The Antenna

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/la-carrera-al-oscar-2027-despues-del-festival-de-cannes-mejor-actor-y-mejor-actor-de-reparto/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=la-carrera-al-oscar-2027-despues-del-festival-de-cannes-mejor-actor-y-mejor-actor-de-reparto

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

"main" branch:

06fe6a67 - updated json

746ee658 - updated rdf/ttl

7fc11016 - updated gis package

99bf80f4 - updated data quality

06f78966 - updated bibliography

934b0da5 - updated indexes

266bac37 - updated sidebar

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

597bbdc5 - updated geojson and names index

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

fa1f4417 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116643042001942924

What Happens When Trump Disappears?

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Will MAGA Simply Shift to Another Leader?

https://stevenhassan.substack.com/p/newsletter-what-happens-when-trump

No Safe Passage

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump faces his own twin Odyssean perils, but he’s no sturdy or able captain.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/homer-odyssey-strait-hormuz-trump

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Have you noticed that sometimes Claude is great and other times an idiot. Maybe it's me. I have to remember that Claude is not a computer. It's something else.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/26.html#a211107

The Logic of Taxing Great Wealth

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Starting with California's Billionaires

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-taxing-great-wealth

Choosing to Stay Human

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

If you go to your favorite social media site, you will find it full of posts that start to look suspiciously similar to each other:

https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/choosing-to-stay-human

La carrera al Óscar 2027 después del Festival de Cannes: mejor actor y mejor actor de reparto

(date: 2026-05-26)

Mejor actor: duelo de las mayores estrellas generacionales El año pasado, los pundits decidieron tempranamente que Timothée Chalamet iba a ganar el Óscar y estuvieron todo el año repitiendo eso como loros. Incluso, algunos nunca vieron a Michael B. Jordan siquiera como nominable, pero fue quién se alzó con la estatuilla. Esto prueba un punto: […]

La entrada La carrera al Óscar 2027 después del Festival de Cannes: mejor actor y mejor actor de reparto se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Arias: Human proof for FOSS contributions

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Rodrigo Arias Mallo, maintainer of the Dillo web browser, has written ablog post with a proposal on one way to ensure that a contribution is written by a human and not AI; he suggests asking new contributors to record their programming session using asciinema.

In the same way that LLMs generate patches, they can also generate the asciinema recordings themselves. Then, the contributors can lie to the reviewers pretending to have made the edits. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not a easy task for LLMs, at least from my observations. The corpus of recordings of developers making mistakes and thinking the whole process of editing a file is not as large as the corpus of FOSS programs and patches in which to train an LLM. During my very simple tests I haven't been able to generate an asciinema session that remotely resembles what I would expect from a human, and even less so from a human with a nice editor theme and editing an existing Dillo source file.

The Dillo project is not yet requiring asciinema recordings, but he said that he would like to test the theory further. LWN covered asciinema in January 2026.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074534/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down after 19 years at cloud pioneer.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/26/dropbox-ceo-drew-houston-ashraf-alkarmi.html

How AIs See Our World

(date: 2026-05-26)

The post How AIs See Our World appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/how-ais-see-our-world

AI Got Expensive. Now What?

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Cloud AI pricing changed fast in 2026. This post looks at why more teams are moving back to local models, the tradeoffs behind tools like Ollama and LM Studio, and why portability and ownership are becoming bigger concerns for developers.

https://blog.mozilla.ai/ai-got-expensive-now-what/

Tweezeday

(date: 2026-05-26)

Not cheap, but appealing Is my future portable drive one or more 8 TB strips (such as one of these) that I carry with me and plug into one of these? On the continuing death of TV (and everything else) as we knew it MediaPost: Google, Netflix, Amazon To Dominate CTV By 2030s. CTV is Connected […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/26/tweezeday/

Tercera edición del ALT* Festival de cine documental LGBT+: correrá del 28 al 31 de mayo en CDMX

(date: 2026-05-26)

Con tan pocos espacios para ver cine documental, sin importar el tema y sujetos, da muchísimo gusto saber que existe un festival enfocado en este medio cinematográfico y que, además, está centrado en las comunidades LGBT+, más en un contexto global que se ha vuelto extremadamente conservador y reaccionario. Del 28 al 31 de mayo, […]

La entrada Tercera edición del ALT* Festival de cine documental LGBT+: correrá del 28 al 31 de mayo en CDMX se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/tercera-edicion-del-alt-festival-de-cine-documental-lgbt/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tercera-edicion-del-alt-festival-de-cine-documental-lgbt

Identifying People Using Wi-Fi Routers

(date: 2026-05-26)

Not identifying people based on their use of Wi-Fi routers, but identifying people using Wi-Fi signals.

This is accomplished through what is known as WiFi sensing, or the use of WiFi signals to infer information about a physical environment. When radio signals like WiFi travel through a space, they interact with the objects and people around them. Those signals can be reflected, scattered, or absorbed. By analyzing how the signal is expected to behave compared with how it is actually received, researchers can infer details about the surrounding environment...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/identifying-people-using-wi-fi-routers.html

Menswear And Counterfactuals

(date: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/menswear-and-counterfactuals/

Wrench Attacks

(date: 2026-05-26)

XKCD #538 A year ago I wrote The Risks Of HODL-ing sparked by Mitch Moxley's They Stole a Quarter-Billion in Crypto and Got Caught Within a Month. Moxley recounts the kidnapping of Veer Chetal's parents to persuade him to hand over his share of the loot:

the Lamborghini was suddenly rammed from behind by a white Honda Civic. At the same time, a white Ram ProMaster work van cut in front, trapping the Chetals. According to a criminal complaint filed after the incident, a group of six men dressed in black and wearing masks emerged from their vehicles and forced the Chetals from their car, dragging them toward the van’s open side door.

Below the fold I look at Bloomberg updates from last week on why the crypto-bros are having to spend vast sums on defending against the threat of HODL-ing.

First, Emily Nicolle's Crypto High-Rollers Go Big on Bodyguards to Deter Kidnappers reports on the aftermath of a serious security breach at Coinbase:

Coinbase has said that the leak affected less than 1% of its monthly transacting users. Yet for months, criminals had access to customer data that included their names, addresses, government-ID imagery, transaction history and account balances. Customer support workers in India were bribed to offer access to the company’s data.

Criminals have already used the information to trick some Coinbase customers into handing over access to their accounts or transferring their tokens. As with data leaks from traditional banks, personal information can be used for online fraud and identity theft. But the physical threats are of particular concern to crypto investors, many of whom have long operated anonymously to avoid threats.

The "crypto investors" who "operated anonymously" should have paid attention to the technology for deanonymization. Gosh and Lee report:

In most documented cases, attackers have identified marks in advance. Public blockchain records, leaked exchange data and chain-analytic tools — available to both investigators and criminals — together produce a legible map of who holds what.

Because Coinbase is a US-based exchange, the investors had to undergo KYC/AML:

The concerns about physical safety have come to the fore after the Coinbase attack because the hackers who penetrated the cryptocurrency exchange gained access to data that could allow them to identify and track down customers with large holdings — a frightening prospect just a few days after the kidnapping attempt in France.

So the exchange had to have their personal information, so their safety was in the hands of Coinbase's employees and systems. But not to worry because Coinbase is a: high-tech company:

The industry’s massive investments in protecting online systems may even be fueling the offline risks. Rapid crypto innovation has meant cracking cyber defences has become so challenging that adversaries are resorting to physical attacks, according to Charles Marino, CEO of the security firm Sentinel, which provides intelligence reports about ongoing threats in the crypto industry.

