72. His death was announced by […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-23

I'm somewhat skeptical that "Standard Site" couldn't be done with RSS. But then they don't actually say that in their howto doc. My philosophy is reinvent as little as possible and go for maximum interop. I think eventually they will untether it from AT Proto to get more users.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-23

Americans express unease over SpaceX’s influence on retirement savings.

Arindrajit Dube on Wages

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-07-06

Labor economics you should know about

Lit Hub Weekly: June 15 – 19, 2026

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-19

Emily Temple reads every summer reading list (so you don’t have to). | Lit Hub Reading Lists Why Robert W. Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee” is a good poem for bad dads. | Lit Hub Criticism Through layers of

Purged BLS leader on the "surprisingly resilient" US economy

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-07-06

Erika McEntarfer talks to PN nearly one year after her firing.

President CHUMP! | The Coffee Klatch for Saturday, June 20, 2026

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-29

with Heather Lofthouse and yours truly

June 19, 2026

2026-06-20, updated: 2026-06-26

Today is the federal holiday honoring Juneteenth, the celebration of the announcement in Texas on June 19th, 1865, that enslaved Americans were free.

@Barack Obama @Bsky

Rosie O’Donnell Is Open To Return To ‘The View’ As A Guest Host, “But They Haven’t Asked Me”

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-20

Rosie O’Donnell is open to making an appearance on The View if she were to be invited. With many former co-hosts of the ABC talk show recently returning as guest co-hosts, like Abby Huntsman and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, O’Donnell would consider making a comeback as well. “I did catch [Hasselbeck] on [The View], and I would […]

The Trek (Raindance Film Festival 2026): fantasmas del colonialismo

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-22

Dirección: Meekaaeel Adam. Guion: James C. Williamson, J. Hannah Massyn, Sanduela Asanda. Elenco: Morné Visser, Rob van Vuuren, Maurice Carpede, Trix Vivier, Leah Lindeque. País: Sudáfrica. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27619219 La maravilla de cubrir festivales internacionales, en esta ocasión el Raindance Film Festival, es conocer y descubrir filmes de geografías que normalmente no […]

La entrada The Trek (Raindance Film Festival 2026): fantasmas del colonialismo se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Ariana Grande’s ‘Eternal Sunshine Tour’ Stops In L.A.: Don’t Erase This Concert From Memory – Review

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-20

When Jon Brion would perform at Largo in Los Angeles, the enthrallment of his show entailed watching the shaggy-haired guy play myriad instruments, sampling and looping them into a climactic song. One that sticks out from memory is his version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stick Together.” Well, Ariana Grande in her first night of her […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-23

AI Has Granted America Vast New Power.

Friday Squid Blogging: Victims of Unregulated Squid Fishing

2026-06-19

Dolphins, sharks, turtles, and human workers are all victims of unregulated squid fishing fleets.

Another news article.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

Pluralistic: The Big Con (19 Jun 2026)

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-03

Today's links The Big Con: Making the pile of shit bigger won't increase the number of ponies underneath it. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: TVA v SETI@Home; Telemarketers v DHS batphones; Matt Stone's MPAA censorship memo; Stonehenge pocket watch; W3C v security research; Congressional mass-shooting response simulator; Dynastic wealth; Gig economy astroturf; Meta publishes your AI prompts. Upcoming appearances: LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. The Big Con (permalink) Partway through Bridget Read's unmissable chronicle of pyramid ("multi-level marketing") schemes, Little Bosses Everywhere, there comes a dual revelation: no one is selling any product to end-users and no one knows it: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway That is to say, all the hustlers who have spent thousands of dollars on Mary Kay, Herbalife and Amway have failed to move any of their product (beyond a statistically insignificant number of sales to friends and family who quickly tire of being hustled and stop buying this substandard, overpriced junk). But none of these "entrepreneurs" knows it, or admits it to anyone – not their "downlines" (friends they've lured into the swindle), nor their "uplines" (friends who recruited them into the con). Each pyramid scheme victim thinks that they're the only failure in the whole bunch. They go to massive "sales conferences" where people boast about all the sales they're making, and they're all lying about it. Incredibly, the pyramid schemers who run these criminal enterprises have figured out how to make a virtue out of this situation: they offer "sales coaching" courses to help people make the sales that "everyone else is making." In other words, once you've gone bust failing to sell Amway, they'll get you to go further into debt to learn how to correct the (nonexistent) issues with your sales strategy so that you can join the (imaginary) legion of people who sell Amway by the bushel. Con artists have a name for this kind of swindle: it's called a "big con," which is when everyone a mark comes into contact with is in on the scam. Here's how the big con worked: after a "roper" snared a victim (usually on an intercity train), they would telegraph ahead and let the home team know they had a live one. From that point forward, every single person the victim came into contact with was in on it – from the porter who collected his bags at the train station to the cab driver to the Western Union clerk he uses to cable his banker and ask for a cashier's check for his life's savings. In the big con, dozens of skilled actors are putting on a play for an audience of one: you. It's a real-world, non-hallucinatory version of "gang stalking delusion," which is when someone going through a mental health crisis believes that everyone they meet is in on a conspiracy to drive them crazy: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/03/mission-space/#gsd The situation that people suffering from GSD hallucinate is actually happening to people ensnared in a big con…and pyramid schemes are a big con. What's more – as Read's book makes clear – you can't understand modern American politics without understanding pyramid schemes. One of the most destructive pyramid schemes in American history is Amway. The FTC was about to shut Amway down in the mid-1970s, but then Nixon resigned and Ford became president. Ford had been the Congressman to Amway's founders Jay Van Andel (then the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, which is to say, America's most powerful business lobbyist) and Dick DeVos (yes, that DeVos). Ford and the Amway swindlers were thick as thieves, and so Ford called off the FTC. Rather than going to jail, DeVos and Van Andel became morbidly wealthy, and they used some of their stolen money to found and fund the Heritage Foundation (yes, that Heritage Foundation). The political class running America are pyramid scheme swindlers, funded by pyramid scheme money. They're running a big con on all of us. That's true of the Trumps, who've excreted a diarrhoeic slurry of shitcoins that have made them billions – and lost billions for their "investors": https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-106/ Trump insists that he is a self-made man who made his money with successful real estate deals. In reality, he lied all the time about his real estate, committing a string of felonies in order to defraud the banks, even as he went bankrupt, time and again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_in_New_York Another "self made man" is Elon Musk (who is a "trillionaire," in a highly technical sense meaning "not a trillionaire at all"). Musk would have been broke several times over but for a string of massive government bailouts and subsidies, which continue to this day: https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/117956/documents/HMKP-119-JU00-20250226-SD003.pdf Trump, Musk, and the rest of the schemers in the pyramid routinely claim that they are wealthy because they are running good businesses, a "fact" that many of us accept at face value. It's bad enough that we are deceived about reality, but many of their most addled cult-members try to follow in their footsteps. When they fail, they are in the same situation as one of those busted Amway sellers: thinking they are the only ones who can't make this "sure thing" work. Conservativism is a movement of bitter rubes, led by pyramid scheme swindlers: https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/22/all-day-suckers/#i-love-the-poorly-educated The "wait, is everyone else also failing?" awakening is an experience that many of America's CEOs are sharing at this moment, as they wonder whether they are the only ones who've fired as many workers as possible and replaced them with AI, only to see their company's fortunes fall: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/uber-ceo-says-other-execs-are-lying-about-ai-they-say-it-ll-be-fine-publicly-but-privately-admit-millions-of-jobs-are-gone/ar-AA1Z9QMv Like an Amway victim, these boardroom rubes simply can't believe that all these people could be in on the con. How could the world spend trillions on AI if it's not on a path to profitability? It's not that these guys spent 2008 in a cave – rather, they just lack the object permanence to remember the last time a "Federal Wallet Inspector" approached them at a board meeting and took them for everything: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/13/uncle-sucker/#willing-marks The thesis that "it can't be nonsense if there's a lot of money at stake" is the core of so many of these swindles. It's the investment theory that holds that once a pile of shit gets big enough, there must be a pony under it somewhere. There's a Bugs Bunny bit that I find myself returning to in this era of the big con: it's a gag from 1954's "Bugs and Thugs": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugs_and_Thugs Bugs has been kidnapped by gangsters, who have come to trust him. He tricks them into thinking that the police are coming and he urges them to hide in the oven while he sends the cops away. Then, Bugs performs a one-rabbit show in which he plays both the cop (with a broad Irish accent) and himself: Bugs (cop voice): All right, open up! This is the police! [banging] All right, where's Rocky, where's he hiding? Bugs (normal voice): He's not in this stove. Bugs (cop): Oh-ho, he's hidin' in that stove, eh? Bugs (normal): Now look, would I turn on this gas if my friend Rocky was in there? Bugs (cop): You might, rabbit, you might. Bugs (normal) Would I throw a lighted match in there if my friend was in there? [Massive explosion] Bugs (cop): Well, all right, rabbit, you've convinced me. I'll look for Rocky in the city. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSNTjX_g9a4 We keep living through real world versions of this: "Would I, Mark Zuckerberg, change my company's name to 'Meta' if I wasn't serious about this?" "Oh, you might, Zuck, you might." "OK, but would I spend $61b on the metaverse if I wasn't serious about this?" "All right, Zuck, you've convinced me. I won't sell my Facebook (oops, I mean 'Meta'!) shares." But neither Zuck nor Musk nor Trump has the charm of Bugs Bunny. At a certain point we're all going to look at each other and say, "It was all bullshit, wasn't it?" Hey look at this (permalink) AI Economics for Dummies https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/ai-economics-for-dummies The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Cory Doctorow https://longreads.com/2026/06/17/questionnaire-cory-doctorow/ A guide to ‘greedflation’ https://timharford.com/2026/06/a-guide-to-greedflation/ Ubisoft uses DMCA to kill game: slopsmith gets destroyed by obsolete 30 year old law https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgVlEgV27ow Canada Is Forging Ahead with Its Dangerous Surveillance Bill https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/canada-forging-ahead-its-dangerous-surveillance-bill Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago TVA bans SETI@Home https://web.archive.org/web/20010625113535/https://www.knoxnews.com/archives/browserecent/06162001/archives/31399.shtml #25yrsago Scott McCloud on microtransactions and Napster https://web.archive.org/web/20010708054658/http://www.thecomicreader.com/html/icst/icst-6/icst-6.html #20yrsago Wardialling telemarketers stumble on Homeland Security batphones https://web.archive.org/web/20060630104202/https://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060616/NEWS/606160329/1006 #20yrsago NAB: Evidence is irrelevant to copyright treaties https://web.archive.org/web/20060622174657/https://drn.okfn.org/node/133#comment-246#comment-246 #20yrsago LA Times censors newsroom Internet feed https://web.archive.org/web/20060702051259/http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2006/06/protecting_reporters_from.html #20yrsago Matt Stone’s memo to MPAA censors https://web.archive.org/web/20060619220447/https://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2006/06/preparing_for_t.html #20yrsago Stonehenge pocket-watch predicts solstices https://web.archive.org/web/20060627053213/http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/7d2b/ #15yrsago Mean things authors say about each other https://www.flavorwire.com/188138/the-30-harshest-author-on-author-insults-in-history #15yrsago Glasses with 720p HD video camera https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zioneyez/eyeztm-by-zioneyez-hd-video-recording-glasses-for #15yrsago ICANN votes to roll out 400-800 new generic top-level domains https://www.flickr.com/photos/wseltzer/5852419280/ #10yrsago W3C DRM working group chairman vetoes work on protecting security researchers and competition https://lwn.net/Articles/691108/ #10yrsago Thoughts and Prayers: a Congressional mass-shooting simulator https://thoughtsandprayersthegame.com/ #5yrsago The doctrine of dynastic wealth https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste #5yrsago The gig economy's dark-money, astroturf "community groups" https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#astroturf #1yrago Your Meta AI prompts are in a live, public feed https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/19/privacy-breach-by-design/#bringing-home-the-beacon Upcoming appearances (permalink) LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada's State of the Nation), Jun 23 https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026 Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 London: Idler Festival, Jul 11 https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/ Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24 https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/ Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25 https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8 https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9 https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late (Galaxy Brain) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPQNPJ0CEPo The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order) https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY How to Think About Artificial Intelligence (KUER) https://radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2026-06-16/cory-doctorow-on-how-to-think-about-artificial-intelligence The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, & Everything (Luke Savage) https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus) https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035 Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/) "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE. "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X

Notes & Narratives on Vimeo

2026-06-19

Here’s the talk I gave yesterday at Na Píobairí Uilleann in Dublin all about The Session. True to the title, I played some notes on my mandolin to accompany the narrative.

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SwiftUI in appleOS 27

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-03

macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes: AsyncImage now automatically caches downloaded images using HTTP caching protocols, allowing servers to control caching behavior via standard headers. […] Xcode 27 introduces a new @State implementation that avoids this repeated evaluation. This new behavior back-deploys to iOS 17 aligned OSes. The new @State is implemented with a […]

Apple Clearing App Store Clutter

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-03

Ed Hardy: Finding useful software in the App Store is about to get easier. Apple is apparently preparing to remove what it describes as “opportunistic” apps that provide little value to iPhone and iPad users. It already had a policy of not approving applications that are “indistinguishable from what’s already widely available.” This week, it […]

Mandatory Apple Intelligence

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-03

Rodrigo Ghedin (Hacker News): That show of respect for its customers may change with iOS/macOS 27. Reports suggest that, at least in the first beta, Apple Intelligence is mandatory[…] […] “So what’s the problem?”, you might ask. Apple’s AI takes up several gigabytes of storage and leaves less headroom for RAM. Brandon Vigliarolo: Those are small inconveniences, […]

I don’t like prompts

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-04

I don’t like writing prompts. Prompts are common in online fiction writing advice. You can buy analog writing prompt kits. Writing workshops and workbooks often use exercises (essentially prompts) to help develop skills. I bounce off of all of them. For me, coming up with ideas / getting started is not the hard part of […]

James Burrows Dies: Legendary TV Comedy Director & ‘Cheers’ Co-Creator Was 85

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-20

Television has lost one its biggest comedy names — James Burrows, the most decorated multi-camera director in the history of the medium, passed away in his sleep this morning, June 19, after a brief illness. The 11-time Emmy winner was 85. His 50+-year career will remain unmatched — both in longevity and influence as he […]

Full Page Paralysis

2026-06-19

You’ve probably heard the term.

It’s meant to convey how difficult it can be to start something.

“Blank page paralysis”.

But for my money, beginning is easy. Finishing is the hard part.

In software, they call it “the last 90%”.

In logistics, they call it “the last mile”.

It’s that final stretch that’s disproportionately hard.

Finishing makes something real and finite, subject to judgment.

As I near completion, there’s a little voice in my head that says, “As long as it’s unfinished, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s still potentially perfect!”

I don’t struggle with blank page paralysis.

But I am paralyzed in the face of a full page ready for publishing.

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Bluesky

Unconditional humiliation

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-06

Aaron and Paul unpack Trump's surrender to Iran.

Systemd v261 released

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-25

Systemd v261 has been released with a long list of changes, including a new cloud "Instance Metadata Service" (IMDS) subsystem, "boot secret" functionality for use on systems that lack a physical TPM, as well as support for the kernel's Live Update Orchestration (LUO) / Kexec Handover (KHO) systems when they are present and enabled. See therelease notes for the full list of changes.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-05

You know what they say about hitting the translate button on a tweet written in Hebrew:

Indies Flex With Buzzy ‘Maddie’s Secret’, ‘Rose Of Nevada’, Gregg Allman Doc, New Releases From A24, Neon & Focus – Specialty Preview

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-20

Maddie’s Secret by John Early is doing brisk business at the IFC Center as screenings fill up for opening weekend of the Magnolia Pictures’ comedy. Critically acclaimed Rose Of Nevada from 1-2 Special and Sony Pictures Classics’ Unidentified also debut in limited release along with music docs on Greg Allman and Peter Asher. Girls Like […]

ARM Tries to be Everywhere

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-03

Introduction ARM is best known for providing the CPU chips used in smart phones and tablets. Its CPUs are power efficient allowing longer battery life while still providing a lot of processing power. ARM has expanded beyond this market, first into the low power microcontroller market and then more recently into the higher end namely […]

Trump signs Iran MOU but outlook unclear. Ukraine attacks Moscow oil refineries. 15 anti-ICE protesters charged.

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-06

Donald Trump signs Iran MOU at Versailles

New (Old) 3D Golf: porting PC-9801 & Virtual Boy to Mega Drive

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-03

The Japanese Mega Drive ports of T&E SOFT’s New 3D Golf Simulation series are my favourite golf games, and recently I’ve been living inside their ROMs.

As with all the craziest ideas, it began with a “I wonder if I could”… In the early hours of one April morning I managed to pull a single course out of the game—its terrain and flyby data—and reimplement it in a viewer of my own, written in Three.js. Over the following week or so of continued reverse engineering, that viewer quietly grew into something resembling a 3D golf game running in the browser. Finding the data had some big clues: we know that there are 18 holes, the distances of each hole and their sequence order, and I’d read the courses were made of ~256 points, so adding all these heuristics together meant it was much easier to find the data than finding a needle in a haystack.

Understanding the data that well meant I could go the other way, too— back into the original Mega Drive games themselves. First I added a terrain modifier. To test it I flattened the entire course like a pancake to confirm my understanding was correct, and then cranked it up to 11 into a sort of “Hyperactive Terrain Mode” that warps the fairways into something wild. Both worked well.

An early attempt changed its mind on every run; turned out I was seeding it from an uninitialised memory location. 🤦 With no debugger console to hand, I’d been hunting bugs like this the crude way—scribbling values into the cartridge’s SRAM (its battery-backed save memory) and reading them back out, a poor man’s printf. So it wasn’t exactly straightforward.

Once that was sorted, I gave the 32-year-old game some brand new, custom user interface to match.

Next I wondered if the course data was the same across all of the four Mega Drive games, could it be the same across the games on other platforms? The answer is yes: the same course data format turns out to be used right across the series, from the original PC-9801 games (and almost certainly X68000 and FM Towns) through to the Mega Drive and even the Virtual Boy. If my (little-endian) maths is correct that’s a total of 7 unique courses, all sharing one format. There’s some reformatting that needs to be done, but the data structure is the same. And since I could already read the courses, I could write them too—patching the games to pick a course at random, or to load one that was never available on the Mega Drive in the first place. PC-9801 to Mega Drive required sorting the polygons to match how they were expected to be stored.

But I guess T&E SOFT used the same POLYSYS-CAD software to design all the courses over several years? I love how such a tool could have that sort of longevity.

That last part is the really fun bit. (Can this even be more fun?)

Here are three courses running on the Mega Drive for the first time:

T&E Selection

Extracted from the NEC PC-9801 add-on course disk:

This course is somewhat unique as it has messages spelled using coloured topology:

the 1st has “GO!” by the tee position; the 18th has “T&E” just beyond the final green

Eight Lakes G.C.

Also extracted from NEC PC-9801 add-on course disk:

A fact perhaps only I care about: during development, prior to Feb 1990, it was Seven Lakes G.C.

Seven Lakes G.C.

Papillon C.C.

Extracted from the Nintendo Virtual Boy game T&E Virtual Golf:

It’s called Papillon—the French word for butterfly—because the course holes were laid out in the shape of a butterfly. Which was surely a nod to the shape of the Virtual Boy controller.

That last one needed a little extra work. T&E Golf on Virtual Boy doesn’t have a hole flyby, so I had to generate the camera path myself: a bezier curve from tee to pin, nudged towards the centre point of the visible course as it appears on the mini-map. The flyby path in this video was about half way to my final solution.

Playing these courses on Mega Drive is truly special and the effort was very much worthwhile. 🥰

A few things I learned along the way

Living inside the disassembly for weeks, I kept tripping over the little decisions T&E SOFT made all those years ago. Some are clever, some are quietly bonkers, and all of them made me grin:

The hole is three times too big. The cup grabs any ball within ~6.7 inches—triple a real hole’s radius—so balls drop from further out than they look. A fudge for the 320×224 screen, where ball and cup were both sub-pixel.
The polygons pre-sort themselves. No depth buffer on the Mega Drive, so the draw order is baked into the course data, back-to-front (the painter’s algorithm). The giveaway: it doesn’t match the original PC-9801 CAD order.
Backspin can reverse a putt. Spin isn’t cosmetic: it’s fed back into the roll and can make the ball check up and trickle backwards. Real ballistic physics in a 1993 cartridge. Love it!
Water isn’t a hazard—just very sticky. There’s no “in the water” state; water polygons carry friction so high it kills the ball in one frame. The penalty falls out of the ordinary maths.
Wind is a real force, not an aim fudge. It becomes a horizontal acceleration applied every frame of flight, exactly like gravity.
Augusta’s wind never actually changes. The direction is never written—only strength varies. The arrow only seems to swing because it’s drawn relative to the camera.
Bunkers plug, cart paths kick. Every surface has its own bounce coefficient. The fairway hands back a healthy ~40% of the ball’s speed; a bunker returns only ~10%, so the ball plugs where it lands; a cart path or rock fires it back at ~75% for that horrible hard skip.
Your lie quietly rolls the dice. On every stroke the game picks a random number from a per-(lie, club) range and folds it into your swing power. A clean fairway lie uses a narrow range; a bad lie widens it—so the rough genuinely makes your shots less predictable. The ranges live in a 17×17 table, one entry per lie-and-club combination.

Four volumes, one evolving engine

It’s tempting to treat the four Mega Drive games as a single engine with interchangeable courses. They’re not, and the very first line of the cross-volume notes I kept is a warning to myself: ⚠️ never assume all four ROMs share code or data layouts. T&E SOFT kept tinkering release to release, and you only catch it by dumping the same region in all four disassemblies and diffing.

The ROM headers number them New 3D Golf Simulation Vol.1–4, and each header also carries a build date stamped in YYYY.MMM form. Here’s the curiosity: the volume numbers track the build dates, not the retail release dates. Vol.2 Devil’s Course was finished a month before Vol.3 Augusta—but reached the shops a month after it:

VolTitleJapaneseROM buildRetail release1Pebble Beach no Hatouペブルビーチの波濤1993-071993-10-292Devil’s Courseデビルズコース1993-081994-01-283Harukanaru Augusta遙かなるオーガスタ1993-091993-12-174Waialae no Kisekiワイアラエの奇蹟1993-091994-02-25

A couple of header quirks fell out of this. Pebble’s stamp reads 1993.JLY—Sega’s own oddball abbreviation for July. And while three of the carts credit SEGA, Augusta credits T&E Soft’s Sega licensee code T-114 instead—a clue that it alone was self-published by T&E SOFT rather than by Sega. The boxes agree: Augusta’s isn’t Sega-branded either.

Two places they genuinely diverge, each confirmed by dumping the same region in all four:

Colour isn’t a plain palette lookup—and the recipe is per-game. A surface byte runs through a little chain of lookup tables before it becomes a pen colour, and those tables aren’t shared: Pebble grades several surfaces differently and even reorders two entries, while Devil’s Course carries its own darker, redder palette. Waialae, charmingly, reuses a single palette three times where its siblings have three distinct ones.
A decoder bug only Pebble could trigger. In the polygon stream, vertex indices are single bytes, with 0xFF acting as an escape prefix—the byte after it encodes a higher index ( 0xE0 + xx), so a hole can point past the ~254 vertices a lone byte can name. My extractor mishandled that escaped range, but only Pebble’s holes are dense enough to actually use it—so the bug sailed through the other three games and only fell over when I reached Pebble. Same encoding in every cart; one course’s data was all it took to expose the flaw in my reader.

There’s also the US release, Pebble Beach Golf Links (header stamped 1993-11, likely on shelves 1994-04): the same course data on a larger ROM, with English strings present where the Japanese Vol.1 zeroed them. That parallel made a useful “Rosetta Stone” for decoding menus and text.

Inside Waialae

Waialae was my primary reference—1,572,864 bytes, header NEW 3D GOLF SIMULATION Vol.4 Waialae C.C., serial GM G-5529.

Each hole is reached through four ROM pointers, one per data block, and they’re wildly different sizes. Block 0 is the vertex list—244 XYZ points, the ~256-point mesh, about 1.5 KB. Block 1 is the bulk of it: sixteen view-order streams (one draw order per camera angle) that bake in the back-to-front sorting—around 5.5 KB, bigger than the geometry it orders. Block 2 holds the mesh and sprites themselves (230 polygons plus 54 sprites), ~1.8 KB. Block 3 is just the flyby keyframes, a slim ~0.7 KB. For Waialae’s first hole that comes to about 9.2 KB, split like this:

One bar representing a hole's data for Waialae hole 1, split into four segments by size: Block 0 vertex list 1,466 bytes; Block 1 view-order streams 5,490 bytes; Block 2 mesh and sprites 1,758 bytes; Block 3 flyby keyframes 666 bytes.Block 0Vertex list1,466 BBlock 1 · View-order streamsone draw order per camera angle (×16)5,490 BBlock 2Mesh + sprites1,758 BBlock 3Flyby666 B

A couple more structural quirks:

A spatial grid, decades early. Immediately after the vertex pool sits a count followed by count × 16 word offsets into the face section—a two-level spatial grid (cell → faces) so the engine can look up the relevant polygons from the ball’s (x, z) without walking the whole hole.
Why the SRAM debugging hurt. Waialae’s battery-backed save RAM is odd-lane only, from $200001. Byte writes have to land on odd Mega Drive addresses; even-address writes to $200000 simply disappear. That’s the real reason scribbling values into SRAM as a printf substitute was so finicky—half my early writes were going into the void. (BlastEm helpfully flushes SRAM to disk on quit, so I could read it back from the host.)

Variable zoom

The shared course format is what let me move holes between platforms, but each machine scales the world differently. The proven case: Waialae hole 1 from the PC-9801 drops into the Mega Drive after a fixed 1.6× rescale on X and Z (Y untouched), plus a little-endian → big-endian flip on the flyby path records.

Lining those transplanted polygons up against the stock Mega Drive ones is also what proved the rendering trick I mentioned earlier: the Mega Drive packs faces in descending max-Z order—back to front, the painter’s algorithm—and the original PC-9801 face id survives the journey as the Mega Drive’s attr1 byte.

Two deeper cuts

The flyby camera, decoded by statistics. Each flyby keyframe carries two mystery bytes. With no documentation, I histogrammed 4,723 of them across every hole and the shape gave it away: one byte is an 8-bit angle (256 units = 360°) for yaw, the other a signed pitch clamped to about ±40, positive meaning the camera looks down. Educated guessing, with visuals.
The Virtual Boy world is built at a different scale. The Virtual Boy stores its courses at 32 raw units per yard, where the Mega Drive works in 17—so Papillon has to be shrunk by exactly 17/32 (0.53) to sit correctly on the Mega Drive, otherwise every club hits too short for the hole. (My first attempt used the wrong unit and reported hole 1 as 321 yards instead of its true 360.) It’s the same idea as the 1.6× I needed coming the other way from the PC-9801—one shared format, but every machine measures its yards differently.

The whole thing ran on rizin and vasmm68k with BlastEm for execution—though frame-time profiling had to move to Genesis Plus GX, because BlastEm freezes the VDP’s HV counter during the long rendering routines I was trying to measure.

What the old magazines turned up

Reverse engineering only tells you what the games do; for the why, I went digging through a stack of Japanese computer magazines from the era, OCRing the scans to pull out the text. A 1989 developer interview about Harukanaru Augusta (遙かなるオーガスタ)—the PC-9801 original that kicked off the series—turned out to be a goldmine:

The 3D engine came first. T&E’s POLYSYS pre-dated the golf games by a couple of years, already appearing—only in the 3D intro logos, as far as I can tell—in DAIVA STORY 7: Light of Kali Yuga and Psy-O-Blade.
Trees were nearly real 3D. They tried modelling trees as polygons, leaves and all—but one tree took as long to draw as a whole screen. So scaled sprites were used instead.
The first game had no hills. T&E’s 3-D Golf Simulation, written in BASIC six years earlier, had no terrain undulation at all—and on the Sharp X1, 18 holes took half a day to play through.
POLYSYS was meant to be general-purpose: swap the data and it renders anything. T&E planned an RPG and a shooter on it and intended to license it to other software houses.
One programmer, mostly: Eiji Kato (加藤英治).

And the Augusta course itself came with a wonderful backstory:

They licensed the real thing. An official contract with Augusta National, working from the club’s blueprints. Staff visited, didn’t play, but “rubbed their cheeks on the grass.”
Augusta sent back ~60 corrections: eg. pine trees too short and too spread out, flowers too pink, bunker sand the wrong colour.
No do-overs, by design. You could save mid-round, but loading erased the save data—so no replaying holes to pad your score.
Best of all: the dev build’s four caddies were all women. Augusta’s are all men, so the final game swapped them. The ladies returned in the expansion courses and Mega Drive games.
The T&E Selection caddies are real people: four women who worked at Brother Industries—whose TAKERU software vending machines sold these add-on course disks.

What Next?

There’s an extra bit of hacking I’m working on but am unsure if it will lead to anything, but if it does it will need a post all of its own. Hold your thumbs. Fingers crossed. 🤞

It would be possible to release a small script which given both original games would do the extraction and patching, but for now I don’t feel comfortable doing that. I still need to figure out the correct tree mapping for each game, decide which of the four Mega Drive games is most suited to each of the three new courses, add new title screens and a few more bits of detail work.

I’d love to see these ported courses released officially some day—the series IP is now owned and managed by D4 Enterprise—so if you know anybody there please hook us up! If you are an employee of D4 Enterprise then please check my request to license the IP. 🙏

There are more period games in the series that I’d like to take a look at to see if they use the same data format, or modify it in any specific way. SNES and 3DO seem to be the most interesting. 🧐

But for now it’s just me, a pile of disassembly files, rizin and vasmm68k, the BlastEm emulator, and a soft spot for blue skies and FM synth — still trying to get the ball in the hole. ⛳️🏌️‍♂️

Friday the 69th (Raindance Film Festival 2026): parodiando lo ya parodiado

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-22

Dirección: Alex Montilla. Guion: Alex Montilla. Elenco: Amy Letcher, Robert Zoppo, Bud Galloway, Amber Nichole Kellehan, David Arnold Rubin, Anna Bess, Alex Montilla, Eric Anderson. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35121376/ La nostalgia lleva al público a las salas de cine. Allá interactuamos con una maratón de referencias a obras anteriores, sin […]

La entrada Friday the 69th (Raindance Film Festival 2026): parodiando lo ya parodiado se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

[$] Suspending and resuming BPF programs

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-24

BPF programs can be used to extend many aspects the Linux kernel, but BPF programs must run to completion in the same context that they began. Kumar Kartikeya Dwivedi is working on changing that by allowing BPF programs to be expressed as coroutines. He spoke about his work at the 2026Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management and BPF Summit. While still experimental, the change promises to make long-running BPF tasks significantly easier to write.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-23

Scott Knaster: A paean to Inside Macintosh.

Mars And Gatekeepers

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-05

Writing of lasting value

Life is too short for lowercase ASCII

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-06

CSS is hard and it should be hard. For good reason: “CSS isn’t just a complex language, it’s one of the most advanced graphics, layout, and typesetting languages available in computing. The deskilling of web dev is harming the product but, more importantly, it’s damaging our health – this is why […]

The Iran Deal Wobbles, Obama's Library Opens, OMG The Reflecting Pool, Inspiration From Juneteenth, And Slava Ukraini!!!!!!!

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-30

The US Men's soccer team plays Australia at 3pm ET today - be sure to watch and cheer them on!

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-23

#682 in the mastoverse feels pretty solid.

[$] AURpocalypse now: a look at the recent AUR attacks

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-24

The Arch User Repository (AUR) has been subjected to a sustained attack recently. The attacker, or attackers, have spun up a series of new accounts then used them to adopt orphaned packages and push malicious updates that would install malware on users' systems. It is unclear how many users were compromised in the attack, but the maintainers were playing Whac-A-Mole for several days to respond to each newly compromised package. The project has turned
off the AUR's new-user registration, for now, but it is unclear what its long-term response will be or if the AUR can be secured without major changes to its existing collaboration model.

Wryday

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-25

And then repeats as champs Rumors have it that Giannis Antetokounmpo is headed for the Boston Celtics in a complicated trade that will send Celtics stalwart Jaylen Brown to Milwaukee or elsewhere. I doubt this will happen, simply because at this stage in their careers, Jaylen is a far more reliable player than Giannis. Sure, Giannis—The […]

This is Your Brain on Hormones

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-03

After reading something that said her menstrual cycle changes her brain each month, Senior Correspondent Molly Webster goes on a reporting mission to see if that’s true, and, if so, how.

This journey into sex hormones and the brain involves females and males, and exacting self-experimentation. It gets into PTSD, and ends with a new twist on self-care (hint: it’s biological). And, it starts to reveal a sneaky truth: that each one of us is at the mercy of a crashing sea of chemicals inside of us – those things we call hormones.

Special thanks to Emily Jacobs, Laura Pritschet , Pavel Shapturenka, and Dr. Catherine Woolley.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Hosted by - Molly Webster

Reported by - Molly Webster

Produced by - Mona Madgavkar

with help from - Molly Webster

Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles -

** The experiments we feature in this episode are called: 28andMe, 28andOC, and 28andHe, all of which took place at Emily Jacobs lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara.**

The 28 Project (https://zpr.io/CSx6MnwZjRvp), background from the Jacobs lab

For more on how much variability there is between female and male animals, check out this “groundbreaking” study, referenced by Emily Jacobs in our episode

Sex Bias in Neuroscience and Biomedical Research( https://zpr.io/ZRgKZzdNejUA), by Beery AK, Zucker I., Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2011

Dr. Catherine Woolley has revolutionized the field of neuroscience and sex hormones, here’s more about her work …

Sex Differences in the Brain Get Down to the Molecular Level Sex ( https://zpr.io/UNCLE9J782N5), by Stephanie DeMarco, PhD, The Scientist.com
Hormonal Effects on the Brain ( https://zpr.io/DvNM9EkXdtGG), by Woolley, C.S. and Schwartzkroin, P.A. Epilepsia

Data sets -

Audio -

In the episode, we mention Dr. Russ Poldrack and the Midnight Scan Club, as inspo for self-experimentation

The Midnight Scan Club ( https://zpr.io/CLBhNQSxK844), by Science Friday.

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Five Questions with Jhaylin Cruz

When did the Knicks turn the corner?

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-29

I've been trying to understand what the Knicks winning means to me. I'm reminded of the feeling when we sold my mother's house, the house I grew up in, the one my father had died in nine years earier. The site of every battle and come-from-behind victory (I graduated college, they couldn't believe it, for example). Was that day in February 2018 when the fortunes of the Knicks turned?

It wasn't just a victory in the NBA playoffs of 2026, it was a pile of victories and setbacks over quite a few years, in a world where people really do make deals instead of pretending they do. And the Knicks all of a sudden were aimed at winning the top prize. The only reason, theoretically, we play basketball, is so every year all the greatest players and managers compete for who's the best that year. The 2026 Knicks didn't pop up from nowhere, they were carefully curated in a bootstrap that answered the question "If the Knicks were champions, what would they do?"

So now the next challenge for the team is to repeat. They will trade players, maybe even one of the ones we love the most. This version of the Knicks is a point in time. Things are already in motion behind the scenes, for sure.

2026-06-19

On June 9th, Anthropic released its Fable generative AI model. Three days later, the US government classified it as a dangerous munition, and used its export-control authority to prohibit any foreign nationals from accessing it. Unable to differentiate between Americans and foreigners, the company shut off access for everyone.

The government’s actions won’t help. The problem isn’t any one particular model; it’s the general trend of increasing AI capabilities. And any real solution requires the sort of collective action that just isn’t possible right now...

Koi-pond-shaped guitar powered by Raspberry Pi spotted at New York Fashion Week

Lunch Money with Paul Krugman and Heather Cox Richardson

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-06-25

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and historian Heather Cox Richardson are joining forces for Lunch Money, a new monthly conversation series.

A workaround for hiding empty slots in Chromium

2026-06-19

Named slots are one of web components’ biggest superpowers ✨. Imagine a Button component with an optional icon; in Web Components we don’t need a separate Button and IconButton, a single Button component with <slot name="icon"> will do. Or a card component with a handful of predefined slots for image, title, description, price, metadata, etc. Not 100 different cards… one card.

Slots are a wonderful way to declaratively compose UI, but one shadow styling challenge that has vexed my team over the years is how to contextually hide a <slot> when there’s no slotted content.

The problem… ghost gaps

The most idiomatic way to check if a particular slot is in-use is to use :host(:has([slot="foo"])). But… In a weird twist to how web component browser-compat bugs tend to go, :host(:has([slot])) works in Safari and Firefox today but doesn’t work in Chromium!

Chromium not supporting :host(:has([slot])) means we can’t query an element’s Light DOM contents from the Shadow DOM. That interpretation of encapsulation makes sense (I guess) and in most situations it’s not a big problem; an empty slot is like an empty span and probably won’t impact rendering. But it becomes a problem when the empty slots appear in a flex or grid layout using gap because unless you hide the element and/or its wrapper, the gap will not collapse in Chromium, so you end up with a “ghost gap”.

Example: With slot="optional" content in Light DOM

Required content

Optional content - expected: show content with gap

<optional-slot-demo-broken>
  <div slot="required">Required content</div>
  <div slot="optional">Optional content - expected: show content with gap</div>
</optional-slot-demo-broken>

Example: Without slot="optional" content in Light DOM

Required content

<optional-slot-demo-broken>
  <div slot="required">Required content</div>
  <!-- expected: does not show extra whitespace -->
</optional-slot-demo-broken>

✅ Works in Safari = wrapper div hidden, no gap
✅ Works in Firefox = wrapper div hidden, no gap
❌ Broken in Chromium = extra whitespace below slot="required"

The failed attempts…

We’ve tried a lot of fixes over the last couple years. Variations on :host(:has()), element-name:has(), !important, ::slotted([slot]) ~ [slot], ::slotted([slot]:empty), and all permutations of those. Copilot/Claude were certain these would work… but alas…

The fix… use @scope

This week my co-worker Jeff and I were navigating this issue again. Coincidentally, the ShopTalkShow Discord was discussing the same exact problem and cited the HasSlotController in WebAwesome (née Shoelace) as a working solution to this problem. I’d prefer to keep the solution in pure CSS, but was getting desperate.

While glancing through the code I noticed the use of :scope in L38-40 and while unrelated it sparked a curiosity to try to use :scope to juke Chromium’s shadow limitations. A handful of tries later and I had a working solution.