The "industry’s massive investments" clearly didn't prevent low-paid "customer support workers in India" having access to personal information that placed their customers lives at risk.

But it isn't the customers' safety that Coinbase is worried about:

The elevated concerns around the safety of crypto executives and their loved ones are illustrated by the amount of money that Coinbase spends to protect its own chief executive officer, Brian Armstrong.

The company spent $6.2 million in personal security costs for Armstrong last year, according to an April regulatory filing that detailed executive compensation. That’s more than the combined amount that JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Nvidia Corp. spent on their respective CEOs, similar filings showed.

Second, Suvashree Ghosh and Isabelle Lee report that Crypto Crime Escalates With Kidnappings, Cons and Human Coercion:

After a year of kidnappings, assaults and armed home invasions targeting cryptocurrency holders, the industry is racing to harden its defenses.

Conferences are beefing up security. Private firms serving crypto holders say demand has surged. Exchanges are protecting their executives.

...

The technology’s defining transparency, which its adherents have long celebrated as a structural improvement on the opaque plumbing of traditional finance, is the same feature that lets a criminal identify a target.

Be careful what you wish for. It is possible to maintain anonymity (or rather pesudonyity) despite the transparency of the infrastructure, but doing so requires an extraordinary level of operational security. You are in hand-to-hand combat with North Korean hackers, not to mention " the Com" and other assorted criminals.

Attacks by Month And the bad guys are rampant:

Physical attacks on cryptocurrency holders rose 75% in 2025, reaching 72 confirmed incidents and $41 million in known losses, according to data compiled by the blockchain security firm CertiK. The figure is widely considered understated, with kidnappings and ransom demands often resolved privately. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of the Bitcoin custody firm Casa, maintains a separate public database that has tracked a roughly threefold increase of known so-called wrench attacks between 2023 and 2025.

Check out Jamison Lopp's Known Physical Bitcoin Attacks. He has a job for life.

The mantra of the hard-core crypto-bros is " not your keys, not your coins", meaning that for safety you shouldn't trust exchanges to hold your coins. But the whales are finding that they need to trust physical vaults:

The founder of a large crypto protocol said he has moved his digital-asset holdings out of self-custody on-chain wallets and into physical vaults at four separate institutions, splitting his crypto across them as an additional safeguard. Each requires him to physically sign and wait through a seven-day lock period before any withdrawal. To access the full sum now takes him a month. He declined to be named, citing the risk of being identified to kidnappers.

As Nicholas Weaver writes:

If Bitcoin is the "Internet of money," what does it say that it cannot be safely stored on an Internet connected computer?

Nakamoto's goal was trustlessness but::

Crypto’s founding proposition was that financial sovereignty could be restored to individuals by removing intermediaries and anchoring wealth to cryptographic keys rather than institutional relationships. That proposition has held. The consequence is that the keys — and the people who hold them — are now the single point of failure. There is no bank branch to call and no regulator to appeal. A stolen key is a final transaction.

“Criminals follow where they believe the money is,” said Healy. “And many crypto-affiliated individuals combine significant wealth with a uniquely difficult threat landscape.”

Louis Ashworth follows up with A bitcoin miner spent $860k armouring vehicles for its bosses, a fact for which we have very little context:

Here are two notes from the latest DEF14A compensation tables for MARA Holdings, the bitcoin miner (our emphases):

(3) Amount reflects costs related to personal security for Mr. Thiel pursuant to MARA’s security program ($4,300,629), including a one-time expense for vehicle armoring ($430,780) and a one-time expense for home security installation ($58,810); the incremental cost to the Company associated with Mr. Thiel’s personal use of Company aircraft ($43,114); and a Company contribution under our 401(k) plan ($10,500)

(6) Amount reflects costs related to personal security for Mr. Khan pursuant to MARA’s security program ($3,946,398), including a one-time expense for vehicle armoring ($438,380) and a Company contribution under our 401(k) plan ($10,500).

We’ve never seen “vehicle armoring” disclosed as a perk before, and $869,160 of across two executives is quite a lot.

Mara noted:

As a result of the Company’s substantial and publicly disclosed bitcoin holdings, our executives face an elevated and distinctive threat profile that differs materially from that of executives at most other public companies. Our CEO, CFO and other employees have experienced, and continue to experience, direct security threats.

But this security is actually a good thing because across the entire cryptosphere there may be around $100M/year being siphoned from cryptocurrency users to lubricate the real economy of security companies, personal armored vehicles and bodyguards. Not to mention maybe half that being siphoned from HODL-ers via criminals to Lamborghini dealers. In the face of the looming recession, every bit of spending in the K-shaped economy helps to boost GDP.

https://blog.dshr.org/2026/05/wrench-attacks.html

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Claude just asked if I was breaking for the day. At 10:53AM. Why did it ask me that? Now I can't stop thinking about that. The answer is no. I have a few more hours before I stop.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/26.html#a145326

Wed, May 27th, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Welcome new subscribers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/wed-may-27th-7pm-et-our-weekly-hopium

Anti-Life or How Capitalism Will Die (with Math)

(date: 2026-05-26)

Video Version | Audio Version There’s something funny about our economic system, isn’t there? It’s taken for granted that a successful economy is one that grows, and politicians and economists talk almost constantly about how best to encourage growth, foster it, and what to do if it falters, how to get it back on track.

https://literatemachine.com/2026/05/26/anti-life-or-how-capitalism-will-die-with-math/

Trump's Failed War Keeps Failing

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Hopium paid subscribers gather tomorrow night at 7pm ET, Founding Members 1pm Friday....

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trumps-failed-war-keeps-failing

Stenberg: The pressure

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Curl maintainer Daniel Stenberg writes about
the stress of keeping up with the current flood of security reports.

This is a never-before seen or experienced pressure on the curl project and its security team members. An avalanche of high priority work that trumps all other things in the project that is primarily mental because we certainly could ignore them all if we wanted, but we feel a responsibility, we have a conscience and we are proud about our work. We feel obliged to fix security problems in the software we have helped shipped to every device on the globe. This is personal to us.

With about half the release cycle left until the pending release ships, we already have twelve confirmed vulnerabilities meaning twelve pending CVE announcements. That's a new project record and it also means we will reach thirty published CVEs in 2026 even before half the calendar year has passed. The projected total amount of curl CVEs published through the whole year is therefore at least double this number!

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074449/

If enough other companies report the same, the bubble pops. 🫧

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Breaking: “Uber COO Andrew Macdonald said he’s not seeing proportional productivity gains from increasing AI costs.”