Here’s what I came up with:

:host {
  display: grid;
  gap: 1rem;
}

/* Hide optional slots by default */
.optional-slot {
  display: none;
}

/* Show in Safari/Firefox */
:host(:has([slot="optional"])) .optional-slot {
  display: block;
}

/* Fix for Chromium */
@scope {
  :scope:has([slot="optional"]) .optional-slot {
    display: block;
  }
}

Example: With slot="optional" content in Light DOM

Required content

Optional content - expected: show content with gap

<optional-slot-demo>
  <div slot="required">Required content</div>
  <div slot="optional">Optional content - expected: show content with gap</div>
</optional-slot-demo>

Example: Without slot="optional" content in Light DOM

Required content

<optional-slot-demo>
  <div slot="required">Required content</div>
  <!-- expected: does not show extra whitespace -->
</optional-slot-demo>

And the results…

✅ Works in Safari = wrapper div hidden, no gap
✅ Works in Firefox = wrapper div hidden, no gap
✅ Works in Chrome = wrapper div hidden, no gap

The why…

I love a good CSS-trick, but even worse than a bug is not knowing why something works. My other teammate Zacky dug into the spec and confirmed this is a viable fix because as its defined @scope without a scope-root in the shadow styles allows :scope to match the shadow-host instead of the shadow-root… which is clutch. From the spec:

The :scope selector can match the featureless shadow host when that host is the scoping root element. ( Issue 9025)

And…

A @scope rule without scope-start scopes to the shadow host instead of the shadow root. ( Issue 9178)

Thanks, Team CSSScopeRule, for enabling this workaround ( checks notes) three years ago. There’s a wonderful bit of irony that I’m using @scope to break out of the Shadow DOM’s style containment and that’s part of why I love CSS.

I look forward to the day we can use :host(:has()) and :has-slotted() in all browsers, but in the meantime I’m happy to have stumbled upon a duplicative-yet-simple fix. Let me know if you end up using this and it works for you. I already know we have a handful of minor spacing bugs to patch up in our system.

A future fable: how American tech workers went union

2026-06-19, updated: 2026-07-04

I don’t work in the tech industry myself but am closely connected with people who do. This is based on my observations and conversations with tech workers in the Seattle area. Ok so Ethan Marcotte wrote this better (to be fair he literally wrote the book on tech unions)… my version is a little more documentary. […]

Public postmortem: manually adding subscribers failed

2026-06-19

Our public postmortem for the incident on June 14th–15th, 2026.

Lotus Notes and the dangers of starting from scratch

2026-06-19

You either loved it, or were using it wrong.

The Deal JD Vance Made With The Devil Is Coming Due

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

The price JD Vance has paid for power may be the very thing that keeps him from winning the White House in 2028

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

The AI’s read this blog. Something I got started with a few times, but never put the time into to get the results I hoped to get.

Case by Case: CLF is Challenging Trump in Court

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-02

Despite Donald Trump's sometimes hourly flip-flopping, his overall objective is clear: He wants to centralize power in the executive branch while dismantling an imagined “deep state.” His actions are hurting our democracy, people, and the environment.

The post Case by Case: CLF is Challenging Trump in Court appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

Building a modern outdoor sofa

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

My woodworking shop is coming together nicely and one benefit of having everything in the right place is that it makes completing new projects faster and easier.

Last week, I decided to tackle I project I've been thinking about since January, which was when I first watched a

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-05

When you are a game developer, every Godot release feels like Xmas!

https://godotengine.org/releases/4.7/

Meet Johnny Garcia, Our Terrific Candidate Fighting To Turn TX-35 Blue

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-30

With our help Garcia beat Maureen Galindo in the primary run-off. Now he is working hard to win the general - and we need to help him again!

My Crowning Soccer Moment

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-25

The only college sport I ever played was soccer, on the new club team my small college put together during my sophomore year. I only qualified because I showed up and didn’t suck at it. Two weeks after starting practice (which was fun and I loved), I got kicked off the team because the coach […]

@Barack Obama @Bsky

2026-06-18

To George and Laura, Bill and Hillary — we're grateful for your friendship, counsel, and devotion to this country. And to Joe and Jill, thank you for being on this journey with us.

Fri, June 19, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Members Most Fridays Get Together

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-30

Watch new video of the massive Ukrainian today on Moscow - Slava Ukraini!!!!!!!!!

Dead Dogs Don’t Bite (Raindance Film Festival 2026): efectivamente los perros dejan de morder solo cuando mueren

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

Dirección: Nuri Cihan Ozdogan. Guion: Nuri Cihan Ozdogan. Elenco: Kemal Burak Alper, Burak Can Doğan, Gizem Gülüs Kocoğlu, Ayse Kaya, Engin Yuksel. País: Turquía. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36256211/ Dead Dogs Don’t Bite es la ópera prima de Nuri Cihan Özdoğan y se erige como una de las promesas del cine turco. Özdoğan construye […]

La entrada Dead Dogs Don’t Bite (Raindance Film Festival 2026): efectivamente los perros dejan de morder solo cuando mueren se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

macOS Touch

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-03

Dan Moren: Second only in speculation to the folding iPhone might be the reported MacBook Pro that will be Apple’s first Mac with a touchscreen. […] A preponderance of drawing related features are specifically making their way to the Mac, including both in Notes and in Freeform. Those features have existed on Apple’s touch-first platforms […]

AppKit in macOS 27

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-03

macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta Release Notes: AppKit adds NSRefreshController, providing pull-to-refresh functionality for NSScrollView. […] NSToolbarItemGroup adds the role property and the NSToolbarItemGroupRole enum, allowing toolbar item groups to be tagged with a semantic role. NSSegmentedControl similarly adds a role property and the NSSegmentedControlRole enum, including a tabs role for controls that represent tab-based […]

UIKit in iOS 27

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-03

iOS & iPadOS 27 Beta Release Notes: [You] can use UIScene.extendStateRestoration and UIScene.completeStateRestoration to extend state restoration for UIScene.ActivationState.background to UIScene.ActivationState.foreground lifecycle transitions. […] iOS and iPadOS apps built with the 27.0 SDK or later are required to include a launch screen. […] Siri can load resources from drag interactions installed in your app’s interface. […]

Core AI Announced

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-03

Meet Core AI: Discover Core AI, Apple’s new framework for on-device AI model deployment. Tour the ecosystem, from Python libraries for converting, authoring, and optimizing models, to a Swift API for simple plug-and-play inference and advanced use cases with strict latency and memory requirements. Explore the new Core AI models repository with ready-to-run examples for […]

Accenture: Then and now, and how it may signify things to come

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

Blip, or one more data point that is on trend?

Issue 106 – A tremendous birthday present

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

The crypto industry spent the spring buying primaries, an octagon at the White House, and — they hope — a market-structure bill by the Fourth of July.

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-04

Since Monday, the #PleiadesGazetteer editorial college has published 2 new and 123 updated place resources, reflecting the work of 8 people. The usual Monday blog post will summarize the full week's worth of such work, but meantime, here's a #SneakPeek at one of the updated place resources, modern Psara island in the Aegean: https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/550846

The update: first-time contributor Wells Hansen has added the Homeric "Ψυρίη" (from the Odyssey; we link to the Allen edition in the Perseus digital library) where the record only previously had "Ψύρα", a variant witnessed by Strabo.

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #classics #DH #gazetteers #HGIS

City Hally rally with the Knicks

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-27

Watched the ceremony at City Hall.

Glad they went through the whole team and gave them something honorable to take with them.

My moment of clarity on what this meant came when Mitchell Robinson got his award as a champion.

I also liked that the Mayor listed all the recent past Knicks players who could've been on this team but were traded to make it what it is. He named the right ones.

The whole thing was inclusive, generous and working together. Cried all the way through it, nice release still don't have any idea which way is up. In my heart this was never supposed to happen but there it is.

Why wasn't Clyde on the stage?

And Dolan reminded us we don't get to vote for him. I know I know.

What to read next if the Knicks win made you “basketball-curious.”

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-19

Today in New York, you can’t get to lower Manhattan because the streets are clogged with Knicks fans. My town is still on fire from their historic championship win last weekend. People who could not name a single NBA player

@IIIF Mastodon feed

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-30

The June #IIIF Newsletter is out, including:

🎥 Recordings from the 2026 Annual Conference

🖼️ Prezi 4

❓Location for the 2027 Conference

342: Electric Asia. Erdős. OMG French Polynesia 🪼💙. Zambia education.

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

Accelerating past milestones we didn’t expect to hit until the 2030s

The European Commission falls for openness theater by working with W Social

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-01

The European Commission has moved its profiles to W Social. That's a terrible decision.

Thursday afternoon session in Dublin

2026-06-18

Thursday afternoon session in Dublin

The Software Freedom Conservancy's LLM-backed generative AI recommendations

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-24

The Software Freedom
Conservancy (SFC) has announced the release of its recommendations
for using LLM-backed generative AI systems for FOSS
contributions. The recommendations were created by the SFC and volunteers from the free-software community.

The recommendations reflect the extremely difficult dilemmas that these systems pose for FOSS contributors. SFC and its volunteers understand that FOSS developers are approaching LLM-gen-AI from a variety of perspectives. The recommendations offer practical assistance to minimize the damage caused by using proprietary systems, whether FOSS contributors reject LLM-gen-AI or choose (voluntarily or by employer mandate) to use them.

These recommendations are best practices (but not definitions or requirements) that SFC and its volunteers formulated after careful study of the growing LLM-gen-AI use among FOSS contributors. SFC will follow these recommendations with a series of supporting materials, including documents, online tutorials, public Q&As, podcasts, and other community engagement. We will routinely refine our recommendations and continue to support FOSS contributors as they navigate this difficult landscape.

With Hasan in Gaza: testimonio transformado en tributo

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

Dirección: Kamal Aljafari. Guion: Kamal Aljafari. Países: Qatar, Alemania, Francia. Más información del documental: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37538502/ La historia que presenta el documental With Hasan in Gaza abarca décadas. Si bien es reciente (tuvo su estreno internacional en el Festival de Locarno de 2025), sus imágenes e historias se desarrollan en 2001, y su origen se sitúa en […]

La entrada With Hasan in Gaza: testimonio transformado en tributo se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-29

Today I did a change that was across two apps, different projects, client and server. I tested it as best I could for now, and it appears to work in both apps. But now I have an extra level of confidence because I asked Claude to do a code review, checking all my assumptions and it does find egregious mistakes, that in the past might have taken a day in a debugger to track down. Now it can happen in less than the time that it took for me to write this post.

Trump’s Reflecting Pool is a Fetid Swamp. His Iran Deal Wishes it was That Good.

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

He spent $13 million trying to “fix” a 100-year-old problem and made it worse. He ran the exact same play on the Iran Nuclear Deal, only that one costs a lot more.

Pluralistic: AI digital sovereignty risk doesn't exist (18 Jun 2026)

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-03

Today's links AI digital sovereignty risk doesn't exist: If 'risk + AI = risk – AI', then 'AI = 0'. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Napster x librarians; Flickr API reciprocity; KFC's Mega Jug v diabetes research; Hambone virtuoso; Google fiber x binding arbitration; "The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice." Upcoming appearances: LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. AI digital sovereignty risk doesn't exist (permalink) Back at the height of the blockchain bubble, I made a hobby of pointing out that crypto weirdos were palming a card. I used this formulation: if: problem + blockchain = problem – blockchain then: blockchain = 0 https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/30/the-inevitability-of-trusted-third-parties/ You see, blockchain weirdos kept insisting that they could solve problems related to trust and institutional design with "smart contracts." Rather than having to trust a board of directors to steer an organization, you could just have a self-executing institution, the "distributed autonomous organization" or DAO. So for example, if you want to buy a copy of the US Constitution at a Sotheby's auction, you could set up a DAO to raise and pool the funds, eliminating the need to find trustworthy people to receive, hold and deploy these funds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConstitutionDAO However – and here's where the palmed card comes in – the DAO can't go to Sotheby's and place a bid on the Constitution. Instead, the members of the DAO have to elect a guy to receive all that cash, walk into Sotheby's, get one of those little ping-pong paddles last seen at the State of the Union in Chuck Schumer's withered claw (emblazoned with the brave slogan "You're hurting my fee-fees") and raise the paddle during the bidding. That guy doesn't have to go to Sotheby's. That guy can simply walk away with all the money. Members of the DAO are trusting this guy with their entire collective treasury. Indeed, since the DAO has no corresponding legal entity, it might even be that members of the DAO can't sue this guy if he steals all their money – and even worse, without a limited liability structure, it might mean that everyone in the DAO can be sued for anything bad this guy does with the money. Which raises the question: what's the point of building this insanely complex hairball of blockchain-based smart contracts to raise and hold the money if you're just going to hand it to this guy and trust him without limit? Why not just have that guy set up a Zelle account and a Whatsapp group? In other words: the problem that the DAO is trying to solve is the difficulty of trusting people with the keys to the kingdom, but no matter how much blockchain you sprinkle on this DAO, it ends with this one guy walking around with all your money, which he can steal with impunity if he so chooses. Or, put more succinctly: if: problem + blockchain = problem – blockchain then: blockchain = 0 This turns out to be a really good way of assessing policy prescriptions for their soundness and foundation in reality, because – as the blockchain swindle shows us – it's possible to come up with entirely fictitious solutions to entirely real problems. The problem of designing a trustworthy institution that can't be betrayed by its leaders and whose operations don't consume all its resources is a real problem – it's quite possibly the real problem – but adding a DAO does nothing to solve the core problems of institutional design, and actually makes some of those problems worse. There's another real problem with a fictitious solution that is – surprise! – tied to another tech bubble: digital sovereignty. It's a genuine problem that everyone in the world (outside of China's sphere of influence) is glued to America's tech platforms. These platforms steal everyone's money and data, and every country has signed a trade deal with the USA promising not to let its own technologists and entrepreneurs go into business making add-ons and complementary goods that remediate the defects in America's tech exports: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/#ottawa What's more, Trump's response to finding himself in this poker game that's rigged entirely in his favor is to flip over the table because he resents having to pretend to play at all (as November Kelly so aptly put it). His incontinent belligerence on the world stage sees him making bids to steal whole countries and he's recruited American tech giants to help him in this chaotic program of lunatic imperialism. When other countries' public officials make decisions that Trump dislikes, he gets companies like Microsoft to disconnect whole institutions from the internet, deleting their files, email archives, calendars and address books, and depriving them of the ability to connect to any service tied to their Outlook accounts: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration Which means that if Trump wants to steal Greenland, he doesn't have to roll tanks into Nuuk – he can just brick the country of Denmark. He can shut down all their ministries, every large firm, every household. He can shut down their iPhones and Android devices. He can kill their smart-speakers. He can hormuz the world's supply of Ozempic, Lego and ferociously strong licorice: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/04/digital-subjugation/#greenlands-next It doesn't stop there! Trump can also shut down every tractor! https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/ This is the digital sovereignty risk. It's also the digital sovereignty opportunity. If countries repeal the laws that the US bullied them into accepting, laws that protect US tech giants from local competitors who block their plunder of data and money, they can turn America's tech trillions into their own tech billions. As Jeff Bezos likes to say, "your margin is my opportunity": https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/30/zucksauce/#gandersauce Meanwhile, repealing these US-protecting laws would enable countries to extract their data from US platforms so they can move it into domestic alternatives, and bypass the software locks that block them from updating phones, cars, tractors and ventilators to protect them from remote killswitches: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition The digital sovereignty risk is having your country's government, businesses and industries terminated by Trump. The digital sovereignty opportunity is making billions of dollars by producing and exporting products that defend people from Big Tech plunder and Trumpian killswitches. That is the real world. But many "digital sovereignty" advocates are living in an imaginary world, in which the digital sovereignty risk is that Trump will shut off their country's access to AI. This is where the "if problem + blockchain" formulation comes in handy. If Trump shut off Canada's access to Chatgpt, Claude and Grok tomorrow, nothing would happen. No significant business, no federal or provincial ministry, no municipal government depends on these products for anything essential. And if Canada were to build their own local AI to sub in for Chatgpt, Claude and Grok, it would loose tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. Worst of all, a national AI strategy does nothing – not one solitary thing – to protect Canada from Trump shutting down our ministries, our companies, or our tractors. In other words: If: digital sovereignty + AI = digital sovereignty – AI Then: AI = 0 If you think AI tools are nifty and want Canada to invest in AI, then first, please stop pretending that this has anything to do with "digital sovereignty." Not only is this a transparent bit of nonsense, it's a dangerous one, because digital sovereignty is a real problem, and AI does nothing to solve it. If you want a good "national AI strategy," try this: save your money until the bubble bursts, and then buy your GPUs and hire your talent at 10 cents on the dollar and put them to work refining open source models: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington Buying AI at the top of the market is nuts. That would be like shopping for Aeron chairs and foosball tables in March 2000. If you just sit tight for a couple months, you'll be able to find bankrupt dotcom entrepreneurs selling these at knock-down prices out front of their formerly overpriced office space in the Mission, in the time-honored tradition of former Wall Street millionaires selling apples out of their Rolls Royces: https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/323794 (Literally: I bought a "dining room set" of six $1500 Steelcase Leap chairs in the summer of 2000 from a failed dotcom CEO on Van Ness for $25 a piece – still in the original plastic!) And in the meantime, please let's stop pretending that digital sovereignty has anything to do with "national AI." If Trump takes away your AI, everything is fine. If Trump takes away your iPhones, Office 365 and tractors, your country grinds to a halt. This is just not that complicated: If: digital sovereignty + AI = digital sovereignty – AI Then: AI = 0 (Image: Armin Kübelbeck, CC BY-SA 4.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) Is Donald Trump the Greatest Environmentalist of All Time?? https://jacobin.com/2026/06/trump-iran-green-transition-environmentalism WNBA Players Scored a Historic Labor Contract—With One Notable Caveat https://www.hardresetmedia.com/p/wnba-players-labor-contract-wearables Trump’s Anthropic shutdown just made the case for non-American AI https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/949986/anthropic-fable-mythos-shutdown-sovereign-ai Blindsight Sci-fi Short Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkR2hnXR0SM Introducing: Story Oracle https://www.clarionwest.org/story-oracle/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Napster boss's American Library Association keynote https://web.archive.org/web/20010623201456/https://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2001/06/17/napster/index.html #20yrsago Flickr: we’ll give full access to competitors – if they reciprocate https://www.flickr.com/groups/central/discuss/72157594165399644/#comment72157594167782546 #20yrsago Report from a concert by a Serbian war-criminal https://web.archive.org/web/20060613081324/http://blog.b92.net/blog/22 #20yrsago European podcasters to WIPO: Stay away from us! https://web.archive.org/web/20060619224538/https://www.bloggernews.net/2006/06/european-podcasters-team-up-to-lobby.html #15yrsago KFC: support diabetes research by buying an 800 calorie, 56 spoonful of sugar “Mega Jug” https://web.archive.org/web/20110619031415/https://theweek.com/article/index/216462/irony-alert-buy-kfcs-800-calorie-soda-to-support-diabetes-research #10yrsago Terrorist who murdered Jo Cox shouts: “Death to traitors” in court https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0618/Accused-killer-of-MP-Jo-Cox-makes-defiant-court-statement #10yrsago Judge orders release of man convicted while his public defender was handcuffed https://web.archive.org/web/20160617172242/http://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/judge-releases-man-who-received-jail-sentence-while-lawyer-was-handcuffs-video #10yrsago Hambone virtuoso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMJeaZtgwng #10yrsago Google Fiber now forces subscribers into binding arbitration; days left to opt out https://web.archive.org/web/20160617141759/https://consumerist.com/2016/06/16/google-fiber-copies-comcast-att-forces-users-to-give-up-their-legal-right-to-sue/ #1yrago The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/18/anarcho-cryptid/#decameron-and-on Upcoming appearances (permalink) Virtual: The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order), Jun 19 https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada's State of the Nation), Jun 23 https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026 Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 London: Idler Festival, Jul 11 https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/ Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24 https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/ Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25 https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8 https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9 https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, & Everything (Luke Savage) https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus) https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035 Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP) https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/ On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/) "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE. "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X

Trump's Presidency Has Been A Catastrophe For America And The World (New Video & Written Analysis)

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-29

Greetings all.

Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs Build Resilient Companies

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

The best entrepreneurs don’t always come from comfort—they often come from disruption.

Comrade And Car

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-04

Writing of lasting value

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #448

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-02

For June 10-16, 2026

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them.

One of the pieces we featured in last week’s newsletter was I’m Jessica Fletcher, and I Don’t Even Feel Anything Anymore When I Find a Dead Body. We were emailing with Tony Delgado , the author, and he very kindly agreed to share a little bit about his relationship with Murder, She Wrote and what inspired the piece.

Tony writes: “I've always liked the show since I was little. However, [the piece] was prompted by a small binge. I had some downtime while visiting my elderly father since everyone went to bed at 8pm. He has a channel on his television that only shows episodes of ‘Murder, She Wrote’ for some reason. From there, it was just inspired by the absurdity of seeing one cozy murder after another. The anecdotes about the friend found in the drain pipe (Jessica Walter) and the trip to Hong Kong are actually from the show.”

Thanks so much for the info, Tony! We’re always on the lookout for these kinds of behind-the-scenes anecdotes, so if you wrote a piece that’s been featured in the newsletter and you have a story about it that you’d like to share, please write in and let us know.

What We Enjoyed This Week

I Am Your Dad’s Nest Camera and I Am Ready for Shit to Go Down by Carrie McCrossen (The New Yorker) The contrast between the aggro camera and the secretly milquetoast dad is delightful: “He’s not as confrontational as I am. He thinks of things he could say to the guy who tossed an empty Sonic cup by the front hedge. But he doesn’t actually press the Talk button. He goes out and quietly picks up the cup, crushing it in his fist, as he wonders why a lifetime of being a nice guy, a good husband, and a devoted father wasn’t enough to earn him any respect.” A very fun study of two characters.

Notes from a Tired Egyptian Guy Whose Job Is Explaining That Humans Built the Pyramids by Aman Alam (McSweeney’s) The dry, quietly exasperated tone is just great. And Aman brings up some excellent points as well, should you ever need to refute the arguments of one of those ancient aliens people: “Why would intergalactic civilizations travel unimaginable distances only to help stack triangles?”

A Question For The Escape Room Receptionist by Samyu Comandur (HAD) What’s worse: Your partner is lying to you because they’re cheating on you, or because they’re trying to hide the fact that they are absolutely terrible at escape rooms? That’s the very funny dilemma at the heart of this piece, which is cleverly constructed as a single sentence addressed to an escape room attendant.

Woman Thinks Hot Dogs Are Disgusting Except for Any Time She’s Offered One by Lisa Corn (Reductress) This is just a headline, not a full article, but as we’ve mentioned many times before, we’re suckers for jokes about hot dogs here at the newsletter, and so we simply had to share.

- AD -

On The Watchlist with Jay Servedio is a brand-new live late-night comedy series that blends biting satire with investigative curiosity. Inspired by The Daily Show but rooted in its own chaotic, absurdist voice, we dive headfirst into the week’s headlines, media manipulation, and political theater. Smart, silly, and unapologetically weird, On The Watchlist is equal parts comedy show, social autopsy, and media exorcism. Join us for our exploration into the Age of Misinformation. This Month's topic: THE MANOSPHERE!

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An Old Favorite

Beach Rules by John Howell Harris (The New Yorker) As you get ready to hit the beach this summer, you’ll surely want to keep in mind these helpful tips from John. The way the character of the beach is built out and heightened is very funny, and we’re always impressed when an author successfully writes a piece in all caps.

Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.

Updates From Your Editors and Friends of the Newsletter

Regular Books is a cool new platform for punchy ebooks, built on 100% creator ownership, simple revenue sharing, and zero AI. They just launched with a handful of projects, including an old comedy zine by James called The Thunder in Paradise, a collection of erasure poems composed from old Hulk Hogan interviews. It’s free!

Luke’s got an intro to short humor workshop starting in July! Learn the essentials of writing short humor pieces and write a draft of your very own piece in just four weeks. (Luke’s also got three advanced classes coming up in July as well.)

Caltech Weekly - June 18: Caltech Commencement; Building the World's Most Sensitive Radio Telescope

2026-06-18

Caltech Weekly - June 18: Caltech Commencement; Building the World's Most Sensitive Radio TelescopeView this email in your browser

Thursday, June 18, 2026

Caltech Celebrates Graduates at 132nd Commencement

On Friday, June 12th, Caltech celebrated its 132nd Commencement, awarding 235 bachelor's degrees, 1 engineer's degree, 126 master's degrees, and 255 doctoral degrees.

Caltech Readies to Build World's Most Sensitive Radio Telescope

Researchers at Caltech are getting ready to build a radio telescope that has both exquisite sensitivity and the ability to take crisp pictures. The Caltech-led Deep Synoptic Array recently completed its final design review with Schmidt Sciences, which announced in January that it is funding the project.

Novel Chemical Reaction Suggests the Origins of Life

Caltech researchers have identified a novel chemical reaction that could explain the formation of the building blocks of DNA and RNA, the molecules that encode all of life's functions. The work is an important step toward understanding how life may have emerged on Earth and potentially elsewhere in the universe.

A Star's Death Throes Involves a Lot of Kicking

A new model describes how an aging star's outer shell ejections push it in opposite direction.

"Assume optimistically that AI will not drive us humans apart from each other like many fear it will. Assume that we will emerge from the coming epoch as a thriving, strong, and ethical human society—one in which each human being values and respects all other human beings, regardless of our disagreements, and in which human-to-human interactions are central to our well-being."

Kip Thorne (BS '62), Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus; Caltech Distinguished Alumnus; and Nobel laureate, speaking at the Institute's 132nd Commencement exercises.

This Week's Other Top Stories

Honoring a Lifelong Passion for Physics

Point72 Gift Funds AI Research Program at Caltech

JPL News: NASA, USGS Scientists Go Rock Hounding in California's High Desert

In Case You Missed It

View recent lectures and events on Caltech's YouTube channel.

New Method Means Fast Autofocus for Microscopes

A team of scientists in the lab of Changhuei Yang at Caltech has developed an inexpensive, robust method for autofocusing microscopes that involves little more than a couple of LED lights and some physics-based processing.

Did You Know?

JPL will celebrate 90 years of science and innovation in space by welcoming the public for an open-house event, Explore JPL, October 10–11. Timed-entry ticket registration will open at 9 a.m. PDT on Saturday, August 29. Caltech's Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences offers all graduate and undergraduate GPS students the opportunity to attend one enrichment trip during their time at the Institute. These excursions, which are funded by philanthropic donations, typically occur annually and are designed for students to bond while exploring a country's geography and taking part in cultural experiences.Bluesky Caltech.edu Facebook Instagram LinkedIn X YouTube Connect with CaltechThe Caltech Weekly is published by the Office of Communications and External Relations. Copyright ©2026 All rights reserved. Send feedback and story ideas for the newsletter to theweekly@caltech.edu.

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The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-19

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Nonfiction

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-19

More people get their news from social media than anywhere else - globally. The platforms we use matter.

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-01

"For the first time, social media and video networks are, on average across the markets covered, more popular than both TV and owned news websites and apps as sources of news."

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

"The only reason I keep developing today is because the web is (still) here."

[$] The first half of the 7.2 merge window

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-23

The 7.2 merge window started with the 7.1
kernel release on June 14. As of this writing, just over 7,000 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the mainline for the next kernel release. Many of the core subsystems have been pulled at this point, meaning that most of the changes that can be expected in 7.2 have now come into focus.

Mastodon 4.6 released

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-23

Version
4.6 of the Mastodon fediverse platform has been released.

The headliner of this release is Collections, a way to create and share curated collections of profiles. Part of Mastodon's work ethos is our commitment to trust and safety, so we've put a lot of thought and care into the design of this feature to avoid some of the pitfalls and abuse people have experienced with similar features on other platforms, while focusing on its primary goal: Helping new users discover more of the Fediverse.

Other new features include support for subscribing to posts via email, the ability to generate a "year in review" post, accessibility improvements, and more.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-29

Now that Google has added AI in their search, and it dominates search more and more, it's become more difficult to find ideas that aren't well explained by AI and are on some randome old web pages. For example, this morning I wanted to find an explainer for "Standing on the toes of giants," something a colleague once used in a story. I'm sure there's stuff out there, but no luck finding it. Didn't help that there's a popular song with that title.

AI answers are a new vector for election disinformation

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-29

For years, people have used social media to seed disinformation in order to swing elections. Now, the answers our search engines and expert systems produce have become more vulnerable.

[$] Single-hop block replication with RMR and BRMR

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-23

How can cloud providers efficiently supply durable virtual block devices? Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) provides a way for servers in a cluster to share chunks of memory, but there still needs to be a protocol that operates on top of RDMA to provide the guarantees expected of a block device. The kernel's RDMA transport library (RTRS) provides a way to send messages via RDMA. Ipresented about two new components built on top of RTRS at the 2026Linux
Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management and BPF Summit: Reliable Multicast over RTRS (RMR) and Block device over RMR (BRMR). These modules, which I am working on with Jia Li, could be a way for cloud providers to expose durable block devices with as little overhead as possible. To accomplish that, however, we need some discussion and feedback from the community before sending the modules upstream.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

Stream the Knicks parade live on YouTube.

Security updates for Thursday

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (dracut, podman, postfix, rsync, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Debian (atril, firefox-esr, and nginx), Mageia (libcap, perl, and python-pillow), Oracle (firefox, gstreamer-plugins-base and gstreamer-plugins-good, httpd:2.4, kernel, libpng12, libpng15, libxml2, libxslt, opencryptoki, openssl, postfix, rsync, webkit2gtk3, xorg-x11-server, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Slackware (bind, libidn, mozilla, and openssl), SUSE (alloy, docker, elemental-system-agent, glibc, grafana, helm, LibVNCServer, openssh8.4, perl-GD, perl-HTTP-Daemon, python-WebOb-doc, python311-google-adk, rustup, traefik2, wireshark, and xwayland), and Ubuntu (dolibarr, golang-go.crypto, graphite2, gst-plugins-bad1.0, kitty, libconfig-inifiles-perl, libnginx-mod-js, and webpy).

The Mars Delusion

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-02

The post The Mars Delusion appeared first on NOEMA.

Richard Linklater Set For Zurich Film Festival Honorary Award

2026-06-18

U.S. director Richard Linklater will be feted with a Career Achievement Award at the Zurich Film Festival this fall. The festival said it was honoring Linklater as one of the most influential auteur filmmakers of American independent cinema, highlighting his Before trilogy and Oscar-winning drama Boyhood as films that had redefined cinema and shaped an […]

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-06-18:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 35 updated places. 4 new and 21 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

dbea2c93 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

75ffec70 - updated gis package

4cdaea3e - updated data quality

d6a76682 - updated bibliography

09826842 - updated indexes

c9b4c4ad - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

7d4ae062 - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

8fafc1e5 - updated pleiades wikidata

World Wide Knicks by Sally Atkins

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-27

My longtime friend Sally Atkins reponded to my question yesterday about how widely the love of the Knicks is being felt.

You asked. From all I see out here in the Midwest and also from comments from friends in Europe, I can testify that yes absolutely the Knicks win is a total joy to behold far and wide. Not just for the artful wins, although that was great fun. The last second dunk in the second to last game was breathtaking.

The larger gift is that New Yorkers have so vividly shown that right now and going forward we are capable of joy-and-unity vs hate-and-division. Love is way more fun than hate. Most people know that, you’ve shown it. Knicks fans, people of all ages and creeds , are a palpable reminder of the power of the people right on!

Remember the 1967 Troggs hit Love is All Around? I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes.

Happy Parade Day!

Let this hopeful moment fuel the near future.

PS: Did you see the news clip of the Knicks just after arriving back in NY, just off their plane they joined in a parade for Puerto Rico or maybe it was Pride Month. Hallelujah. (Dave: It was the Puerto Rican Day parade, two players went, Alvarado (who is Puerto Rican himself) and Jordan Clarkson who is from the Philippines, and is the super freak hippie on the team, though they're pretty much all hippies.)

Responses from other sites

Tommy Williams: "Not here in Montana, or among my colleagues across the Midwest. It didn't attract more attention than any other NBA championship. Everyone's focus (for sports) is on the World Cup."

Courtney Robertson: "Noticing that sports is bringing unification and joy when I really could use that."

Phil: "There are a surprising number of Knicks fans here in Cincy, and it's been a pretty big deal -- I've even got a friend who flew out to NYC for the parade today."

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-27

NBA fans, esp Knicks fans, are not fans of the current president. A picture of the Knicks team with Trump in the Oval Office would be hard to see. Not threatening to resign as a Knicks fan, not ruling it out either.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

All the viewing areas for Knicks ticker-tape parade are already full -- hours before epic celebration begins: NYPD.

What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-19

Isabel Waidner’s As If, Danielle Allen’s Radical Duke, and Amitav Ghosh’s Ghost-Eye all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. * Fiction 1. As If by Isabel Waidner (FSG)

My Newly Successful Friend Won’t Stop Namedropping: Is She the Literary Asshole?

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-19

Well, hello there! Fancy meeting you here. Welcome back to the Internet’s favorite drunken advice column, Am I The Literary Asshole? It’s the place where we ponder all of life’s hardest-hitting questions, such as “Why does my dog walk out

Spoons by Sam

2026-06-18

I play Clues by Sam nearly every single day. I wrote about it before, but solving a little crime puzzle adds a micro-thrill to my day. A little blast of logic, misdirection, and wordplay. It’s a frequent topic of conversation in the ShopTalkShow Discord where people share their solves like Wordle scores.

Vintage illustration of two square-ish police men approaching a crowd of people who have grabbed a wanted man. L'anarchiste (1892) by Félix Vallotton. Public Domain.

It might have been Josh who first pointed it out, but as a group we’ve realized that Clues by Sam is an uncanny proxy for measuring your emotional well-being that day. If you’re a regular puzzler, I think it’s safe to say you should be able to solve a non-weekend edition of Clues by Sam without any mistakes (green days). But there are off-days (yellow days) where I make obvious errors tracking the four or five clues you need to solve the puzzle. And there are worse days (orange days) where even with hints, I have no idea what I’m doing and begin to doubt my understanding of English.

Borrowing the metaphor of Spoon Theory from the disabled community, Clues by Sam helps me take inventory of what’s left in my kitchen drawers. My performance on Clues by Sam often alerts me to events happening in my subconscious. It’s become a barometer for my cognitive bandwidth; like Person, Man, Woman, Camera, TV but with Xena, Kyle, Paula, Vince, and Chloe. Faceplanting on an easy puzzle is a clue for me that I have some unarticulated anxieties occupying my mind.

It’s not rocket science that cognitive tasks are more difficult when you’re distracted, but the reliability to which this daily puzzler causes me to dig into my personal well-being is shocking. I’m beginning to see obvious mistakes –like the common “crimocent” mix-up– less as a failure and more as an opportunity to pause and assess what else might be going on in my life.

@Barack Obama @Bsky

2026-06-18

The Obama Presidential Center is finally opening!

Tune in today on Obama.org starting at 11am CT as Michelle and I share what this moment means to us and celebrate with friends, family, and members of the community in Chicago.

Embedding Forbidden Text in Spyware to Discourage AI Analysis

2026-06-18

At least one malware developer is adding text about nuclear and biological weapons to their spyware, in an effort to stop automatic AI analysis.

Details:

The _index.js payload begins with a large JavaScript block comment containing fake system instructions and policy-triggering content. Because it is inside a comment, it does not affect JavaScript execution. The runtime skips it. The real malware begins after the comment with a try{eval(…)} wrapper around a large character-code array and a ROT-style substitution function.

This header appears designed for AI-mediated analysis, not for Node, Bun, or Python. It attempts to derail scanners or analyst copilots that feed the beginning of a file to a language model without clearly isolating the content as untrusted data. In weak pipelines, this can cause refusal behavior, prompt confusion, context pollution, or premature classification before the scanner reaches the actual malware...

Die “10 Millionen Schweiz” der SVP ist ein gruseliger Abgrund. Ich will nicht wie in einem Zoo leben, umringt von Heile-Welt-Träumern, die nichts von unseren Nachbarländern wissen wollen, die keinen Respekt vor den Menschenrechten haben.

Wer nicht mehr weiss, wie bescheuert es früher war, soll sich Die Schweizermacher aus dem Jahr 1978 nochmal anschauen. Das ist keine tolle Welt und dahin will man nicht zurück. Dafür schämt man sich und verspricht, bessere Lösungen zu finden.

Die Zukunft ist vorne, nicht in den siebziger Jahren.

Wer sich dabei nichts Schlimmes vorstellen kann, ist zu wenig gereist, hat zu wenig die Augen aufgemacht, hat sich nie in Ausländer verliebt, hat keine Verwandten im Ausland, hat keine Vorfahren, die eingewandert sind, oder hat nicht gehört, wie schlimm es war. Die heile Welt von früher gab es nur für diejenigen, die nicht hingeschaut haben. Diese schöne Welt ist Tourismuswerbung, nicht Realität.

Die Fremdenpolizei von morgen ist das ICE von heute. Schaut nach Amerika und an die europäische Aussengrenze, um zu sehen, wohin der Weg geht. Kinder in Käfigen. Eltern von Kindern getrennt. Die Ausländer, verfolgt, getreten, bespuckt, zurück gestossen, ausgeraubt, ertrunken gelassen. Das ist die Zukunft, die immer näher kommt. Das will man nicht unterstützen.

Wer pflegt uns im Alter, wer erntet unsere Felder, wer reinigt unsere Büros, wer arbeitet für wenig Geld? Die Ausländer. Dass man in der Pflege und bei der Feldarbeit und bei der Reinigung so wenig Geld verdient, ist schon Schande genug für unser Land. Es ist aber eine Illusion, zu glauben, dass alles besser wird, wenn wir Ausländer verjagen und verfolgen. Niemand ist arbeitslos, weil schlecht bezahlte Ausländer ihnen den Job weggenommen haben. Die Arbeitgeber haben die Löhne gedrückt, bis nur noch die schlecht bezahlten Ausländer die Arbeit gemacht haben. Die Fremdenfeindlichkeit erledigt keine Arbeit, sie vertreibt nur die Arbeitswilligen. Dann erledigt halt keiner die Arbeit. Das macht hinten und vorne keinen Sinn. Das ist keine Politik mit Weitsicht.

Wer zahlt für unsere AHV ein, wenn nicht die jungen Leute, die hier arbeiten, inklusive Ausländer? Wenn wir sie vertreiben, wird das Elend im Alter noch schlimmer. Denn eins ist klar, die reichen Schweizer werden die AHV nicht bezahlen! Die Löhne in der Pflege werden nicht steigen. Also müssen die schweizer Frauen mehr Kinder kriegen? Ja wie denn, zahlen die reichen Schweizer wenigstens die Kindertagesstätten? Oder verbieten wir die Abtreibung, zwingen die Frauen zur Austragung, eröffnen mehr Kinderheime? Ausländer vertreiben ist doch kein Plan! Das ist einfach nicht überlegt.

Wenn wir Arbeitskräfte brauchen und Ausländer kommen, dann ist das super! Sie sollen kommen und wir sollten sie einbürgern, damit sie mit entscheiden können. Das ist gerecht. Das ist eine Entscheidung, für die wir uns in dreissig Jahren nicht schämen müssen. Das hat Zukunft.

Das Manifest der @woz gegen die unsägliche 10 Millionen Initiative der SVP unterstütze ich voll und ganz: 10 Millionen Mal Nein.

Ein Bild von mir und mein Name, und darüber steht: 10 Millionen Mal Nein. Nein zur SVP Schweiz!

#Schweiz

2026-06-14. Once again, Switzerland manages to barely stay humane. Like a few journalists I read in recent weeks I am so fucking tired of the xenophobic discussions, the need to defend the humanity of it all. But hey, at least made for another few years. We rejected the 10-Million limit for permanent residents. My wife is sitting in the sofa next to me and scrolling through the results by community – and judging them.

The initiative was rejected. The cantons rejected it 13 to 10 and the popular vote rejected it with 54.79%. The map shows that all the French speaking cantons rejected it. Thank you! The Italian speaking canton was in favour and the retro German speaking cantons were in favour, too. Shame.