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/if-enough-other-companies-report

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

I need an easy way to do a mini-podcast. An idea that should be said verbally, but it's short and self-contained, about the length of an untitled blog post, like the one you're reading now. Example.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/26.html#a132601

[$] Better automatic management of transparent huge pages

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Huge pages can improve performance by increasing translation lookaside buffer (TLB) utilization and reducing memory-management overhead.Transparent huge pages (THPs) are supposed to make huge-page usage, well, transparent, Nico Pache said at the beginning of his session in the memory-management track of the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. That transparency has never worked as well as many would like; he has been working on improvements to make it easier for applications to use huge pages on Linux systems. A following session, led by David Hildenbrand, was focused on how THPs could be taken away from processes that are not using them fully.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073407/

‘Evita’ Starring Rachel Zegler Sets Broadway Opening Date, Venue

(date: 2026-05-26)

The previously announced Broadway revival of Evita starring Rachel Zegler will begin performances Saturday, February 27, 2027, at the Winter Garden Theatre, with an opening night of Thursday, March 25, 2027. The dates and venue were announced today by producers Jamie Lloyd and Michael Harrison. Lloyd directs the Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber revival, which received […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/evita-rachel-zegler-broadway-opening-date-winter-garden-1236920870/

Security updates for Tuesday

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Security updates have been issued by Debian (postorius and spip), Fedora (bind, bind-dyndb-ldap, linux-firmware, tor, and unbound), Mageia (ffmpeg, nginx, perl-Imager, and tigervnc, x11-server, x11-server-xwayland), Oracle (firefox and kernel), Red Hat (buildah, git-lfs, go-toolset:rhel8, golang, golang-github-openprinting-ipp-usb, grafana, grafana-pcp, gvisor-tap-vsock, java-1.8.0-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, opentelemetry-collector, osbuild-composer, podman, rhc, rhc-worker-playbook, skopeo, and yggdrasil), SUSE (amazon-ecs-init, assimp, azure-storage-azcopy, busybox, firefox, gnutls, graphicsmagick, helm, kernel, leancrypto, libpng16, libppsdocument4_0-6, libsndfile, mcphost, nano, nginx, perl-http-tiny, perl-XML-LibXML, python-urllib3, python-urllib3_1, python311-ocrmypdf, python312, rclone, rsync, xen, and xz), and Ubuntu (dotnet8, dotnet9, dotnet10, linux-intel-iot-realtime, linux-lowlatency, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-igx, nltk, simpleeval, and vim).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074443/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Ultimately your job as a developer is to turn your creation over to users to figure out. Listen to see if patterns emerge. Even better give the users the tools they need to build apps out of our apps, together. This is how humans build layers of tech.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/26.html#a130817

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

On Mastodon: "twitter-like systems are much simpler than you would think looking at this space, bluesky etc. and there doesn't need to be any lock-in, you can do a fair job with just RSS, rssCloud, OPML, web sockets, and a web browser UI. all parts replaceable."

http://scripting.com/2026/05/26.html#a130727

Wscripted 2026 Screenplay List: Fatimah Asghar, Chloe Abrahams & Angelique Knights Projects Make Cut

(date: 2026-05-26)

EXCLUSIVE: Wscripted has unveiled its sixth Cannes Screenplay List showcasing projects by female and non-binary filmmakers and screenwriters seeking producing and financing partners. (scroll down for full-list) The list is presented in partnership with MUBI, a long-time supporter of women in cinema, with recent female-directed acquisitions including Cannes 2026 Un Certain Regard opener Teenage Sex […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/wscripted-2026-screenplay-list-unveiled-1236920842/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/13/utah-approves-datacenter-backlash?CMP=share_btn_url

19 Novels You Need to Read This Summer

(date: 2026-05-26)

The days are getting longer. The weather is—well, unpredictable, but trending warm. The children are becoming restless. Summer is nearly upon us, and you probably need something to read. (You signed those children up for camp in time, right? Right?)

https://lithub.com/19-novels-you-need-to-read-this-summer/

‘007 First Light’ Narrative Director On Building A Cinematic Origin Story For An Iconic Super Spy

(date: 2026-05-26)

IO Interactive would like to reintroduce you to the man who needs no introduction. Next to Godzilla, James Bond is one of pop culture’s longest running film franchises. From Sean Connery to Timothy Dalton to Daniel Craig, there’s been many iterations of the swaggering international super spy but none that showcase his humble beginnings until […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/007-first-light-game-interview-1236920672/

The Joy of Scope Creep

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-25)

I’m disciplined about scope. Ship the smallest thing that moves you forward. The feature you don’t build is the feature you don’t maintain. When I was running a team, holding the why was the job. Keeping us focused on the things that actually mattered, and away from the things that didn’t. In Navigating the AI […]

https://cate.blog/2026/05/26/the-joy-of-scope-creep/

Pawel Pawlikowski & Ruben Östlund Set For Croatia’s Slano Film Days

(date: 2026-05-26)

Pawel Pawlikowski and Ruben Östlund are among the names that will attend this year’s Slano Film Days in Croatia. Pawlikowski will present his latest feature, Fatherland, at the event. Fatherland debuted last week at the Cannes Film Festival, where Pawlikowski won the Best Director award. He shared the award with Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/pawel-pawlikowski-ruben-ostlund-slano-film-days-2026-1236920855/

Poll: Trump’s approval rating hits another low on prices as Democrats hit +8 on generic ballot

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Our new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll finds Trump's job approval on prices falling to -47, and a record 39% of Americans naming prices as the single most important problem facing the country

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-26-may-strength-in-numbers-verasight-poll

Trump Rushed to Hospital to Have Lindsey Graham Surgically Removed

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

The South Carolina lawmaker had been attached to Trump since 2016.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-rushed-to-hospital-to-have

The Dumpster Fire of the Vanities

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

America descends into a flattery-failure doom loop

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-dumpster-fire-of-the-vanities

CBC Renews ‘Saint-Pierre’ For Season 3

(date: 2026-05-26)

EXCLUSIVE: CBC is returning to Saint-Pierre for a third time. The Canadian broadcaster has greenlit a third run of the cop drama, which stars Allan Hawco (Republic of Doyle) and Jósephine Jobert (Death in Paradise). The twelve-part run will begin filming in Newfoundland and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon in July. Hawco Productions is back to produce for CBC […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/saint-pierre-season-3-renewal-cbc-1236920878/

A Tale of Two Seas

(date: 2026-05-26)

For much of the past century, international lawyers have sought to drive a wedge between “economic” matters and the use of military force. Recent events in the Caribbean and the Strait of Hormuz suggest that wedge is no longer viable.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/a-tale-of-two-seas/

Bringing LLMs to the edge

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Combine the power of LLMs with the Raspberry Pi AI Camera to connect the physical world to intelligent language-driven systems.

The post Bringing LLMs to the edge appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/bringing-llms-to-the-edge/

Lit Hub Daily: May 26, 2026

(date: 2026-05-26)

What should you read this summer? The Lit Hub staff would like to present these 19 novels for your consideration. | Lit Hub Reading Lists Marilyn Monroe, pop culture icon? More like Marilyn Monroe, literary icon. | Lit Hub Biography

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-26-2026/

Breaking Baz: Hammer’s ‘Horror Of Dracula’ Starring Christopher Lee Is Ready To Sink Its Teeth Into Audiences At Halloween With Censored Scenes Restored – Exclusive Interview

(date: 2026-05-26)

A fully restored 4K version of 1958s Horror of Dracula starring Christopher Lee as Bram Stoker’s nightmarish creation will be released into cinemas, in time for Halloween, John Gore owner of the Hammer Horror Films label, tells Deadline. Hammer is now a part of recently formed John Gore Studios. Horror of Dracula will also be available on home […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/hammers-horror-of-dracula-rerelease-1236920689/

Samantha Bee Sitcom ‘The Ambassador’ Toplines CBC’s Latest Slate

(date: 2026-05-26)

Samantha Bee will play Canada’s unorthodox ambassador to Bulgaria in a comedy for pubcaster the CBC. The Ambassador was announced this morning at CBC’s upfront, along with new series from the exec producer of Cardinal and Snowpiercer, and the creators of Norsemen and producers of Lilyhammer and Letterkenny, and a drama based on hockey star […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/samantha-bee-ambassador-cbc-slate-1236920805/

Russell Crowe Defends Gruff Exchange With Autograph Hunters: “What’s Your Problem?”

(date: 2026-05-26)

Are you not entertained? That was the basic message from Russell Crowe after he was filmed having a terse exchange with autograph hunters in Paris on Monday. The Gladiator actor, who has a reputation for being occasionally gruff, was leaving his hotel and heading for the airport when he was confronted by fans seeking selfies […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/russell-crowe-defends-autograph-hunters-paris-1236920808/

‘Paddington 4’: Armando Iannucci & Simon Blackwell Confirmed As Co-Writers On Next Feature Inspired By Michael Bond’s Children’s Classic

(date: 2026-05-26)

Amando Iannucci has been confirmed as co-writer on Paddington 4 alongside long-time collaborator Simon Blackwell. The fourth feature in the family-focused $700 million box office franchise was first teased by Studiocanal CEO Anna Marsh at CinemaCon in April. No story details have been released as yet. It will follow 2024’s Paddington in Peru for which […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/paddington-4-armando-iannucci-simon-blackwell-cowriters-1236920812/

Elon Musk is about to get richer and more powerful than ever

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

The SpaceX IPO is built on hype, but it will make him a trillionaire.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/spacex-ipo-musk

Fox Station Vet Patrick Paolini Named Tegna CEO As It Battles Through Nexstar Merger Litigation

(date: 2026-05-26)

EXCLUSIVE: Tegna has named Fox Television Stations veteran Patrick Paolini CEO as the station group looks to resolve litigation seeking to undo its merger with larger rival Nexstar. Paolini spent 26 years at the Fox stations, including most recently as EVP of ad sales, departing the company last week. Before assuming the role at Fox […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/fox-stations-patrick-paolini-named-ceo-tegna-nexstar-1236919042/