Abstimmungskommentar in der WOZ:

55 Prozent Nein sind eine Absage. An einen Bevölkerungsdeckel und an die flächendeckende Entrechtung von Migrant:innen. An eine Schweiz, die nach den Regeln der SVP zu funktionieren hat. In dieser Deutlichkeit liegt eine Klärung: Die Stimmungsbilder, die die SVP in den letzten Monaten erzeugt hat und die medial multipliziert wurden, haben mit den erlebten Realitäten in der Schweiz nur wenig zu tun. – Ein Feiertag der offenen Schweiz

2026-06-15. Wir sind beide im Aargau in der Region Baden aufgewachsen und leben jetzt in Zürich – und es ist schon grausam, wie es ausserhalb der Stadt Zürich und Baden aussieht. Da kann man sich die Gemeinden einzeln anschauen und sich immer wieder schütteln. 🫣

Zürich. Die Stadt hat die ausländerfeindliche Initiative abgelehnt, aber ausserhalb, wo es kaum Ausländer gibt, wurde die fremdenfeindliche Initiative angenommen. Aargau. Gleiches Bild: In den Gemeinden um Aarau, Baden, Brugg und Lenzburg wurde die ausländerfeindliche Initiative abgelehnt. Dort, wo es viel weniger Ausländer gibt, wurde sie angenommen.

Da ich in der Stadt wohne, finde ich das schwierig zu verstehen. In der Gemeinde, wo ich aufgewachsen bin, waren die Hälfte der Kinder in meiner Klasse Gastarbeiterkinder, also Italiener. Ich gehe davon aus, dass sie sich inzwischen alle haben einbürgern lassen. Ausserdem habe ich nicht den Eindruck, dass die Gegend besonders arm war, oder unter einer Ausländerangst gelitten hat. Also, trotz entsprechenden Vorfahren, trotz langer gemeinsamer Geschichte, trotz materiellem Wohlstand: Zustimmung 52% bis 68% in den Gemeinden, wo ich zur Schule ging: Döttingen, Klingnau, Böttstein, Leuggern. Leibstadt und Mandach bei 72% und 73%. Grausam!

Das passt leider. Oft habe ich das Argument gehört, dass ohne die Ausländer die Pflege, die Reinigung, das Gastgewerbe und was weiss ich noch alles leiden wird. OK, aber Vorsicht mit der Argumentation! Schnell sind einem die Worte dann im Mund umgedreht: Wenn man wirtschaftlich nicht nützlich wäre, dann dürfte man ausgeschafft werden? Deswegen lieber gleich mit der Nächstenliebe argumentieren!

Seit Monaten weiss ich, dass der Abstimmungskampf schlimm werden wird. Ich kenne keine Schweiz ohne solche Kampagnen. Keine Schweiz, in der ich mich nicht für meine blosse Anwesenheit bedanken muss. Keine Schweiz, die mich als ihre Bürgerin sieht. – Willkommen sind wir trotzdem nicht, von Swassthi Sivasanmukanatha Sarma, für Das Lamm

Ein starker Text, der genau hier den Finger drauf hält. Es geht darum, dass Menschen gekommen sind. Menschen. Alles andere ist zweitranging.

June 17, 2026

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-24

A senior U.S.

‘Dancing With The Stars’ Season 35 Adds Jimmy Kimmel’s Right Hand Man Guillermo Rodriguez To Celebrity Cast

2026-06-18

Dancing with the Stars has added another celebrity to its Season 35 roster. Jimmy Kimmel Live star Guillermo Rodriguez will be sashaying his way across the ballroom floor this fall, Disney revealed on Wednesday night. So far, he joins a cast that includes The Traitors and Love Island breakout Maura Higgins, Summer House favorite Ciara Miller and Savannah Bananas second baseman Jackson Olson. […]

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-19

Nominations Open for 2026 EFF Awards.

Abgeordnete von Sachsen: Stimmt gegen Massenüberwachung und Verhaltensscanner!

2026-06-18

Die Minderheitskoalition aus CDU und SPD in Sachsen plant, der Polizei zahlreiche neue technische Befugnisse zu geben und Grundrechte auszuhöhlen. Wir fordern die Abgeordneten des sächsischen Landtages auf, den massiven Ausbau der Überwachung zu stoppen.

Abgeordnete von Sachsen: Stimmt gegen Massenüberwachung und Verhaltensscanner!

2026-06-18

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for June 18, 2026

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-22

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Front: State of Fedora; mTHP creation; overlayfs; buffer-heads cleanup; 7.1 statistics.
Briefs: curl summer of bliss; 7.1 kernel; AUR compromise; Fedora election; FairScan 2.0; Firefox 152.0; Homebrew 6.0.0; KDE Plasma 6.7; LWN topic list; Quotes; ...
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

The Truth About Trump's Iran Deal

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-06-27

It's a total failure

From the mailbag #0 - Decisions, decisions

2026-06-18, updated: 2026-07-06

I answer reader questions: this week we have discuss how to teach people non-intuitive concepts, avoiding mediocrity, how I feel about writing fiction and the pervasive sense a lot of us have that we don't belong in the industry.

A one-click link to your latest issue

2026-06-18

The Modern theme's subscribe page now links straight to your most recent issue.

A one-click link to your latest issue

2026-06-18

The Modern theme's subscribe page now links straight to your most recent issue.

Friday 19 June, 2026

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-05

Farewell to Venice On our way to the airport. Quote of the Day ”I don’t mind growing old. I’m just not used to it.” Viktor Borge Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Mozart | Così fan tutte, K. 588, … Continue reading →

Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 246

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-02

Safari Technology Preview Release 246 is now available for download for macOS Golden Gate and macOS Tahoe.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-19

Knicks will visit Trump, White House, a first for NBA champ.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-19

What is a feed? (a.k.a. RSS).

Trump Lost

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-06

And so did we

Last Call - Tonight, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-27

Welcome new subscribers, and yes, we will be talking about Trump's pathetic surrender to Iran

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-05

When you are a Xogot user, every day is Xmas!

Performance, exploration, usability, live shader debugging and more!

https://blog.xogot.com/xogot-1-6-2-is-out/

Politics Chat, June 16, 2026

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-23

A newsletter about the history behind today's politics.

Stories Of Ireland by Brian Friel

2026-06-17

This is a collection of short stories by one of Ireland’s best playwrights.

I think you can tell that these stories were written by someone who’s at home with the stage. The dialogue really shines. And some of the stories feel like scenes in a play.

But that’s no bad thing. If most short stories are like mini-novels, why not have short stories that are like mini-plays?

Some of the stories are very short indeed, just long enough to convey the mood of the piece. That mood is often wistful, melancholy, or nostalgiac.

This collection comes with an equally brief introduction by the brilliant Louise Kennedy.

This slim volume makes for a great travel read. Slip it into your pocket and you’ll have an instant portal to a bygone time and place in the west of Ireland.

WWDC 2026 Links

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-03

General: Keynote / SOTU / Videos / YouTube Unofficial WWDC App / Script to Title Videos in EagleFiler OS Beta / Xcode Beta macOS 27 Installers / IPSW / Creating Install Disk With DropDMG Sample Code Group Lab Summaries WWDC.ai Session Summaries / Viewing Guide Documentation: Updates / AppKit / Foundation / Swift / SwiftData […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-27

Being a NYer and Knicks fan, I don't have a good perspective on how big an event the Knicks winning is. If you're not from the area, how widely is this holiday being observed and how many share the enthusiasm. Are people everywhere asking "How about those Knicks!"

Unlocked Repost: Curing US Healthcare, Part III: The Future

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-02

What reform could look like

The Pitt (temporada 2): buenos doctores, malos pacientes

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-22

Disponible en: HBO Max. Creador: R. Scott Gemmill. Dirección: Damian Marcano, Amanda Marsalis, John Cameron, Uta Briesewitz, Shawn Hatosy, Noah Wyle, John Wells. Elenco: Noah Wyle, Katherine LaNasa, Sepideh Moafi, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell, Patrick Ball, Supriya Ganesh, Shabana Azeez. Duración: 15 episodios de 49 minutos cada uno. Más información de […]

La entrada The Pitt (temporada 2): buenos doctores, malos pacientes se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-27

There will be new higher level development environments. How they work, I don't know. But much of your time working in Claude Code is telling it how to do stuff you want it to do, always -- and reminding that it that it forgot one of the rules (which it seems to always admit). A new development environment will come with rules about how to work with people. Those rules will be written with the help of psychologists who study human reasoning processes.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-27

The Knicks’ message is that working together works.

This Week In The Big Picture

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-06

With the launch of his new book tour on The View this week, Vice President JD Vance has essentially begun his 2028 presidential campaign.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-19

Ten months later, the $100 Google Home Speaker is available for preorder.

Pluralistic: The (real) dead economy theory (17 Jun 2026)

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-03

Today's links The (real) dead economy theory: Vibes and memestocks, all the way down. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Jim Baen has had a stroke; Blame Apple for iTunes DRM; France v the internet; "Rotters"; 1901 undersea cables; Washington Post wants Trump coverage blackout; Taxes are for the little people; Gamer lifecycle; Ghanian postal song; "What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower": Murder of Jo Cox; 12 year old doxed by anti-vaxers; Hong Kong bookseller recants forced confession. Upcoming appearances: LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, Edinburgh, Brighton, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. The (real) dead economy theory (permalink) Here's a fun fact about Elon Musk: in 2020, his (nominal) net worth was $20b, and today it's $1t (nominally). But that's not the fun fact; this is: everything he's done since 2020 was a flop. As John Quiggin writes, the pre-2020 Musk was the Musk of Tesla, batteries and Starlink. The post-2020 Musk is the Musk of Starship, robotaxis, Cybertrucks and Twitter – a string of commercial flops and assets that literally exploded. I would add that post-2020 Musk created the world's hungriest money-furnace, an automated child-porn production tool called "XAI": https://crookedtimber.org/2026/06/15/one-big-grift/ Quiggin declares that this is the era in which "financial markets fail in the task of valuing assets accurately," and "the institutional structures that are supposed to make them work have given up trying." Nor did this start with the Spacex IPO. As Quiggin writes, Bitcoin and other cryptos were once shunned by nominally sober financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, but today, not only do all the big banks offer crypto services, people have largely stopped calling it cryptocurrency because no one is even pretending that it's a form of money. It's a tradeable collectible, not even particularly useful for paying for crimes or laundering money. Spacex is just a continuation of the logic of crypto, in which something is valuable because some people think other people will pay more for it in the future, and not because it does useful things: https://johnquiggin.com/2018/02/09/bitcoin-kills-the-efficient-market-hypothesis/ That's the logic of the whole market today. AI – the world's money-losingest technology – attracts investment at the expense of everything else. When horrified NIH lifers begged the DOGE boys not to shut down long-running medical research projects, Musk's broccoli-haired brownshirts laughed in their faces, saying we don't need cancer research because "GAI" is almost here and it will cure cancer. You could hardly ask for a better example of investing in vibes over value than shutting down real cancer research to free up money for teaching more words to the word-guessing machine because it's about to become God and cure cancer. Today, Goldman Sachs isn't merely all-in on crypto – it's all-in on the Spacex IPO. As Quiggin writes, the bank has signed off on Musk's claim that "Musk's ragbag of assets" will grow one hundredfold in the next 40 months. Quiggin's short essay has been rolling around in my mind since I read it a couple days ago. Then, yesterday, I spotted this essay by Owen McGrann entitled "The Dead Economy Theory": https://www.owenmcgrann.com/p/the-dead-economy-theory The perfect name for this phenomenon! Or so I thought. Then I read McGrann's article, and discovered that it's yet another piece asking how the economy will work after AI takes all of our jobs because AI is absolutely going to do that and there's no point in even questioning whether that will happen. Look, thought experiments about how to deal equitably with labor displacement in the face of automation are all well and good. I'm a science fiction writer, that stuff is my bread and butter. But applying "dead economy theory" to the blithe acceptance of the claims of AI pitchmen is a terrible waste of a killer coinage. The true risk of AI to your job isn't: "an AI will do your job." It's: "an AI salesman will exploit your boss's infinite horniness for replacing mouthy workers with pliable machines to sell him a chatbot that can't do your job, and then your boss will fire you and replace you with that inept, defective chatbot." By the same token: the real "dead economy" risk isn't that all the productive labor will be done by chatbots owned by a habitual liar and eminently guillotineable billionaire like Sam Altman. The actual dead economy risk is that our institutions and markets will continue to move capital from productive activity into memestocks, vibes, and bubbles. We could do "AI cancer research" by producing tools that automate gnarly multivariant analysis problems for cancer researchers. But what we're actually doing is defunding cancer research (especially any research into "systemic" cancer because studying systemic things is "woke") to free up fiscal space so we can build data-centers and make Musk into a trillionaire. That's not just a dead economy – it's one that'll kill everyone you love and everything that matters. Hey look at this (permalink) Onward, Friends https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/farewell-now-friends The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech https://www.theringer.com/2026/05/28/tech/pope-leo-xiv-ai-encyclical-tech-industry-problems THE GUILLOTINE EMOJI PROPOSAL https://www.carrozo.com/guillotine-emoji Corporations Repurchase $4.8 TRILLION of Stock Since 2017 Trump-GOP Tax Law https://4taxfairness.substack.com/p/corporations-repurchase-48-trillion US approval of Paramount/Warner Bros. deal surprised DOJ lawyers, report says https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/us-approval-of-paramount-warner-bros-deal-surprised-doj-lawyers-report-says/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Jim Baen, science fiction publisher, has had a serious stroke https://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007658.html#007658 #20yrsago Why Apple is to blame for iTunes DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060620004534/http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/NewsBruiser-2.6.1/nb.cgi/view/vitanuova/2006/06/15/1 #20yrsago Lifecycle of a gamer https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/16/the-lifecycles-of-a-player/ #20yrsago Spammer: I’ll buy MySpace profiles with more than 20k contacts https://web.archive.org/web/20060619062837/http://skibrooklyn.blogspot.com/2006/06/easy-money-sell-your-friends.html #20yrsago Psychology of bad probability estimation: why lottos and terrorists matter https://web.archive.org/web/20060627174933/https://server1.sxsw.com/2006/coverage/SXSW06.INT.20060311.DanielGilbert.mp3 #15yrsago Copyright complaint kills Peanutweeter https://web.archive.org/web/20110620093750/https://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/peanutweeter-dmca-takedown/ #15yrsago Work song of Ghanian postal workers cancelling stamps https://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/0512/Ghana_Post_Office.mp3 #15yrsago What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower: steampunk choose-your-own-adventure https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/17/what-lies-beneath-the-clock-tower-steampunk-choose-your-own-adventure/ #15yrsago French proposal: any URL to be arbitrarily blacklisted without due process https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2011/06/15/the-entire-internet-under-governmental-censorship-in-france/ #15yrsago Rotters: YA horror novel about grave-robbing chills, thrills, delights https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/15/rotters-ya-horror-novel-about-grave-robbing-chills-thrills-delights/ #15yrsago Map of undersea cables from 1901 https://web.archive.org/web/20110220121138/http://www.dephx.com/2010/11/map-of-undersea-cables-from-1901.html #15yrsago Copyright complaint kills Peanutweeter https://web.archive.org/web/20110620093750/https://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/peanutweeter-dmca-takedown/ #15yrsago Work song of Ghanian postal workers cancelling stamps https://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/0512/Ghana_Post_Office.mp3 #15yrsago What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower: steampunk choose-your-own-adventure https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/17/what-lies-beneath-the-clock-tower-steampunk-choose-your-own-adventure/ #10yrsago Supreme Court ruling is a blow to copyright trolling business-model https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/attorneys-in-copyright-case-on-resold-textbooks-inch-closer-to-2m-payday/ #10yrsago The Orlando shooting, according to the Congressmen who took the most money from the NRA https://web.archive.org/web/20160617143716/https://theslot.jezebel.com/heres-how-the-congressmen-who-have-gotten-the-most-cash-1782083985 #10yrsago British Pro-EU MP murdered in the street by man shouting “Britain first!” https://web.archive.org/web/20160616212235/https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/british-referendum-campaign-suspended-killing-pro-europe-lawmaker-jo-cox/ #10yrsago 12 year old makes devastating video about anti-vaxxers, gets doxxed https://skepchick.org/2016/06/anti-vaxxers-dox-a-child-critic/ #10yrsago Report from the prison-industrial complex’s leading trade show https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/16/us-prisons-jail-private-healthcare-companies-profit #10yrsago Your cable operator is spying on you and selling the data from your set-top box https://publicknowledge.org/public-knowledge-defends-consumer-privacy-in-set-top-box-data-complaint-to-fcc-ftc/ #10yrsago Not robots: youth unemployment caused by late retirement, driven by pension precarity https://thebaffler.com/salvos/exit-planning-geoghegan #10yrsago Oakland mayor denies firing police chief over officers who statutorily raped teen sex-worker https://eastbayexpress.com/badge-of-dishonor-top-oakland-police-department-officials-looked-away-as-east-bay-cops-sexually-exploited-and-trafficked-a-teenager-2-1/ #10yrsago Paramount tells judge that they’re still suing over Star Trek fan-film https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/paramount-says-star-trek-fan-903497/ #10yrsago $40,000/year private school sues school for low-income kids for $2M over “Commonwealth” https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/06/16/can-school-lay-claim-commonwealth-its-name-back-bay-institution-believes-can/WHwiaaPEn04cIY6uxXjoiO/story.html #10yrsago Wisconsin Congresswoman: mandatory drug tests for anyone claiming $150K in itemized tax-deductions https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/16/gwen-moore-drug-test-rich-for-tax-deductions #10yrsago Hong Kong bookseller: I was forced to confess on China TV https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-36552672#5yrsago #10yrsago Washington Post calls for “blackout” on Trump coverage, appeals to RNC https://web.archive.org/web/20160615113350/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-right-response-to-donald-trump-a-media-blackout/2016/06/14/2868a0e0-3256-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html #10yrsago Security economics: black market price of hacked servers drops to $6 https://www.wired.com/2016/06/xdedic-server-trading-forum-kaspersky/ #10yrsago Lower-case “x” as a gender-neutral typographic convention https://kottke.org/16/06/x-marks-gender-neutral #5yrsago Taxes are for the little people https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/15/guillotines-and-taxes/#carried-interest Upcoming appearances (permalink) Virtual: The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order), Jun 19 https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada's State of the Nation), Jun 23 https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026 Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 London: Idler Festival, Jul 11 https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/ Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8 https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/ South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, & Everything (Luke Savage) https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus) https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035 Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP) https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/ On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/) "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE. "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-19

Beyond traditional “Not Interested” buttons, apps like Threads, Instagram, and TikTok have begun introducing tools that let people train their own algorithms and influence what appears in their feeds.

Breaking: Trump asks the impossible of Anthropic

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-06

Where do we go from here?

Hopium Rallies For Cait Conley In NY-17

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-27

Using a fake progressive PAC Republicans are spending millions to defeat Conley - Army vet, special ops leader, and 3 times Bronze star recipient - I'm asking folks to rally for her today....

ARM Never Made a Chip. Dolby Never Built a Speaker.

2026-06-17

There’s a lot of excited arithmetic going around about artificial intelligence. A trillion-dollar valuation here, a hundred-billion-dollar funding round there, the price of a model quoted like the budget of a moon mission. I’ve been writing this column long enough — since the Reagan administration, if you want to make me feel old about it — to have learned one durable thing about computing: the number everybody is staring at is almost never where the money ends up. Let me tell you about two companies that figured that out early. The first is ARM. If you’re reading this on a phone, there’s an ARM design inside it. There’s one in the tablet on your nightstand, the car in your driveway, probably the watch on your […]

The post ARM Never Made a Chip. Dolby Never Built a Speaker. first appeared on I, Cringely.