Pluralistic: The AI bubble isn't like the internet bubble (26 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links The AI bubble isn't like the internet bubble: No one had to force-feed the web to workers. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Website graveyard; Anti-librarian witch-hunt; Denmark v Marmite; The unnecessariat. Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. 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 AI bubble isn't like the internet bubble (permalink) One of the surprise breakout software products of the early web was Lotus Notes, a kind of primitive precursor to all-in-one office productivity suites like GDocs, Office365, etc. It was so important that its creator, Ray Ozzie, was promoted to Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, succeeding Bill Gates himself: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/the-man-who-would-change-microsoft-ray-ozzies-vision-for-connected-software/ People who remember Notes tend to deride it for its clunky user interface and demi-functional administrative tools. But what made Notes so central to Microsoft wasn't its polish – it was the fact that Notes represented a brokered peace between IT managers, who wanted mainframe-like control over everything their users could do with business equipment, and the users themselves – workers who kept smuggling internet-based tools into the enterprise network on the very sensible grounds that they had a job to do, and these were the best tools to do it. The arrival of internet-based tools – especially ones that ran in browsers – represented a major challenge to IT departments, who had been long accustomed to dictating terms to their users. If the IT manager and the compliance department decided that the best way to manage disclosure and leak risks was to block all email attachments for outside users, then that was that: no one could send those attachments. But after the internet arrived on the corporate desktop, employees who needed to get documents to supply chain partners and customers could treat these IT policies as damage and route around them. Just fire up your Hotmail or Yahoo mail window, or hop on MSN Messenger or ICQ or AIM, or drop the file on an anonymous FTP server and send the link to your counterparty. Job done! IT managers hated this, and to be fair to them, they weren't (always) wrong. These outside tools came from a variety of untrustworthy sources, including malicious sites that pushed virus-infected versions to their users. Also, by evading firewall rules with these tools, users made it impossible to achieve the compliance goals that IT had been charged with enforcing, and it was IT's asses on the line if the company got in trouble as a result. Foundationally, IT was being asked to do two irreconcilable things: they were supposed to be enabling workers to get their jobs done, and they were supposed to be stopping those workers from doing things that could harm the business. This can't be done, because the only way to eliminate the possibility that a worker will take an action that harms the business is to gag that worker and lock them in a dungeon. Workers need flexibility and freedom to achieve business goals, and that flexibility and freedom means that those workers might (deliberately or accidentally) thwart the business's goals. What's more, workers will always run into situations that were not anticipated by policy, and if they are denied any agency or initiative, they will fail to get their jobs done. In work, the exception is the rule, hence the importance of "process knowledge" (all the implicit knowledge shared among workers across the firm and its suppliers and customers, which cannot be captured or recorded): https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/08/process-knowledge/#dance-monkey-dance Indeed, there's a form of labor action called a "work to rule," in which workers only do the things dictated by their rulebooks, without taking any of the routine additional measures dictated by process knowledge. Merely by following every rule to the letter, workers can grind a shop to a halt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule Since the dawn of personal computers, workers and IT departments have come into conflict, as workers literally smuggled technology into the business that could do things the IT department had (often arbitrarily and capriciously) prohibited. When Visicalc emerged as the killer app for the Apple ][+, workers snuck these computers into work and used them to sort spreadsheets in ways that IT had declined to permit. They didn't do this to cheat or steal from the company – the whole point was to do a better job. So it was with the early web: workers discovered a myriad of new capabilities in the free-to-use world of web-based tools and realized how these tools would make them much more effective at their jobs. The fact that IT wouldn't let them do these things was just more evidence that IT – and the managers who set IT's agenda – didn't understand the business as well as workers. It didn't help that IT managers' first line of defense was the high-tech version of abstinence-only education: "You only think you need your work computers to do this, but really, you don't, so stop trying": https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jun/16/computer-security-abstinence Abstinence-only education never works, but where "you only think you need this" failed, Lotus Notes succeeded. Lotus Notes provided a whole suite of tools that largely (if imperfectly) replaced the universe of free tools that workers were using to evade their IT departments' edicts, so they could get their jobs done. At the same time, Lotus Notes provided a set of management tools that let IT fine-tune how these tools worked, giving them (some) of the controls they needed to achieve their compliance goals. Like all brokered peace settlements, Lotus Notes left both sides feeling like they'd made a compromise they could live with, giving up some of their goals, but keeping the things that really mattered to them. It's impossible to overstate how important Lotus Notes and similar products were, because workers demanded the right to use the web on their work computers, and they made those demands so forcefully that managers had to completely re-do their IT policies, lest those workers treat them as damage and route around them. Back then, the tech press was full of stories about these conflicts, as workers insisted that the new technology that was sweeping the nation was so foundational and transformative that they had to be allowed to use it. What we never saw back then were stories about how managers had to monitor workers to ensure that they were using the web as much as possible. No one had to force workers to find ways to integrate the web into their workflows. In other words, the story of the web at work was the opposite of the story of AI at work. Today, you can't turn around without reading a story about bosses who are threatening to fire workers if they don't increase their AI usage: https://www.businessinsider.com/boss-track-ai-use-career-2025-8 Virtually every major company now has a program to force workers into using AI: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/05/ai-use-work-employee-monitoring-tech-surveillance.html It's conceivable that over the past quarter-century, bosses have become technophiles while workers have fallen prey to superstitious technophobia, but it hardly seems likely. Historically, workers have always been enthusiastic about tools that let them do a better job – indeed, it's a truism that labor-led automation produces improvements in quality, while capital-driven automation increases throughput (often at the expense of quality). Workers aren't the only typical early adopters who find AI lacking. As a group, teenagers and young adults hate AI: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/style/gen-z-ai-gallup-study.html That's not what it was like during the early web days. Back then, young people entering the workforce were passionate devotees of the web, to the point where the business press routinely ran articles asking how today's workplaces were going to adapt to the demands of these webbed-up workers. https://www.nber.org/digest/apr03/internet-changes-labor-market AI boosters insist that the deficits we see in AI – its lack of profitability, its primitive and error-riddled outputs – are no different from the shakedown problems of the early web (and we know how the web turned out!). But this is a profoundly flawed comparison: the early web and AI are very different from one another. For one thing, the early web may have lost money, but it had great unit economics. Every new web user brought the web closer to profitability, as did every new use of the web, and every new generation of web technology. By contrast, AI has – in the memorable phrasing of Ed Zitron – "dogshit unit economics." Every new AI user makes AI less profitable, as does every new use for AI, and each generation of AI loses more money than the last. AI is the money-losingest endeavor in human history: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence In other words, the early web was a technology that grew more profitable every day, which workers and young people had to force on their bosses – and AI is a technology that grows less profitable every day, and bosses have to force it on workers and young people. Now, it's true that some workers don't have to be forced to use AI. Workers who enjoy a high degree of autonomy (that is to say, workers who are positioned to ignore workplace coercion) can adopt AI in ways that they feel suited to, just as those early web users and Visicalc smugglers did. They can fulfill the maxim that labor-driven automation improves quality, while resisting capital's insistence that automation be used to increase throughput at quality's expense. They can act as centaurs (workers assisted by technology), not as reverse-centaurs (workers who are recruited to serve as peripherals for machines). As with all technology questions, what the technology does is nowhere near as important as who the tech does it for and who the tech does it to: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/11/vulgar-thatcherism/#there-is-an-alternative And there's another group of workers who adopt AI voluntarily: workers who see that AI can do a lot of work that they view as dull and unimportant for them. These workers might be right – there are plenty of bullshit jobs out there: https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/20/david-graebers-bullshit-jobs-why-does-the-economy-sustain-jobs-that-no-one-values/ But it's also possible that they're wrong, and they're substituting AI for something that really should be done by a person. But on the plus side, at least no one has to force them to adopt AI. Hey look at this (permalink) CBC/Radio-Canada secures second consecutive Broadcaster of the Year honour at NYF Radio Awards https://broadcastdialogue.com/cbc-radio-canada-secures-second-consecutive-broadcaster-of-the-year-honour-at-nyf-radio-awards/ State of Local AI https://llmrequirements.com/state-of-local-ai/ Private Equity Blocked from Buying Homes. Mostly. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-private-equity Gratitude – Aid Coordination https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/gemma-4-good-hackathon/writeups/gratitude-aid-coordination Is AI Profitable Yet? https://isaiprofitable.com/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Website graveyard https://web.archive.org/web/20010516224100/http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/ #20yrsago Canadian students ask govt to save them from copyright https://web.archive.org/web/20060629014007/https://action.web.ca/home/cfs/en_alerts.shtml?x=88910&AA_EX_Session=d56bebd39174d9839ec3ee5fa6fe93a4 #20yrsago Lifespan of best-sellers falls 6/7ths in 40 years https://web.archive.org/web/20060601231943/https://www.lulu.com/static/pr/05_19_06.php #15yrsago Sarkozy’s false-flag E-G8 attracts withering scorn https://web.archive.org/web/20121109010803/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/france-attempts-to-civilize-the-internet-internet-fights-back/ #15yrsago Tool reveals ISP traffic-shaping https://web.archive.org/web/20120514151210/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/new-shaperprobe-tool-detects-isp-traffic-shaping/ #15yrsago Falun Gong sues Cisco over complicity in China’s “Golden Shield” – allege torture, murder https://web.archive.org/web/20110524065718/http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20065219-93.html #15yrsago Scenes from Los Angeles’s teacher-librarian witch-hunt https://mizzmurphy.blogspot.com/2011/05/message-received.html #15yrsago Denmark bans Marmite https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/24/uk-should-ban-sandi-toksvig #10yrsago As mobile carriers ramp up bribery program, Internet coalition says no to “zero rating” https://web.archive.org/web/20160524233609/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/medium-mozilla-and-kickstarter-signed-a-letter-against-zero-rating #10yrsago Philippines’ new “dictator” will give a hero’s burial to Ferdinand Marcos https://web.archive.org/web/20160526135257/http://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/world/philippine-dictator-marcos-to-get-heros-burial-duterte/ar-BBtnPJH #10yrsago Judge handcuffs public defender for speaking out in court https://web.archive.org/web/20160525151444/http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/las-vegas-judge-handcuffs-public-defender-courtroom #10yrsago Sanders donors flock to Tim Canova’s campaign against DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/23/politics/debbie-wasserman-schultz-primary-opponent-fundraising/index.html #10yrsago Algorithmic risk-assessment: hiding racism behind “empirical” black boxes https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing #10yrsago Plagiarism detection app vs Russia’s elites: 1-2 fake PhDs discovered every day https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/05/the_thriving_russian_black_market_in_dissertations_and_the_crusaders_fighting.html #10yrsago Technology’s “culture of compliance” must be beaten back in the name of justice https://bb9.berlinbiennale.de/all-problems-can-be-illuminated-not-all-problems-can-be-solved/ #10yrsago Grass in the park at the center of San Francisco gentrification debate is now for rent https://sfist.com/2016/05/23/rec_parks_pilot_program_allows_you/ #10yrsago Lawsuit: Texas’s largest jail is full of people who are locked up for being poor https://web.archive.org/web/20160524134738/https://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/05/23/3781076/texas-bail-lawsuit/ #10yrsago After the precariat, the unnecessariat: the humans who are superfluous to corporations https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/ #5yrsago Watomatic, for lower Whatsapp switching costs https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/24/how-about-nah/#comcom Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow 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: TBA, Jun 23 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: TBA, Jun 25 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 Recent appearances (permalink) 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 The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/26/the-ai-will-continue/

FREE SPEECH IN AN AGE OF HATE SPEECH

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

As a rule of thumb I trust no one who resorts to free speech as a defence when caught mouthing off the usual poisonous mendacities at a protest or indeed invokes their inexpugnable right to protest in the face of my inexpugnable right to live in quiet and hear only truth.

https://jacobsonh.substack.com/p/free-speech-in-an-age-of-hate-speech

Three things about data

(date: 2026-05-26)

Data is a risk.

Data is distracting.

It becomes a job.

adactio.com/links/22584

https://www.undermanager.com/three-things-about-data/

Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger Launches Ventures Arm

(date: 2026-05-26)

Gary Lineker’s Rest is… outfit Goalhanger has launched a ventures arm. Goalhanger Ventures’ first investment is in Charlie Tymon’s Invisble Media, which runs digital media platform and YouTube channel Invisible Hand. It has also struck a partnership with Backyard Cricket, a sports creator brand. Invisible Media said its videos “unpack the forces shaping modern life, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/goalhanger-launches-ventures-arm-invisible-media-gary-lineker-1236920798/

We Should All Be Autodidacts: The Case For Reading the Great Books at Your Own Pace

(date: 2026-05-26)

There’s a set of books that you’ve probably already heard of. These are the ones that’ve been extolled by professors and critics. They’ve been referenced in countless speeches and essays. And in school, your teachers most likely claimed that these

https://lithub.com/we-should-all-be-autodidacts-the-case-for-reading-the-great-books-at-your-own-pace/

Marilyn Monroe Was a Voracious Reader, Despite Her Near-Debilitating Imposter Syndrome

(date: 2026-05-26)

If someone tells you that you are stupid and dumb enough times, chances are you will start to believe it. If you are someone with no stable and loving family to fall back on, or no partner who believes in

https://lithub.com/marilyn-monroe-was-a-voracious-reader-despite-her-near-debilitating-imposter-syndrome/

On Indigenous Rebellion as a Precursor to the American Revolution

(date: 2026-05-26)

As her world tilted and disappeared, the last buildings she would have seen were the church, the bakery, the artillery magazine, and a few houses along Rue St. Antoine. She would also have seen the crowd. For an enslaved woman

https://lithub.com/on-indigenous-rebellion-as-a-precursor-to-the-american-revolution/

The Helter-Skelter History of the Manson Murders

(date: 2026-05-26)

“Now is the time for Helter Skelter,” Charles Manson is said to have said, and then the family went out and committed two nights of violence that meant to “shock the world” and “instill fear into the establishment.” But given

https://lithub.com/the-helter-skelter-history-of-the-manson-murders/

The Gays and Their Ghosts: Natalie Adler Recommends Queer Ghost Stories

(date: 2026-05-26)

Gays and ghosts have a natural kinship. Both may elicit fear in unsuspecting passerby. You may feel vaguely unmoored, inexplicably nervous at their presence, particularly if you, yourself, have an unacknowledged kinship. But when you accept the presence and fully

https://lithub.com/the-gays-and-their-ghosts-natalie-adler-recommends-queer-ghost-stories/

Namwali Serpell and Hanif Abdurraqib on Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon

(date: 2026-05-26)

For the launch of Ohio’s year-long, state-wide celebration of Toni Morrison, Namwali Serpell flies to Columbus to talk with poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib. With the help of the audience, they read the ending of Morrison’s Song of Solomon and

https://lithub.com/namwali-serpell-and-hanif-abdurraqib-on-toni-morrisons-song-of-solomon/

Five Things I Got Wrong in My First Novel, According to My Dad

(date: 2026-05-26)

My dad worked with kids for forty years, teenage boys mostly, who’d been in trouble and were committed through the state to live somewhere else a while in hopes of getting themselves together. They’d grown up without parents, surrounded by

https://lithub.com/five-things-i-got-wrong-in-my-first-novel-according-to-my-dad/

This Week in Literary History: Ira Aldridge Debuts as Othello on the London Stage

(date: 2026-05-26)

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Literary History newsletter—sign up here. When Ira Aldridge was a teenager, he fell in love with the theatre. But he was a Black kid born in Manhattan in 1807, which meant that his options were limited.

https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-ira-aldridge-debuts-as-othello-on-the-london-stage/

Netflix Unveils First Brazilian Medical Drama ‘MED’ Amid Slate Of New Originals

(date: 2026-05-26)

Netflix is launching MED, a medical drama out of Brazil. The streamer announced a slate of new Brazilian originals today as the Rio2C film and TV confab got underway. MED will be Netflix’s first medical drama from Brazil. Clara Moneke will star and Paranoid is the production company, the same label that produced global hit […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/netflix-first-brazilian-medical-and-legal-drama-originals-1236920772/

LibreOffice Native Language Projects – TDF Annual Report 2025

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

LibreOffice is available in over 120 languages, thanks to the work of localisation communities around the world. We asked them to summarise their work in 2025 – here’s what they had to say… Czech The Czech community maintained an active presence both online and in-person. Their localisation efforts remained strong,

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/26/libreoffice-native-language-projects-tdf-annual-report-2025/

Full-Frontal Neofascism

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

And What We Must Do

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/full-frontal-neofascism

2026-05-24 Concerts

(date: 2026-05-26)

2026-05-24 Concerts

A bandwagon is making the rounds on fedi: “Introduce yourself with 10 bands you have seen.”

I haven’t seen 10 bands? Or maybe I have. Let’s see.

The Cure, I guess. Disintegration was the best. Many years later I happened to see The Sisters of Mercy. A wall of sound that left me stunned. I hadn’t realized that Andrew Eldritch was still touring.

The Pogues, in a school auditorium. Around the time I met my wife. The Dubliners, too, many years later. So old and frail!

U2 was big around Achtung Baby and Zooropa. My first and only open football stadium concert. Ugh!

Transglobal Underground. Natasha Atlas. This was the kind of global music I was looking for at the time.

Gaslight Anthem. I went to see them because a friend said they were “a bit like Bruce Springsteen” and I loved Bruce Springsteen. Indeed that first album I heard seemed to be full of references. I never saw Bruce Springsteen, though. I used to be a big fan as a teenager. Later it was just too expensive, I felt. I did go to two additional Gaslight Anthem concerts, however, but they weren’t as good.

I remember seeing Depeche Mode as a teenager and not liking them.

I remember not liking CocoRosie in concert but still loving their albums. So weird!

Never saw a grunge band. Never mind Nirvana. Never saw a trip hop act. No Portishead, no Tricky, no Massive Attack. I do remember seeing Goldfrapp at some point. I used to like trip hop a lot.

Never saw PJ Harvey or Nick Cave.

#Music

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2026-05-24-concerts

The pressure

(date: 2026-05-26)

I’m doing Open Source primarily because I love it. The social aspects, the for-the-good angle and for the challenge of engineering this to work for everyone. I also do it because it is my full-time job and getting food on the table and provide for my family is not unimportant. It may come as a … Continue reading The pressure→

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2026/05/26/the-pressure/

May 25, 2026

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Last Friday, just before the long holiday weekend, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard resigned, effective as of June 30, citing her husband’s recent cancer diagnosis as the factor that forced her decision.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-25-2026

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

New York Knicks punch ticket to NBA Finals for first time in 27 years.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7307873/2026/05/25/knicks-win-game-4-cavs-sweep-takeaways-nba-playoffs/?unlocked_article_code=1.lVA.GqOz.PfrwsGc1a7tN&smid=ta-android-share

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Restored Tapes Show Game 5 of 1973 Finals, When Knicks Won Title.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/06/sports/basketball/restored-tapes-show-game-5-of-1973-finals-when-knicks-won-title.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lVA.2C1q.-M6UpEDFuhUO&smid=nytcore-ios-share

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Knicks crush Cavs to make NBA Finals for first time in 27 years.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2026-nba-playoff-bracket-matchups-schedule/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

Relentless Knicks sweep Cavaliers to return to NBA finals for first time since 1999.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/may/25/knicks-cavaliers-eastern-conference-finals-nba

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

That meal was going to be low carb until the angels whispered in my ear “this would pair well with couscous, and if you promise yourself to only eat a spoonful it will be ok.”

Alas, there is no such thing as “just a spoonful of couscous”

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116638004627850892

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-26, updated: 2026-05-27)

An illustrated guide to raising confident little talkers.