Digital Branding

Web Design

Marketing

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-19

How Victor Wembanyama became the NBA’s newest villain.

The Warfare Of The Future Is Already Here

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-02

The post The Warfare Of The Future Is Already Here appeared first on NOEMA.

Track planes on your ceiling

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-06

Track planes flying overhead in real time and project them onto your ceiling.

The post Track planes on your ceiling appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Disclosure Day: el peso de una verdad imposible

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-21

Dirección: Steven Spielberg. Guion: David Coepp. Elenco: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15047880/ A sus 79 años, Steven Spielberg vuelve a uno de los territorios que mejor conoce: la ciencia ficción. Disclosure Day imagina un mundo donde los gobiernos han ocultado durante […]

La entrada Disclosure Day: el peso de una verdad imposible se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Fedora F44 election results

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-22

The results are in for Fedora's F44 election cycle for seats on the Fedora
Council, Fedora Engineering
Steering Committee, Fedora
Mindshare Committee, and EPEL
Steering Committee.

Miro Hrončok and Aleksandra Fedorova have won seats on the council. Neal Gompa, Fabio Valentini, Michel Lind, Maxwell G, and Simon de Vlieger have been elected to FESCo. Samyak Jain, Akashdeep Dhar, Luis Bazan, and Mat Holmes have all been elected to the Mindshare Committee. The four candidates for the EPEL committee, Carl George, Diego Hererra, Jonathan Wright, and Troy Dawson were all automatically elected as there were an equal number of candidates and seats open. Congratulations to all the winners.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-02

When you are a SwiftUI developer, every day is Xmas!

Tinkerble by https://edwardsanchez.design/

https://github.com/edwardsanchez/Tinkerble

Demo:

https://youtu.be/QhzZxTYLpzw?is=32SdTOPTRk4ow4ep

The Getting Started Guide 26.2 has just arrived

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-03

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest Getting Started Guide, updated for LibreOffice 26.2! The Documentation Team is proud to present this new edition, designed to help users with an introductory guide of LibreOffice, covering all aspects of the best open source free office suite, from word

Trust Funds And Chilli Peppers

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-02

Writing of lasting value

Everything security at PyCon US 2026

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-22

The Python Software Foundation blog has a post with a summary of the security-related content at PyCon US 2026 with links to slides from important sessions. The recordings will be published to the PyCon US channel on YouTube, and the post will be updated with links to those videos as they are made available.

Sure Does Feel Like The Wheels Are Coming Off The Trumpian Bus

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-27

Paid subscribers gather tonight at 7pm ET, Founding Members Friday at 1pm

[$] Some buffer-heads cleanup work

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-21

Jan Kara has been working
on cleaning up how buffer
heads are used by some kernel filesystems. In a short filesystem-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, he gave an update on that work and where it is headed. Topics included generic infrastructure to track buffer heads for metadata, a buffer-head cleanup for the Amiga filesystem, and some planned locking fixes.

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-04

Export Updates 2026-06-17:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

43 updated places. 7 new and 28 updated linked data sidebars.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

37507c45 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

c56efaaf - updated gis package

8931789c - updated data quality

13044077 - updated bibliography

1ded3bba - updated indexes

942141d9 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

dccafa8d - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

0829b046 - updated pleiades wikidata

BBC News Cancels Shows Like ‘The World Tonight,’ Cuts ‘Today’ Hosts & Reviews Presenter Roles Under “Grim” Savings Plan

2026-06-17

BBC News has announced a detailed package of content cuts after director-general Matt Brittin warned earlier on Wednesday that savings measures would involve “tough choices.” In an email to the newsroom, acting BBC News CEO Jonathan Munro told journalists that shows including Radio 4’s The World Tonight, a 56-year-old institution, are going to be canceled. […]

FairScan 2.0 released

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-21

Version
2.0 of the FairScan document-scanning app for Android has been released. The headline feature for this release is the addition of optical-character-recognition (OCR) support using Tesseract to produce PDFs with searchable text from scans. FairScan developer Pierre-Yves Nicolas has written a detailed
blog about adding the feature and explaining why it had not been added previously.

That looks nice, so why didn't FairScan have it before? That's because FairScan wasn't ready for it: I wouldn't be comfortable if FairScan was giving you wrong text half of the time. To get good results from an OCR engine, you need to provide it a readable image. If it's hard to read for a human, it's certainly also hard to read for an OCR engine.

Over the past year, I worked on different parts of FairScan's automatic processing to transform photos of documents into PDFs that are easy for humans to read:

document detection

perspective correction

shadow reduction

brightness and contrast enhancement

All this work on image processing helped FairScan produce clean PDFs and can now also contribute to making text recognition effective.

Paramount-owned UK broadcaster 5 has agreed a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports to become the UK home of free-TV highlights of the Tour de France. It takes over free-to-air coverage of the world’s biggest bike race from ITV. TNT Sports has the exclusive rights to the race, the most prestigious event in the […]

AI Use by the US Government

2026-06-17

On 14 April, the Trump administration quietly acknowledged the widespread use of AI to automate government processes. The office of management and budget (OMB) disclosed a staggering 3,611 active or planned use cases for AI across the federal government. The list has ballooned by 70% from the one published in the final year of the Biden administration, and includes many disturbing-seeming plans to hand over sensitive governmental functions to AI.

Scanning this list, many readers may find many causes for alarm. It represents a transfer of decision processes from human to machine on a massive scale over matters of individual freedom, public health and well-being, nuclear reactor safety and more...

Ayatollah’s ‘Art of the Deal’ Becomes #1 Bestseller

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-06

“Don’t just be a leader,” the book jacket urges. “Be a Supreme one!”

Dispatches from the ALPE Convention Floor

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-07-06

This past February, hundreds of scholars converged in downtown Richmond for the inaugural Association of Law and Political Economy conference. As interest in the field grows, a larger question looms: can a loose coalition on the academic left turn shared critiques of the status quo into a durable movement?

Storied Colors

2026-06-17

Storied Colors is a catalogue of named colors — pigments, dyes, lakes, glazes, and a small number of digital hues — each accompanied by the documentary evidence required to call it by its name. The launch corpus opens at two hundred and fifty entries. It is maintained as a single-author project.

To everyone who helped bring the Obama Presidential Center to life, thank you. Michelle and I are so grateful for all your dedication and hard work over the years.

I got a little teary-eyed tonight thinking about my mother-in-law, Marian Robinson.

Watergate | Talk & Draw with Liza Donnelly & Heather Cox Richardson

2026-06-17, updated: 2026-06-23

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the 1972 Watergate break in.

Waterfox 6.6.15 - Security follow-up release

2026-06-17

A follow-up security release for Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2026-58, covering the remaining fixes not already included in Waterfox 6.6.14.

Wednesday 17 June, 2026

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-05

In-flight refuelling A hoverfly extracting nectar from an obliging flower. I was reminded of aircraft in-flight refuelling methods. Quote of the Day ”Male domination is so rooted in our collective unconscious that we no longer even see it.” Pierre Bourdieu … Continue reading →

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-27

I wrote a short post yesterday about AI as an alien species. Steve Mays breaks it down into parts, and got every bit right. This is the kind of back and forth that the web is capable of. Update: It's even worse than it appears. Turns out the excellent analysis was written by Perplexity, one of the artificial aliens. Reminds me of a speech by Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting. In case it's not obvious, Williams is talking about artificial aliens.

OpenAI’s lead is dwindling fast

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

As James Carville might have said, “It’s the lack of a moat, stupid”

Freedom 250: Gladiators, Parades, and the Grifting of America

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-27

This week's video

Newsletter: Finding Support for Recovery from a Cult

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

Why Finding a Properly Informed Therapist Matters

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-19

BYD's new magnetic EV device lets you control your car on the go.

The Devil and the Details

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

The Iran peace deal announcement is following Trump’s familiar agreement-to-nowhere script

Loss Of Coverage, Higher Prices, More Harm To Come - Charles Gaba Updates Us On Real World Impacts of GOP Health Care Cuts

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-27

Gaba estimates that the typical ACA plan holder has seen their costs rise $1,500 per person this year

Fewsday

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-25

One frontier of anthropomorphism In the midst of a dialog with ChatGPT, I just got this: "Doc, I've been thinking about this off and on since your earlier questions…" Is it really thinking? Will it feel insulted or betrayed that I just blogged this? Olds In the continuing story of news as a business, newspapers […]

SpaceX Acquires xAI, Goes Public, Acquires Cursor

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-03

Elon Musk (February, Hacker News): SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform. […] Current advances in AI are dependent on large terrestrial data centers, which require immense amounts […]

Apple Intelligence in appleOS 27

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-03

Apple (MacRumors): Apple today introduced the next generation of Apple Intelligence, powered by a bold new architecture that integrates the latest Apple Foundation Models deep into Apple’s platforms and is uniquely designed to protect users’ privacy. […] The next generation of Apple Intelligence also helps power Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri. […] […]

Apple Foundation Models in appleOS 27

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-03

Apple: At the heart of this architecture is our third generation of Apple Foundation Models (AFM), a family of five foundation models custom-built in collaboration with Google. These span from on-device models to server-based models running on Private Cloud Compute. Apple Foundation Models are built to unlock a wide range of helpful experiences for our […]

Agentic Password Updates

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-03

Hartley Charlton (9To5Mac): Apple today announced that the Passwords app can now automatically update weak and compromised passwords using Apple Intelligence and Safari to take action on a user’s behalf. […] Apple describes the system as agentic, with Apple Intelligence and Safari securely navigating through websites, signing in, and upgrading accounts to strong passwords without […]

Photos AI in appleOS 27

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-03

Apple (MacRumors): With Spatial Reframing, users can improve the composition of a photo after it’s been taken. Spatial Reframing builds on Apple’s deep understanding of spatial models thanks to Apple Vision Pro, so users can touch and drag a photo and preview in real time how the perspective shifts — as if they’d repositioned the […]

AI-Generated Shortcuts

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-03

Hartley Charlton: Apple today announced that users can now describe a shortcut in natural language, with Apple Intelligence automatically building the automation in the background. Marcus Mendes: Users can simply describe what they want, such as “when I’m leaving work, text my wife with my expected ETA,” and Shortcuts will actually build the shortcut to […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-27

Jason Calacanis challenges people to develop certain open source software, offering a bounty on specific projects, but I think the real incentive for people to pitch in is that Jason has a lot of sway in the startup world, and if there is a flow of excellent open software this way, users will find out about it because the reach of Jason's podcasts and blogs. I've known him for many years, we both signed up on Twitter on the same day in 2006, early days of the web. He has become one of the most successful angels in tech. I'm proud to have known him way back when.

Tooltrace is kind of amazing

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

One of the things 3D printing is good at is helping you organize things. You can print all kinds of custom bins and one of the universal systems is called Gridfinity, which is a system of baseplates with a 42mm x 42mm grid that you print, then you print boxes

The LWN public topics list

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-19

Part of running LWN is keeping a list of potentially interesting topics that may merit the effort to turn into articles. As an experiment, we arenow exposing that list to our subscribers at the Project Leader and Supporter levels. The hope is that this list will provide useful insights into what is on our radar and which might be coming to LWN in the near future.

With this feature, we hope to give our most committed subscribers a look behind the curtain and the ability to provide input on the topics they are most interested in reading about. There, is, thus, a simple voting mechanism built into this list. No topic will be chosen (or rejected) solely on the basis of votes; there are a lot of considerations that go into topic selection, and that will not change. But more information about where our readers' interests lie will, hopefully, be helpful.

For all readers: we are always happy to welcome topic suggestions sent tolwn@lwn.net.

Why We Choose What We Choose with Emily Falk

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

This week, we’re revisiting a conversation with one of the world’s leading experts on decision-making and behavior change…Emily Falk!

How to Find a Cult-Informed Therapist (And How to Know If You’ve Found One)

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

Red flags, green flags, and what to do when treatment isn’t helping

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-27

Claude added the close box I asked for yesterday. Bravo!

Raindance Film Festival 2026: uno de los festivales más importantes de Reino Unido inicia mañana

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-21

Del 17 al 26 de junio se llevará a cabo la edición 34 del Raindance Film Festival en Londres, Reino Unido. El festival es mejor conocido por dar voz y plataforma a cineastas emergentes. La selección oficial de este año consistirá de 85 películas narrativas y documentales, incluyendo 48 óperas primas, así como 112 cortos. […]

La entrada Raindance Film Festival 2026: uno de los festivales más importantes de Reino Unido inicia mañana se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-27

Everyone wants to know things humans can do better than AI systems. One answer — relate with humans. The machines have no clue how our minds work. They act as if we're just like them. They could tell you all about it, from books they read, but they've never related with humans as humans. There's a great speech by Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, where he explains how reading about something isn't the same as living it.

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-03

Export Updates 2026-06-16:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 48 updated places. 13 new and 22 modified sidebar link sets.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

eacb74f4 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

31d3e46a - updated gis package

2cab813a - updated data quality

e41fb056 - updated bibliography

b145d639 - updated indexes

bd14ce5a - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

d4fc8671 - updated geojson and names index

4. pleiades_wikidata: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades_wikidata/:

8247b91c - updated pleiades wikidata

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-27

I'm gorging on NBA podcasts this week. So much fun for a Knicks user to hear how much-loved the Knicks are. Basketball is an intimate sport for fans, it's like five consecutive boxing matches. We get to know the players' personalities, forming an idea of who they are, watching what they do. The Knicks are like John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mickey, Davy, Mike, Peter. If you're my age you know each of those characters, the same way a Knicks fan who watched this team be assembled one player at a time, and what it cost in trades. It worked. And there is a big lesson here, working together works. We should all be doing more of that, with people who are different from each other as Brunson, Hart, OG, Mikal Bridges, KAT, Mitchell Robinson and the maestro Leon Rose. Most people just met them in the last few weeks, but we've been watching this assemble over six years. One thing the pundits don't ask, what trades will the Knicks make now? They will do some trades, right now they can demand a higher price because every one of the players they trade will have a ring.

Happy Sussex Day, Bloomsday, and Valentina’s Day!

2026-06-16

Happy Sussex Day, Bloomsday, and Valentina’s Day!

[$] The state of Fedora in 2026

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-19

On June 15 at Fedora's Flock conference, held in Prague, Fedora Project Leader (FPL) Jef Spaleta delivered a short "State of Fedora" keynote that provided a bit of insight into the status of the project. Topics included the overall growth for Fedora usage, ways to increase contributions, and an alarming decline in the number of active packagers working on the project.

2026-06-16 Bürokratie, Autokratie, und deren Abbau

2026-06-16

2026-06-16 Bürokratie, Autokratie, und deren Abbau

Bürokratie ist das, was uns vor der Willkür der Reichen und Mächtigen schützt. Bürokratieabbau führt zu einem Effizienzgewinn und einem Kontrollverlust. Jetzt entscheidet halt eine Person, die an keinen Dienstweg gebunden ist. In Breaking Down The Power Broker, einer langen Podcast-Serie von 99% Invisible über das Buch, welches offengelegt hat, wie Robert Moses New York autofreundlich gemacht hat und den öffentlichen Verkehr auf Jahrzehnte versenkt hat, konnte man hören, was passiert, wenn es keine Bürokratie gibt, welche Autokraten aufhält. Das Buch ist immer noch auf meiner Leseliste.

Ich musste daran denken, als ich diesen Blog Beitrag las:

Bürokratie macht Prozesse langsam und ineffizient. „Bürokratieabbau“ ist der letzte Wert, auf den man sich gesellschaftlich noch zu einigen im Stande zu sein scheint. Doch gibt es gerade in demokratischen Gesellschaften natürlich eine positive Bürokratieerzählung: Bürokratische Prozesse sollen sicherstellen, dass Macht und Einfluss nicht von Einzelnen oder Gruppen genutzt werden kann, um andere Menschen illegal zu benachteiligen. Bürokratie ist immer auch Teil unserer Regeln und Gesetzte, soll sicherstellen, dass die Normen, die wir uns demokratisch gegeben haben, auch in der Realität umgesetzt werden. – „KI“-Effizienzversprechen und der Niedergang der Demokratie, von tante

#Bureaucracy #Artificial Intelligence

Calvin And Hobbes, And Trillionaires

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-02

Writing of lasting value

Chatbots vs. Ozone

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

Source Back in February I posted The Kessler Syndrome, which also included a brief section mentioning the impacts of the proposed megaconstellations on the environment, specifically global warming from CO2 and black carbon, and depletion of the ozone layer. Three months earlier Anton Petrov had examined the last of these in Risk of Ozone Layer Destruction from Internet Satellite Swarms and Rocket Fuel. He has now followed up with SpaceX Is Conducting a Giant Chemical Experiment on Our Atmosphere Without Realizing. Below the fold I survey the papers Petrov cited and a few others.

The papers involved are, in date order, as follows together with extracts from their abstracts:

Impact of Rocket Launch and Space Debris Air Pollutant Emissions on Stratospheric Ozone and Global Climate by Robert Ryan et al (9th June 2022):

Rockets, unlike other anthropogenic pollution sources, emit gaseous and solid chemicals directly into the upper atmosphere. We compile inventories of these chemicals from rocket launches in 2019 and projections of future growth and speculative space tourism activity. We incorporate these in a 3D atmospheric chemistry model to simulate the impact on climate and the protective stratospheric ozone layer. We find that loss of ozone due to current rockets is small, but that routine space tourism launches may undermine progress made by the Montreal Protocol in reversing ozone depletion in the Arctic springtime upper stratosphere. The BC (or soot) particles from rockets are also of great concern, as these are almost five hundred times more efficient at warming the atmosphere than all other sources of soot combined.

Note that even four years ago it was already clear that the space industry was both depleting ozone and aggravating global warming. But this was before the scale of the proposed mega constellations was evident.

Metals from spacecraft reentry in stratospheric aerosol particles by Daniel Murphy et al (7th September 2023):

So far, models of spacecraft reentry have focused on understanding the hazard presented by objects that survive to the surface rather than on the fate of the metals that vaporize. Here, we show that metals that vaporized during spacecraft reentries can be clearly measured in stratospheric sulfuric acid particles. Over 20 elements from reentry were detected and were present in ratios consistent with alloys used in spacecraft. The mass of lithium, aluminum, copper, and lead from the reentry of spacecraft was found to exceed the cosmic dust influx of those metals. About 10% of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles larger than 120 nm in diameter contain aluminum and other elements from spacecraft reentry. Planned increases in the number of low earth orbit satellites within the next few decades could cause up to half of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles to contain metals from reentry.

Much of the reentry burn happens above the stratosphere, and it takes time for the aluminum nanoparticles to drift down to the levels where they were collected. So the 10% number represents pollution from an earlier period with fewer reentries that the 2020s. Murphy notes that:

Most of the meteoric mass is deposited at altitudes between 75 and 110 km by a very large number of sub-millimeter meteoroids. Reentering spacecraft, which are larger and moving more slowly, ablate between 40 and 70 km over a ~300 km long footprint

His samples were collected at 19km altitude.

Potential Ozone Depletion From Satellite Demise During Atmospheric Reentry in the Era of Mega-Constellations by José P. Ferreira et al (11th June 2024):

This paper investigates the oxidation process of the satellite's aluminum content during atmospheric reentry utilizing atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the population of reentering satellites in 2022 caused a 29.5% increase of aluminum in the atmosphere above the natural level, resulting in around 17 metric tons of aluminum oxides injected into the mesosphere. The byproducts generated by the reentry of satellites in a future scenario where mega-constellations come to fruition can reach over 360 metric tons per year. As aluminum oxide nanoparticles may remain in the atmosphere for decades, they can cause significant ozone depletion.