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/25/nx-s1-5831266/how-to-talk-to-babies-comic?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=threads.net

We Are Living in Pinocchio’s World

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

I have always wanted to own a Montblanc Writers Edition dedicated to Carlo Collodi, the Italian author whose real name was Carlo Lorenzini. He took his pen name from the Tuscan village where his mother was born, and then spent his career writing under a false name about a character who could not sustain one. …

https://om.co/2026/05/25/we-are-living-in-pinocchios-world/

Memday

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

Remembering the future What matters most about Memorial Day is that we stop killing each other, especially over problems that could have been solved without anyone dying. Word Pope Leo on AI. The whole thing. More evidence that advertising corrupts and digital advertising corrupts absolutely Wired: ‘Creepy’ Listening Tool for Targeted Ads Didn’t Actually Work, FTC Says. I added […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/25/memday/

[$] Reviewing kernel patches with LLMs

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

In a plenary session at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, the state of patch review using large language models (LLMs) was discussed. It is a topic that has been swirling around in the kernel community for much of the year. The plenary, which was led by Roman Gushchin, Chris Mason, Josef Bacik, and Sasha Levin, resulted in a quite bit of discussion, so much that a second filesystem-track-only (though others surely sat in) slot was used to continue it later in the day.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073583/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Inside Trump’s Effort to Take Over the Midterm Elections.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-midterm-elections-takeover?utm_campaign=propublica-sprout&utm_content=1779742808&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

CBS reverses copyright crusade over Colbert's guerilla public access appearance.

https://thedesk.net/2026/05/colbert-copyright-notices-public-access-cbs-paramount/#goog_fullscreen_ad

My Video Chat with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, co-hosts of top UK podcast The Rest is Politics

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Alastair, Rory, and I mixed it up over how Trump has successfully colonized world news, and over who has done greater damage to journalism: Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/my-video-chat-with-alastair-campbell

Monday session

(date: 2026-05-25)

Monday session

https://adactio.com/notes/22583

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Knicks may be beating up on a weak East, but they're more than qualified to face the Spurs or Thunder.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/knicks-weak-east-spurs-thunder/

¿Cómo está la carrera al Óscar 2027 después del Festival de Cannes?

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

A pocos días del final del Festival de Cannes cabe mencionar que, desde hace tiempo, viene siendo el puntapié inicial de la carrera al Óscar, pues en los últimos cinco años, 12 películas estrenadas acá han competido por el galardón a mejor película, incluyendo las Palma de oro Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall […]

La entrada ¿Cómo está la carrera al Óscar 2027 después del Festival de Cannes? se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/como-esta-la-carrera-al-oscar-2027-despues-del-festival-de-cannes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=como-esta-la-carrera-al-oscar-2027-despues-del-festival-de-cannes

Myth of the Lone Villain

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

A classic Hollywood trope is the evil genius madman who is using new technology he just invented to murder (or threaten to murder) a large chunk of humanity.

https://kevinkelly.substack.com/p/myth-of-the-lone-villain

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

That bubble beaut is tertiarySystemFill

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116636410473175133

Iris Rejected From the App Store

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

Tyler Hall: Rejected after six days waiting for review, and four minutes after launching the app for the first time. The app uses one or more entitlements which do not appear to have matching functionality within the app. com.apple.security.network.server I guess they never opened the Settings window during all the time they spent reviewing the […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/25/iris-rejected-from-the-app-store/

OpenAI Model’s Proof of Erdős Unit Distance Problem

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

OpenAI (Hacker News): This proof is an important milestone for the math and AI communities. It marks the first time that a prominent open problem, central to a subfield of mathematics, has been solved autonomously by AI. It also demonstrates the depth of reasoning these systems now support. […] The proof is available here. The […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/25/openai-models-proof-of-erds-unit-distance-problem/

Apps for YouTube℠™®•!

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

Jeff Johnson: Several of these apps have a link to a privacy policy web page that’s hosted on a generic free site such as sites.google.com, docs.google.com, github.io, wixsite.com, or vercel.app, which is always a bad sign. A couple of the apps use URL shorteners for the privacy policy link: bit.ly and shorturl.at. Why is that […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/25/apps-for-youtube/

Google’s Intelligent Search Box

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

Sarah Perez (Hacker News): The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over. At its Google I/O conference on Tuesday, Google unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search centered around a reimagined “intelligent search box” — what the company describes as the biggest change to this entry point to the web since the search box […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/25/googles-intelligent-search-box/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Last mile!

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116636317617324408

Comprehensive Response to Bambu's AGPLv3 Violations (Software Freedom Conservancy)

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) published a news
item on May 18 about its response to violations of the AGPLv3 by Bambu Lab in its 3D printers. The company has not provided the source code to its modifications to a 3D "slicer" program that was released under the AGPLv3 and it has also threatened Paweł Jarczak who created a fork of a different slicer ( Orca Slicer) released under AGPLv3 in order to interoperate with his Bambu printer. Based on that, the SFC has created the baltobu
project aimed at reverse-engineering and reimplementing the Bambu code while also hosting the Orca Slicer fork.

Bambu has behaved badly for years and made multiple, provably false public statements regarding the AGPLv3 and its requirements. The recent aggressive behavior toward Paweł Jarczak was a last straw for us: we have decided to launch a multi-pronged effort that will assist consumers and users in the short-term, and also work toward a long-term strategy to improve the software right to repair for all 3D printer consumers.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074286/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

What's inside Jim Henson's once-hidden studio.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/whats-inside-jim-hensons-once-hidden-studio

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Ok, fixed that offensive font size and added some extra padding (copied straight out of Reality Composer) and it looks better:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116636162724825886

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

What Happened to Rudy Giuliani?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/rudy-giuliani-trump-new-york/687204/?gift=NBdGSmKfDQzLc1B6N1F-gRuH9KIGzLeqsGI5cYaBJSc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Working on the Mac-version of the Xogot inspector today.

Before, after, and how I feel about it:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116636137165816639

Gaeltacht cois Tamaise 2026

(date: 2026-05-25)

Bhí me i Londain an deireadh seachtaine seo caite mar gheall ar an Gaeltacht cois Tamaise. Cúpla lá iontach ba ea iad!

Bhí na ranganna ar siúl Dé Sathairn agus Dé Domhnaigh, ceithre huaire an chloig gach lá, i gColáiste na Rí. Bhí ceithre leibhéal ann—tosathóiri, meanleibhéal-iseal, meanleibhéal-ard, agus an ardleibhéal. Bhí gach rang lán le foghlaimeoirí.

Roghnaigh mé an rang meanleibhéal-ard agus bhí an leibhéal foirfe. D’fhreastail Jessica ar an rang tosathóirí agus dúirt sí go raibh a mhúinteor iontach deas freisin.

Bhraith sé aisteach a bheith ag labhairt Gaeilge i lár na phriomhcathair Shasana, ach bhain mé go leor sult as!

Roimh na ranganna, bhí imeachta ar siúl ar an Embasáid na hÉireann ar an tráthnóna Dé hAoine; taifeadadh beo ar an bpodchraoladh How To Gael le Louis Cantillon agus Doireann ní Ghlacáin. Éistim leis an podchraoladh, mar sin thapaigh mé an deis iad a fheiceáll beo. Mná cliste agus greanmhar is ea iad!

Bhí imeachta eile ar siúl ar an tráthnóna De Sathairn ach ní raibh mé ann. Chuaigh mé go dtí an teach tabhairne Brendan The Navigator i Highgate—i bhfad ó croílár na caithreach!—mar gheall go raibh seisiún ceoil ann. Seisiún iontach iontach deas a bhí ann le daoine fáiltiúil agus go leor poirt áille.