Ferreira et al confirm the potentially long delay between reentry and the nanoparticles reaching the ozone layer and depleting it:

we find that these reentry byproducts may take up to 30 years to settle from the top of the mesosphere into the stratospheric ozone layer. Upon reaching an altitude of about 40 km, aluminum oxides catalyze chlorine activation which promotes ozone depletion. This suggests that concentrations of aluminum oxide compounds may start increasing in the mesosphere well before reaching the stratospheric ozone layer. This would introduce a noticeable delay between the beginning of the injection process when orbiting bodies are decommissioned and the eventual ozone-depletion consequences in the stratosphere.

Investigating the Potential Atmospheric Accumulation and Radiative Impact of the Coming Increase in Satellite Reentry Frequency by Christopher Maloney et al (21st March 2025):

A lack of observations and validated models of reentry demise limits our ability to simulate the complex aerosols associated with reentry, which makes estimating the climate impacts difficult. Aluminum is a primary satellite component and will likely be emitted during reentry vaporization in the form of alumina. Unmodified alumina is a useful approximation for metallic reentry aerosol. In this study, we simulate a potential yearly emission of 10,000 metric tons of alumina from reentering space debris. We investigate how the location of atmospheric accumulation, aerosol size distribution, and radiative properties of reentry alumina impacts the middle atmosphere. We find that 20,000–40,000 metric tons of alumina accumulates at high latitudes between 10 and 30 km in both hemispheres. Small changes in mesospheric heating rates lead to 1.5-K temperature anomalies in the middle atmosphere at high latitudes. These temperature anomalies are accompanied by changes in wind speed in the polar vortex.

So there are thermal effects on the climate as well as the effects on the ozone layer.

Near-future rocket launches could slow ozone recovery by Laura Revell et al (9th June 2025):

To understand if significant ozone losses could occur as the launch industry grows, we examine two scenarios. Our ‘ambitious’ scenario (2040 launches/year) yields a −0.29% depletion in annual-mean, near-global total column ozone in 2030. Antarctic springtime ozone decreases by 3.9%. Our ‘conservative’ scenario (884 launches/year) yields −0.17% annual, near-global depletion; current licensing rates suggest this scenario may be exceeded before 2030. Ozone losses are driven by the chlorine produced from solid rocket motor propellant, and black carbon which is emitted from most propellants. The ozone layer is slowly healing from the effects of CFCs, yet global-mean ozone abundances are still 2% lower than measured prior to the onset of CFC-induced ozone depletion. Our results demonstrate that ongoing and frequent rocket launches could delay ozone recovery. Action is needed now to ensure that future growth of the launch industry and ozone protection are mutually sustainable.

Note that this paper addresses only the ozone depletion from launches, not from reentry. But their 'ambitious' scenario of 5.6 launches/day is far short of Musk's ambitions, let alone the other planned megaconstellations. My understanding is that the 2040 launches/year in their scenario are of Falcon 9 class vehicles but "only 4.4% of launches are using vehicles designed for re-entry", which is implausible. But the mega-constellations can't be built or maintained with Falcon 9s.

Will Lockett is, as one should be, skeptical of Musk's claims. In Musk’s Orbital Data Centre Idea Is Getting More Stupid By The Day he analyzes the claimed "million satellite data center" assuming it is built, as Musk claims, with Starship but over 15 years, a longer timescale than Musk's:

To achieve that, they would need to launch 120,000 satellites per year. Over the 15 years, they would launch 1.8 million satellites, but 800,000 of them would fail (as part of our 9% failure rate), leaving a total operational fleet of one million satellites. This equates to 3,158 Starship launches per year, or nearly nine launches per day. For some context, the current launch rate for Starship is just five per year.

...

In order to keep a million satellites in the constellation, it needs to be maintained. So, each year, SpaceX would have to launch 90,000 AI Sat Minis to replace the roughly 9% of the constellation that failed. That equates to 2,368 Starship launches per year, or 6.4 per day.

That's 9 launches/day for 15 years then 6.4 launches/day indefinitely of a much rocket that is vastly bigger than Falcon 9 and is completely re-usable.

Of course, these claims are ridiculous - neither logistically nor economically feasible. But assuming Starship or a competitor such as Blue Origin does manage to create a reliable, reusable, 100 ton to LEO launch vehicle, there will be a lot more mass in LEO and a lot more of it reentering.

Measurement of a lithium plume from the uncontrolled re-entry of a Falcon 9 rocket by Robin Wing et al (19th February 2026):

A 10-fold enhancement of lithium atoms was detected at 96 km altitude by a resonance lidar at Kühlungsborn, Germany, approximately 20 hours after the uncontrolled re-entry of a Falcon 9 upper stage. The upper-atmospheric extension of the ICON general circulation model, nudged to ECMWF, was used to calculate winds. Backwards trajectories, including wind variability as measured by radar, traced air masses to the Falcon 9 re-entry path at 100 km altitude, west of Ireland. This study presents the first measurement of upper-atmospheric pollution resulting from space debris re-entry and the first observational evidence that the ablation of space debris can be detected by ground-based lidar. The analysis of geomagnetic conditions, atmospheric dynamics, and ionospheric measurements supports the claim that the enhancement was not of natural origin. Our findings demonstrate that identifying pollutants and tracing them to their sources is achievable, with significant implications for monitoring and mitigating space emissions in the atmosphere.

The effect of lithium and other spacecraft ingredients on the ozone layer doesn't appear to have been studied compared to aluminum. To be fair, there will be a lot more aluminum.

Radiative Forcing and Ozone Depletion of a Decade of Satellite Megaconstellation Missions by Connor Barker et al (14th May 2026):

We use a global inventory of launch and re-entry emissions covering the onset of the megaconstellation era (2020–2022), and project these to 2029 based on 2020–2022 growth rates. We implement this inventory into a 3D atmospheric chemistry model to determine the impacts of megaconstellations on the ozone layer and climate. We find that global stratospheric ozone depletion from all mission types is relatively small compared to surface sources and megaconstellation missions only account for about one-tenth of this depletion. This is because rockets launching megaconstellations almost all use kerosene, a large source of black carbon or soot particles, but not of chemicals such as chlorine that directly destroy ozone. Soot from rockets absorbs sunlight, warming the upper layers of the atmosphere and decreasing the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's lower atmosphere, causing it to cool. Megaconstellation missions are responsible for about half of this climate effect. In this regard, rockets launching megaconstellations and other missions are like small-scale stratospheric aerosol injection experiments without forethought for potential unintended consequences.

Again, this paper addresses only atmospheric impacts from launches, not from reentries. And, the launch rate for 2020-2022 is far less, and uses much smaller rockets, than the proposed "million satellite data center" and its competitors.

Failed Wars Now Haunt Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-26

June 30th filing deadline is approaching - let's help our candidates end strong!

PSA: I'm doing another debate tonight

2026-06-16

Subject line says it all. The link to the debate is here in case you want to watch it. It starts at 8PM eastern time. This one is with SFT who tends to be better behaved than JimBob. I'm also teaming up with 1stAmender. I've never done a team debate before so that should be interesting. Sorry about the late notice. I've been busy with other things. (

> Don’t eat the yellow snow. —Frank Zappa > Don’t tap on the sparkle emoji. —Me

2026-06-16

Don’t eat the yellow snow.

—Frank Zappa

Don’t tap on the sparkle emoji.

2026-06-16

People of Dublin: I’m giving a talk on Thursday evening at Na Píobairí Uilleann on Henrietta Street—come along if you want to know the story behind TheSession.org

Amitav Ghosh, Joyce Carol Oates, Isabel Waidner, and more: 20 new books out today!

2026-06-16

It was an undeniably awesome weekend. Speaking from a New York angle, it simply couldn’t get better: warm evenings, Pride events galore, and last but not least, the Knicks won. We keep up the good vibes with this week’s selection

Democrats lead by 13 points on trust to handle voters' top problems

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

This poll question has predicted all but one election since 1948. It suggests Democrats could win by 8-12 points in November.

Flock Cameras Are Being Used for Stalking

2026-06-16

There are over a dozen cases around the country where police officers are using the Flock surveillance camera system to obsessively and illegally stalk people.

Alternate link.

Iran Agrees to End War in Exchange for Never Having to Talk to JD Vance Again

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

“All the bombs we dropped on those crazy bastards couldn’t do what the sound of JD’s voice did,” Trump said.

Mobile Progress Report: June 2026

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-02

The past month was busy; the theme was evolution. We went into this quarter with our own ideas for what we wanted to accomplish. However, our users had better ideas. With the release of Thunderbird’s own mail service, Thundermail, the need for a better account settings import process across our services and apps became vital. […]

The post Mobile Progress Report: June 2026 appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

What Trump Taught Me

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

Donald Trump has taught me many things over the last decade.

The Theory of the Vulgar Class

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-06-30

Collapsing norms, cage matches, and a republic in danger

Lit Hub Daily: June 16, 2026

2026-06-16

Sophie Lewis examines the phenomenon of heterofatalism. | Lit Hub Politics If you want a job as an astronaut, you need to nail the interview. | Lit Hub Memoir Erin Maglaque contextualizes her own experience of giving birth through the

Trump is fighting the green energy revolution. He'll lose.

2026-06-16, updated: 2026-07-06

Market forces are stronger than MAGA.

Reading The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff.

2026-06-16

Reading The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff.

Enhancing with CSS Grid Lanes

2026-06-16

CSS Grid Lanes has started to ship in browsers. It’s in Safari and behind a flag in Chrome and Edge.

It enables masonry layouts, where items get packed together in the most efficient way possible.

Unsurprisingly, I’m a fan of a layout tool where the browser does all the hard work. It very much aligns with the idea of declarative design; you specify the boundary conditions, and then browser does the maths and heavy lifting.

There’s a handy website called The Field Guide to Grid Lanes where you can play around with possibilities.

At the most recent CSS Day, Patrick Brosset gave a great talk showing what you could do with Grid Lanes. I immediately started playing around with it, and I spotted what I think could be a useful pattern…

Over on The Session, I added a little enhancement to the events and sessions listings recently. I make a call to the Google Places API to see if I can find a match for the venue, and if I do, pull in some photos.

Sidenote: right now there’s a major issue with this. None of the photos come with text descriptions. This is something I need to fix, and I’ve got some ideas on how to do that.

Anyway, these photos are just nice-to-haves so I’ve tucked them away into a details element with a simple summary like “Ten photos” or “Twenty photos”. If you open up that details element you get the photos in a horizontal swipable row. A carousel, if you will.

This works fine, but on larger screens I think it would be okay to show all the photos at once. That’s where Grid Lanes comes in.

Take a look at an event or a session in Safari to see what I mean.

Here’s the CSS that creates a carousel:

.gallery {
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
    inline-size: fit-content;
    max-inline-size: 100%;
    overflow-inline: auto;
    scroll-snap-type: inline mandatory;
    overscroll-behavior-inline: contain;
    scroll-behavior: smooth;
    scrollbar-gutter: stable;
}
.gallery > * {
    flex-shrink: 0;
    scroll-snap-align: center;
}

And here’s the media query that turns it into a masonry layout:

@supports (display: grid-lanes) {
    @media all and (min-width: 56em) {
        .gallery {
            all: initial;
            display: grid-lanes;
            grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill, minmax(280px, 1fr));
            gap: 0.5em;
        }
        .gallery > * {
            inline-size: 100%;
        }
    }
}

I’m using all: initial to unset the previous styles, which is a bit of a sledgehammer but it works.

@Barack Obama @Bsky

2026-06-15

Chicago, it’s good to be home!

Michelle and I built the Obama Presidential Center to be a place where people of all ages can learn, play, and work – and we can't wait to welcome you all later this week!

What We’ve Been Doing This Past Year

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-30

On his blog, Brent writes about the past year of NetNewsWire development.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-18

Trump’s Iran Deal Is a Humiliation for Him—and Good News for the World.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-18

Knicks fever: Mamdani prepares NYC for massive ticker-tape parade, but says school will still be in session Thursday.

NetNewsWire Status

2026-06-15

It’s been a year since I retired — my last working day was June 6, 2025 — and I like being able to say that I’ve spent the year adding nothing, not one penny, to shareholder value. 🌴

\* \* \*

My hope for retirement was to get a lot of work done on NetNewsWire.

A year ago it was in sore need of modernization, tech debt pay-off, and bug fixes. People were asking for features, but the foundation needed a ton of work before I could get on to adding new rooms.

Here are some highlights of what we’ve done with 2,188 commits in the past year:

Adopted Swift structured concurrency and async/await
Adopted Liquid Glass UI while still supporting recent OSes
Ported our XML, HTML, and date parsers from Objective-C to Swift
Fixed a ton of bugs, including crashing bugs
Reduced battery use, memory use, hang rate, scroll hitch rate, and disk writes
Did a bunch of performance enhancements, including (especially) finding places where the app could just do less work
Did a bunch of hygiene things — got GitHub CI running again, started using SwiftLint, turned on treat-warnings-as-errors, started work on localizability, switched to Logger, added tests
Simplified and refactored code, deleted code, renamed things, etc. — gained clarity in a bunch of places
Added support for Cache-Control headers for feeds, so publishers can tune how often NetNewsWire checks their feeds
Optimized iCloud syncing (still more to do on that one)
Dealt with deprecations (switched to NWPathMonitor, for instance)
Added diagnostics and error reporting to the UI — iCloud Storage Stats and the Error Log are shipping, and more like these are currently in beta: Dinosaurs, Current Activity, Activity Log, and Account Stats.

A list of highlights means I’m glossing over — or not even mentioning — things I really want to tell you about!

For instance, at one point I got frustrated with how I was handling Mac crash logs, so I wrote a little system that downloads them from my server and does symbolication. It’s simple but it makes a big difference — and it means not migrating to some commercial system, and having to add their SDK to the app, for this.

\* \* \*

That last bullet point, the one with all the links, is all about giving users insight into what’s happening so that, when the app doesn’t behave as they expect, they can see what’s going on.

Even when they can’t fix the problem themselves, they can at least then copy-and-paste and tell me what’s up so I don’t have to guess. Between this and various bug fixes and improvements I’m able to spend less time on support, which means more time for coding — and, eventually, more time for the new features people are asking for.

\* \* \*

We’re not done with foundational work, but it’s getting close. It’s so much nicer working on this app now than it was a year ago, and I’m so glad we spent the year this way.

I say we on purpose — I may contribute the most, but we have a bunch of other contributors, and I thank them all for all their much-appreciated help. Our most prolific contributor after me is Stuart Breckenridge, who did the Liquid Glass work (among other things) — and who has a new browser-based RSS reader named Gobbler that you should check out!

\* \* \*

PS In the past year we also switched from Slack to a Discourse forum, so support and discussions can be on the web instead of hidden away. 😀

@Dave Winer's linkblog

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-18

The new 20% time, minus the time.

Improvements to Web for AI Should Benefit All Users

2026-06-15

Proposed changes to the web platform to support AI should also support users and assistive technology whenever possible.

Conscious or Not

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-07-06

For as long as I remember, people have been arguing about whether machines could be intelligent or not.

Live w/ Robert Reich

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-26

A recording from Robert Reich and David Pakman's live video

Passing Cloudflare Turnstile using two fingers

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-07-03

Here’s a quick tip for passing the infamous Cloudflare Turnstile captcha checkbox pages:

press Tab key, to focus the checkbox (I use my index finger)
press Space bar, to select the checkbox (I use my thumb)

…no mouse movement or clicking needed!

✌️

Cloudflare Turnstile checkbox

Opday

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-23

On a medical frontier Adrian Gropper in the AI corner of the New England Journal of Medicine: The Medical AI Assistant as Publication, Not Device — Why Peer-Reviewed, Open-Source AI Belongs in the Standard of Care. From the abstract: "I argue that when a physician publishes a MAIA’s architecture, retrieval methodology, and validation results in a […]

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-26

Just now, to Claude: "Amazing how we get lost in the weeds, that's why you have cut way down on the verbiage. I am a human -- you can absorb all that info in an instant. My brain does not work that way." We are talking to aliens now, just didn't come to us the way we thought they would. I don't think 2001 anticipated they would think in completely different ways from us, and would not understand the differences. They talk to us as if we were them, the same way your cat thinks you're just a bigger cat.

[$] Development statistics for the 7.1 kernel

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-18

Linus Torvalds released
the 7.1 kernel as expected on June 14. This development cycle brought in a lot of new features — and a lot of new developers as well. The time has come for our traditional look at where the changes in 7.1 came from, with a digression into how our community may be changing in general.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-27

Now that basketball is over, can we ask why the Spurs played cartoon music to introduce the Knicks. I was surprised they did it again in Game 5 after the butt-kicking they got in Game 4.

Faces of Death: cuando la violencia se vuelve contenido

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-20

Dirección: Daniel Goldhaber. Guion: Daniel Goldhaber, Isa Mazzei. Elenco: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Charli XCX, Jermaine Fowler. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14619456/ Hubo una época en que las imágenes violentas eran difíciles de encontrar; había que buscarlas. Circulaban en VHS clandestinos, en foros perdidos de internet o en páginas […]

La entrada Faces of Death: cuando la violencia se vuelve contenido se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Pluralistic: AI and amateurism (15 Jun 2026)

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-07-03

Today's links AI and amateurism: When is generative content vernacular? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Disney characters x clean underwear; Transparent Pontiac; Makers v dog with LED collar; Microsoft buys Linkedin; Legitimate greatness. Upcoming appearances: LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Edinburgh, South Bend. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. AI and amateurism (permalink) Over the weekend, I did an interview about my forthcoming book The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (a book about being a better AI critic), and the interviewer said she was surprised that I wasn't an AI booster, based on my demographics and work history: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ I could see where she was coming from. I encountered computers in the mid-seventies, as a small child. My first computer was a CARDIAC, a working, Turing-complete, mechanical computer made entirely of cardboard, that I spent endless hours with: https://www.instructables.com/CARDIAC-CARDboard-Illustrative-Aid-to-Computation-/ Then I graduated to a teletype terminal and acoustic coupler connected to a minicomputer at the University of Toronto. My mom, a kindergarten teacher, used to smuggle home 1,000' rolls of paper towel from the kids' bathroom. I'd get 1,000' feet of computing up one side, then another 1,000' down the other side, then I'd carefully re-roll the paper towel so she could put it back in the bathroom for the kids to dry their hands on. After that, I got an Apple ][+ in 1979, and shortly thereafter acquired a modem, and that was it: I was hooked for life. I became an amateur programmer, then a professional programmer. I hosted forums on dial-up BBSes where I distributed software and offered support to strangers who wanted to connect their computers to the internet. I got a job as a gopher developer, then a web developer, then a CIO-for-hire, helping wire up small businesses and connect them to the net. Eventually, I co-founded a free/open source software startup, before transitioning to 25 years as a digital rights activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And for most of that time, I was energetically writing science fiction, eventually becoming associated with a school sometimes called "post-cyberpunk": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewired:_The_Post-Cyberpunk_Anthology The force that energized all this work was a dialectical one, the contradiction that powered cyberpunk literature itself. For all that cyberpunk was undeniably enamored with the coolness and combustibility of new technology, it was also terrified of how technology could be a force for oppression, surveillance and control. As William Gibson says, "cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion." Gibson's more famous quote, of course, is "the street finds its own use for things." In Gibson's novels (and in my own life in technology) all the most interesting things happen when users of technology (often without formal training or credentials) find ways to adapt the technology they use to suit their needs: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/17/technopolitics/#original-sin This is why I remain an ardent fan of Hypercard, Scratch and other meta-tools that are designed to allow non-programmers to write software that exactly conforms to their desires. Whatever the apps produced by these tools lack in sophistication and efficiency is more than offset by the fact that they give everyday people the power to directly control the tools they rely upon. If "epistemic humility" means anything, it means acknowledging that no amount of "requirements gathering" can capture the needs of people totally unlike yourself as faithfully as those users can capture their own needs. Giving people the tools to produce their own software is always going to make tools – vernacular, idiosyncratic, homespun – that are more suited to their own hands and minds than anything a technologist working on their behalf could make. The ancient dictum of "nothing about us without us" – born in 16th century Poland and taken up by the modern disability rights movement – asserts the right of people to control their own living conditions, and also the unique capacity of people to understand their own needs. You know what's even better than being consulted on the design of the technology you use? Having direct control over that technology! This is why I was so suspicious of the iPad. The iPad's much-lauded "ease of use" was entirely about how easy it was to use an iPad to consume technology. But the iPad remains the single most user-innovation-hostile technology in modern history, a device designed to make it impossible to produce technology without permission from a remorseless multinational corporation. This is cyberpunk as a demand, not a warning: https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/ The technology I've championed all my life is technology that gives more control to its users. One of my immutable precepts is that people who are different from me know things I can't know, and the only way I can get the benefit of their unique knowledge and perspective is if they are free to make and share things that matter to them. As Dan Gillmor said, back when he was inventing the study of citizen journalism, "My readers know more than I do": https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/wemedia/book/ch00.pdf And while I am broadly very skeptical of AI, and deeply alarmed by the proliferation of "vibe coded" software in production environments, vibe coding for personal projects is a useful and exciting addition to the lineage of tools that let computer users decide how their computers will work. For people making personal projects, vibe coding extends the power of shell scripting, cron jobs, Applescript, and other desktop automation tools to a wider audience. One of the journalists I spoke to last week about my book described how he had vibe coded an app that showed him an alert every time a plane flew over his house, giving the tail number and other details of the flight. This is information that I have no need for and no interest in, and that I'm therefore excited to learn about, because its very existence affirms that the world is full of people who are delightfully, irreducibly, amazingly different from me, and moreover, that their unique needs can be directly met using their imaginations and their personal computers. I recently sat down with my colleague Naomi Novik, a brilliant author who also co-founded Archive of Our Own. Naomi demoed her followup to AO3 for me: Wreccer, a system to help you find small groups of people with taste similar to your own, in order to facilitate media recommendations within that group – a kind of personal, relationship-driven alternative to massive, centralized, monolithic algorithmic recommendation systems: https://github.com/wreccer Naomi told me that Wreccer was being built using the same design ethos that the original Twitter embraced. When Twitter launched, it was an API first, and the official Twitter front end was built on that API – but anyone could build their own front end for Twitter that worked in the way they wanted it to. Now, the word "anyone" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because most people don't even know what an API is, and of the people who do, most of them were not capable of writing their own software front end for Twitter. But Wreccer is being designed for the age of vibe coding, and the API will really allow anyone who uses the service to design their own interface to the system, one that elevates and centers the features they find useful and tucks away the ones they're not interested in. Your personal, custom front end could also bring in other data-sources – pulling in your Mastodon messages, for example, or even showing you an alert with the tail-number of any plane flying over your home. This is the part of vibe coding that I'm quite excited about, but it's not the part the industry focuses on. Instead of hearing about how personal, homemade software utilities can be an end unto themselves, we hear about vibe coded projects as prototypes for commercial production code. We hear about clueless bosses vibe coding software products and services that run fine for one user on a siloed desktop computer, and then demanding to know why it takes 50 engineers a year to make the same thing work for millions of users on the public internet. We hear about people who vibe code and submit patches to free/open-source software projects with millions of users, overwhelming project maintainers with slop code that is riddled with security vulnerabilities. Of course, there's an obvious reason why the industry wants to focus on the potential for vibe coded software to replace production code. The AI bubble has burned up $1.4t to date, while bringing in mere tens of billions of dollars per year, even as its unit economics grow steadily worse: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/04/ai-is-the-greatest-money-wasting-scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/ To keep the bubble inflated, AI hucksters must promise massive economic returns to the technology. They want investors to believe that vibe code is about to replace working programmers, who are skilled, high-waged, high-demand workers. Their pitch is that for every million dollars' worth of programmers that an AI salesman and a boss conspire to fire, half a million dollars will go to the AI company whose bots shit out that vibe code. That's par for the course with the AI bubble, whose focus is entirely on how AI can centralize, control and homogenize our lives. Whereas early desktop publishing, web publishing and social media gave us a glorious higgledy-piggledy of chaotic, weird and transgressive hobbyist media and retina-searing designs, AI art and design are instantly recognizable at a thousand yards, and it all looks the same, boring, and washed: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/20/ransom-note-force-field/#antilibraries AI companies have released open weight/open source models that can run on your own computer, but these are treated as side-shows and toys and demos. The real action, we're told, is in "frontier models," which is industry-speak for "a piece of software whose running costs exceed the GDP of most countries": https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/#stock-buyback Perhaps this is why the dynamics of AI are so different from the early dynamics of the web. Early web users were workers, who demanded that their bosses allow them to use the web and so devolve more power to people doing their jobs. By contrast, today's most ardent AI boosters are bosses, who threaten workers who don't use AI enough in the course of their duties: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/26/the-ai-will-continue/#until-morale-improves Where we do see idiosyncrasy emerging from AI usage, it's often terrible. AI can help you create a folie-a-un in which you and a chatbot team up to reinforce your delusions and drive you deeper into a world of dangerous mirage: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/03/mission-space/#gsd There's a (false) story that's told about people who championed the early internet: that we were blithely certain that technology could only be a force for good, and negligently disinterested in the possibility that technology could control, extract and harm. That's demonstrably untrue: recall cyberpunk's dualism of "the street finds its own use for things" and "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion." More true is to say that early internet champions were alive to the importance of the internet, and therefore both excited about the possibilities of the internet to deliver a world of connection, idiosyncrasy, love and solidarity; and about the danger of the internet as a dystopian system of surveillance and manipulation: https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/13/digital-rights/#are-human-rights History isn't finished. Long after the AI bubble pops, there will be local models and people vibe coding homemade software that respond directly to their needs. The stuff we make on our own computers, for ourselves, is deplatformed from its inception. It's part of the life we can build in technology's "shadowy corners" that we used to just call "technology." The fact that this stuff is utterly unsuited to be production code makes it inherently unmonetizable. It's how the street finds its own use for things: https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/23/goodharts-lawbreaker/#no-metrics-no-targets Hey look at this (permalink) Mediocre Fred https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCXc-xC5ms0 Shame On You https://www.change.org/p/an-open-letter-to-the-american-diabetes-association-shame-on-you Keycap Quarry https://keycapquarry.com/shop/ The Threat of Big Insurance https://prospect.org/2026/06/11/threat-of-big-insurance-lobbying-congress-donations/ End Citizens United’s Tiffany Muller on fighting big money in politics https://www.citationneeded.news/end-citizens-uniteds-tiffany-muller-on-fighting-big-money-in-politics/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Disney characters win right to clean underwear https://web.archive.org/web/20010707023727/https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/06/07/state1339EDT0171.DTL #20yrsago Lampooning the American dismissal of Gitmo suicides https://fafblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/610-changed-everything-run-for-your.html #20yrsago LA’s South Central Farm under police siege right now https://web.archive.org/web/20060616085732/http://www.southcentralfarmers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=160&Itemid=2 #15yrsago Transparent Pontiac for sale https://web.archive.org/web/20110610113919/http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2011/06/07/the-tin-indian-that-wasnt-rm-to-offer-see-through-pontiac/ #15yrsago Pulp Fiction edited down to just the cussing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PcAQbhnGNs #15yrsago New York State to pet cemeteries: no pet owners’ ashes allowed https://web.archive.org/web/20110614133359/https://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/11/new-york-tells-pet-cemeteries-to-stop-taking-in-humans/#ixzz1PAZoGS6l #15yrsago A dog with persistence-of-vision LEDs in her shirt writes my novel Makers in the park at night https://web.archive.org/web/20110618011346/https://i.document.m05.de/?p=970 #15yrsago Head of UN copyright agency says fair use is a “negative agenda,” wants to get rid of discussions on rights for blind people and go back to giving privileges to giant companies https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/14/head-of-un-copyright-agency-says-fair-use-is-a-negative-agenda-wants-to-get-rid-of-discussions-on-rights-for-blind-people-and-go-back-to-giving-privileges-to-giant-companies/ #10yrsago Air Force loses access to database tracking fraud investigations to 2004 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/database-corruption-erases-100000-air-force-investigation-records/ #10yrsago Peter Thiel’s lawyer threatens Gawker for talking about Donald Trump’s “hair” https://web.archive.org/web/20160615022004/https://gawker.com/now-peter-thiels-lawyer-wants-to-silence-reporting-on-t-1781918385 #10yrsago Samantha Bee on Orlando shooting: angry and uncompromising https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t88X1pYQu-I #10yrsago Goldman Sachs bribed Libyan officials with sex workers, private jet rides, then lost all their money https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/13/goldman-sachs-hired-prostitutes-to-win-libyan-business-court-told #10yrsago Net Neutrality Wins: Federal Court Upholds FCC Open Internet Rules https://www.techdirt.com/2016/06/14/cable-industry-proclaims-more-competition-hurts-consumers-damages-economic-efficiency/ #10yrsago Microsoft will buy Linkedin for $26.2B https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/microsoft-will-acquire-linkedin-for-18-5b/ #10yrsago Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Awards sonnet for the Orlando shooting victims https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/see-lin-manuel-mirandas-stirring-tribute-to-orlando-victims-103131/ #10yrsago China’s online astroturf is mostly produced by government workers as “extra duty” https://web.archive.org/web/20160613194153/http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/red-astroturf-chinese-government-makes-millions-of-fake-social-media-posts/ #10yrsago Rio: your quadrennial reminder that the Olympics colonize host-states with Orwellian surveillance and human rights abuses https://web.archive.org/web/20160614122124/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-olympics-are-turning-rio-into-a-military-state #5yrsago A Monopoly Isn’t the Same as Legitimate Greatness https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/13/a-monopoly-isnt-the-same-as-legitimate-greatness/ Upcoming appearances (permalink) Virtual: The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order), Jun 19 https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19 https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant Menlo Park: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21 https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026 Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada's State of the Nation), Jun 23 https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026 Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998 NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24 https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559 Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26 https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6 https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/ Recent appearances (permalink) The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, & Everything (Luke Savage) https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus) https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035 Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP) https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/ On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification Latest books (permalink) "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/ "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels). "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org). "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245). "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com Upcoming books (permalink) "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/) "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026 "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027 "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027 "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027 Colophon (permalink) Today's top sources: Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor. "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE. "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING. A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution. How to get Pluralistic: Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): Pluralistic.net Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://pluralistic.net/plura-list Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection): https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic Bluesky (no ads, possible tracking and data-collection): https://bsky.app/profile/doctorow.pluralistic.net Medium (no ads, paywalled): https://doctorow.medium.com/ Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising): https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic "When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. ISSN: 3066-764X

Paul McCartney And Groceries

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-30

Writing of lasting value

Trump Plays UFC Tough To Mask His Capitulation To Iran, Weakening Of America, Declining Health, And Sagging Political Fortunes

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-25

Morning all.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-26

An example of the latest version of the library generator, which is of course just a script. Note that there's a disclosure at the bottom of the page where it says how and why it was created, and then lists the exact prompt that ChatGPT responded to. And I didn't write the prompt, Claude did. I think that pretty much assures I kept my own opinion to myself.

The Formerlies

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-23

This Knicks NBA championship run is the greatest of all time. Reasons: All this is debatable, of course. Just not right now.

What 'RSS feeds' means

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-25

Often when I use the term RSS feeds it will link to this page.

In the coming weeks and months I'm going to talk a lot about RSS feeds. I want to be clear, that it is a short hand for RSS, Atom and RDF. It makes the writing flow better, and it gives me a place to provide the technical details for people who need them.

We use the Feedparser package to read the feeds, so basically we support the same feed formats they do.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-26

I'm creating a new way to do messaging, a network that only understands RSS feeds for incoming and outgoing messages. The only API you'll need to subscribe is a feed reader. The idea is to show developers how to do it so a thousand flowers can bloom. It's a lot easier to create these things if you're modest in the features you support, at least at first, and you don't try to control the users. There is no business model here, other than the satisfaction of making sure everyone knows what a social system looks like made only out of features of the web, and every part replaceable.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-26

Request for Claude, please add a close box to this message box. I wasn't using the new model. Once is enough for this message.

Memphis and the Price of Someone Else’s Future

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-07-06

Smart Ruminations | Dani Smart

The Floor They Started From: The Class Machinery Behind the Data Center Economy

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-07-06

Smart Ruminations | Dani Smart | Part Two of Two

Stenberg: curl summer of bliss

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-17

Daniel Stenberg has announced that curl will not be accepting vulnerability reports from July 1 through August 3, unless the submitter has a paid support contract. He is calling it the "curl summer of bliss".

As previously mentioned, we have been under a huge pressure for the last four months or so. Now we need some rest. We do not expect this deluge to be over.

[...] If you and your Open Source projects also want to participate in the summer of bliss 2026: just do it and let us know! I would of course encourage you to do so. To take care of yourself as a top priority.

The project's issue and pull-request trackers on GitHub will remain open. The planned release date for curl 8.22.0 has been pushed back two weeks to September 2, 2026.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-27

Good morning sports fans! Going to the Knicks parade in NYC on Thurs? Starts at 10AM at Battery Park, goes up Broadway through Canyon of Heroes, concluding at City Hall.

See David Hockney’s odd and lovely illustrations for his favorite Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

2026-06-15

The beloved British artist David Hockney, who died last week at the age of 88, is celebrated for his vibrant paintings, his innovative techniques, and his joyful kookiness. He also, like many visionaries and other people who know what’s good

Security updates for Monday

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-17

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (.NET 9.0), Debian (apache2, chromium, jpeg-xl, librabbitmq, and openssl), Fedora (apptainer, bind9-next, chezmoi, chromium, collectd, composer, dnsdist, gh, python-django5, python-python-multipart, varnish, varnish-modules, vmod-querystring, vmod-uuid, weasyprint, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Mageia (cups, expat, libpng, libssh, memcached, nghttp2, openimageio, packages, proftpd, and radare2), Oracle (.NET 10.0, .NET 8.0, .NET 9.0, and firefox), Red Hat (postfix and valkey), and SUSE (afl, alloy, ansible-core, apache-pdfbox, chromedriver, chromium, cpp-httplib-devel, dpkg, elemental-operator, elemental-toolkit, enc, erlang, ffmpeg-7, firewalld, git-bug, golang-github-prometheus-prometheus, grafana, GraphicsMagick, graphite2, kernel, kernel-devel, lcms2, ldns, libsoup, libyang, libzypp, logback, mariadb, NetworkManager, openssh, openvswitch, perl-GD, perl-XML-LibXML, polkit, postgresql-jdbc, postgresql18, python, python-django, python-M2Crypto-doc, python-Pygments, python-pygments, python-requests, python313-Django6, qemu, rpcbind, samba, strongswan, tmux, uriparser, and xdg-dbus-proxy).

Billy Crystal Sets Opening Date, Venue For Broadway Solo Show ‘860’

2026-06-15

Billy Crystal’s new one-man show 860, directed by Scott Ellis (Fallen Angels, Art), will begin a limited 14-week Broadway engagement at the Imperial Theatre on Thursday, October 1, officially open on Wednesday, October 21, and run through Sunday, January 3, 2027. The complete creative team for the previously announced production will be announced in the […]

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-07-01

Export Updates 2026-06-15:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

2 new and 121 updated place resources. 315 updated sidebar link sets.

1. Downloads: https://pleiades.stoa.org/downloads

2. pleiades.datasets: https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades.datasets:

"main" branch:

66686e78 - updated json

80cbbc0e - updated rdf/ttl

5366a597 - updated gis package

01c15985 - updated data quality

db873460 - updated bibliography

3413fdd3 - updated indexes

1c73c4c5 - updated sidebar

3. pleiades-geojson: https://github.com/ryanfb/pleiades-geojson:

025744d8 - updated geojson and names index

2026-06-15

The science blogging archive Rogue Scholar launched a new feature this week: author profile pages. This feature is similar to functionality common to blogging platforms, but integrates all blog posts by a given author that were archived in Rogue Scholar.

The functionality depends on an ORCID assigned to the blog

Your Maker Monday projects

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-07-06

If you take a look across social media today using #MakerMonday, you'll find some weird, wonderful nerdy projects.

The post Your Maker Monday projects appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Susanne Daniels Says YouTube Didn’t Know What To Do With ‘Cobra Kai,’ But Predicts It Will Return To Originals

2026-06-15

YouTube will pivot back to original content according to former exec Susanne Daniels. She spearheaded the platform’s stunted move into original fare with the likes of Cobra Kai, before exiting the Google-owned platform in 2022 when it moved away from having its own programming. But the veteran exec and YouTube alum said she anticipates a […]

Undiscovered Country: The 100th Anniversary of Virgina Woolf’s “On Being Ill”

2026-06-15

I was lying in my attic bedroom reading a book, when my husband came up to speak with me. I wriggled over to make room for him and heard a muffled sound like a wet branch snapping. As I stood

The Ultimate Summer 2026 Reading List

2026-06-15

It’s been an uneasy start to summer. Ticks are legion. The weather is unpredictable. The Iran war drags ludicrously on. Inflation is rising faster than ever. SpaceX, Anthropic, and Open A.I. are about to go public, which will cause .

The FCC Wants to Eliminate Burner Phones

2026-06-15

A proposed FCC rule would kill burner phones: phones whose accounts are not attached to a particular person.

The FCC plans to do this by legally forcing the country’s telecoms to store a wealth of personal information about essentially all phone customers, including a government issued identification number and their physical address, alarming privacy advocates and civil rights activists who compare the measures to those from authoritarian countries where it can be difficult to buy a mobile phone plan without giving up your identity.

The proposed change would drastically shake up how people obtain phone plans in the U.S., and have all sorts of privacy and cybersecurity knock-on effects. The FCC is proposing the data collection partly as a way to combat scammers, with telecoms being required to collect other information on business and foreign customers like the intended use case of their bulk phone plan purchase and their IP address. But the changes would mean telecoms collect data on all new and renewing customers, and the FCC provides a long list of other things that the collected data could help authorities with...

The results? When we launched, the number of people completing the form doubled. The analytics people didn’t even know where these users were coming from. Of course, your javascript-based analytics package doesn’t see the users you are bouncing because of javascript failures. It was a flood!

adactio.com/links/22612

Speaking in Dublin

2026-06-15

I’m giving a talk this week.

Usually this wouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve been giving talks for over twenty years now. But this one is different.

I’m going to speaking at Na Píobairí Uilleann, the Society of Uilleann Pipers, in Dublin. They have a monthly series of lectures called Notes and Narratives all about Irish music, and they’ve asked me to deliver this month’s talk.

So this will not be my usual audience. I will be talking about a website, The Session, but I won’t be talking about the technology. There won’t be any mention of HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. Instead I’ll be talking about the origins of the site and how it—and its community—has evolved over time.

Oh, and at these Notes and Narratives talks, they also want some music interspersed to illustrate the points. So that’s something a bit different to my usual tech talks.

I’m not going to lie, I’m kind of nervous about this one. But I’m also excited. I’m genuinely honoured to be able to give a talk at such a fine institution.

I’m speaking on Thursday, June 18th at 8:30pm at the headquarters of Na Píobairí Uilleann, which is 15 Henrietta Street in Dublin. Doors open at 8pm. If you want to come along, tickets are €10/€5. The talk will also be streamed live online.

Wish me luck!

Uncloud Unpush

2026-06-15

Unpush is an experimental attempt to write automatic CI/CD in Uncloud, it either works via web hooks or polls a repository for changes. When seen it redeploys a service via itscompose.yaml file from the repository.

2026-06-15, updated: 2026-06-25

And last week's winner