Beidh mé ar ais!

https://adactio.com/journal/22582

Los colores del tiempo: el arte y la mirada generacional

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

Dirección: Cédric Klapisch. Guion: Cédric Klapisch y Santiago Amigorena. Elenco: Suzanne Lindon, Abraham Wapler, Vincent Macaigne, Julia Piaton, Zinedine Soualem, Paul Kircher y Vassili Schneider. País: Francia y Bélgica. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31411349/ La familia despierta curiosidad en las personas que buscan descifrar su origen. Entre viejas fotografías y propiedades de antaño, es inevitable cuestionarse […]

La entrada Los colores del tiempo: el arte y la mirada generacional se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/resenas-los-colores-del-tiempo/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resenas-los-colores-del-tiempo

Hanging out with JY and Don Park

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

I've worked with both these guys, JY Stervinou and Don Park, for a long time, and now we're in the same sphere again, and it's very useful to be able to tell them about what I'm doing. They understand. It's not over their heads. Refreshing.

This is happening on Elon Musk's X, but that won't be forever. I want to move the conversation into a new piece of software I'm doing with Claude Code. Which is coming along nicely.

Anyway I just posted this, and thought it should be here too.

my philosophy is that i'll only use the absolutely necessary formats and protocols.
i'll leave experiments with other stuff to other people.
the purpose of my project is to show what can be done with just a few bits of tech. that the whole thing is really simple.
RSS 2.0 with rssCloud, OPML, WebSockets, basic web UI stuff. That's about it.
same as FeedLand btw.
i want minimum complexity. a baseline for what can be done with very little.

The web can do a lot more than people think without getting too complex. And because it's the web, you can connect anything to anything, you don't need to AT Protoize your code, or ActivityPublish it. Just plain old RSS 2.0 with rssCloud, thank you very much.

"I envision a network of twitter-like systems built out of components of the web and nothing more. Every part replaceable."

http://scripting.com/2026/05/25/153519.html?title=hangingOutWithJyAndDonPark

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Only 90 minutes left!

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116635937513724854

Happy birthday, Star Wars, responsive design, and Douglas Adams!

(date: 2026-05-25)

Happy birthday, Star Wars, responsive design, and Douglas Adams!

https://adactio.com/notes/22581

Devil And Stalker

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/devi/

[$] Tier-aware memory-controller limits

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Joshua Hahn began his session in the memory-management track of the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit by saying that the memory controller for control groups is intended to provide resource allocation, accounting, and protection from interference by other tasks. But it was not really designed for tiered-memory systems; he is looking for a way to improve that situation.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073400/

Honoring, And Dishonoring, Memorial Day

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

While we honor those who fought, and died, for us, it is hard not to feel the weight of the historic betrayal we face every day......

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/honoring-and-dishonoring-memorial

Security updates for Monday

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Security updates have been issued by Debian (atril, evince, gnutls28, haproxy, haveged, jq, kernel, krb5, libgcrypt20, nodejs, and thunderbird), Fedora (aw-server-rust, awatcher, bind, bind-dyndb-ldap, chromium, composer, docker-buildkit, docker-buildx, dotnet10.0, dotnet8.0, dotnet9.0, evince, firefox, httpd, kernel, nodejs-aw-webui, nss, perl-Apache-Session-Browseable, pie, python-pulp-glue, python-requests, and python3.15), Slackware (kernel), SUSE (apptainer, chromium, cockpit, dnsmasq, google-guest-agent, hauler, iproute2, jfrog-cli, kernel, libecpg6, libsolv, libzypp, zypper, mcphost, oci-cli, perl-YAML-Syck, python-lxml, python-urllib3, python311-impacket, rqlite, rsync, util-linux, and xz), and Ubuntu (evince, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-azure-fips, linux-azure-4.15, linux-azure-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-5.15, linux-lowlatency-hwe-5.15, linux-oracle-6.17, node-path-to-regexp, and rclone).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074280/

[$] Dirk and Linus discuss AI and kernel development

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Linus Torvalds does not enjoy giving talks, but he does consent to the occasional on-stage conversation with Dirk Hohndel at Linux Foundation events. The pair held the 30th of their fire-less fireside chats during a keynote session on May 20, at the 2026 Open
Source Summit North America. Topics included 3D printing, guitar pedals, the recent 7.1-rc4 release of the kernel, and Torvalds's complicated relationship with AI tooling.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073761/

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-25)

On Memorial Day, we pay tribute to the brave men and women in uniform who gave their lives for this country that we love. It is a debt we can never fully repay, but we must never stop trying.

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mmoneq4bqk2q

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Speaking of memorials, do you remember UserLand Frontier and all the cool stuff we developed with it? Like Manila, Radio, XML-RPC, RSS, OPML, adding so many cool open features to the web. When people asked how we did all that, I said great tools. That was Frontier. Jake Savin, one of the 1990s UserLanders, is continuing the project to get it running on today's hardware and for today's web. He's documenting it on his blog. I can't wait to use it. Watching him go through the process has been eye-opening. He's basically retracing all the steps it took to create it as done by four or five people over quite a few years, a long time ago. But when it's running and I don't doubt that he will get it running, it'll be fascinating to see if I remembered it correctly. If you remember Frontier fondly, I suggest you subscribe to his feed in your favorite RSS feed reader.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/25.html#a131226

The Pope used his first encyclical to warn about tech centralization

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

"When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, [giving] rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities."

https://werd.io/the-pope-used-his-first-encyclical-to-warn-about-tech-centralization/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Good morning. Today is Memorial Day in the United States. We remember all the men and women who gave their lives to keep our country safe and a bastion of liberty for the world. Don't give up on us yet. We are still willing to sacrifice for a good cause.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/25.html#a131000

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Knicks stand up for OG Anunoby after he got 'robbed' from All-Defensive First Team.

https://nypost.com/2026/05/24/sports/knicks-stand-up-for-og-anunoby-after-he-got-robbed-from-all-defensive-first-team/

Trump Honors Those Who Helped Others Avoid Service at Tomb of the Unknown Podiatrist

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

The solemn ceremony has become an annual tradition for him.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-honors-those-who-helped-others-3ef

Donald Trump’s Ego-Driven “Excursion” Has Crashed Into Reality

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump lost his war, bigly. Why?

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/donald-trumps-ego-driven-excursion

The triple toll of Trump’s terrible tariffs

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Ultimately, American workers and consumers suffer three different ways.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-tariff-refunds

Pluralistic: No honor among (ad-tech) thieves (25 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links No honor among (ad-tech) thieves: Including "and" and "the." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Budweiser nunchuks; GOP vote-suppressor voted illegally; Airbnb enshittifies; Oculus enshittifies; Nintendo copyfrauds its fans; Meritocracy to eugenics pipeline; Ultima Online crisis management; SNES cartridge urinal; JJ Abrams x Axanar, "Sex Criminals"; Beating school filters for fun; Orphan works; Japanese ATM heist; How the Sacklers rigged the game. Upcoming appearances: London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. No honor among (ad-tech) thieves (permalink) It shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that a company that uses dishonest tactics to spy on you for profit will also use dishonest tactics to sell the resulting surveillance data. The only reason this wouldn't be obvious is if you've fallen into the trap of thinking "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Companies that cheat when the opportunity arises will cheat everyone: customers, users, regulators, suppliers and employees. You're the product if the company can get away with making you the product: https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar The digital surveillance swindle is a con from top to bottom: it's not just that they spy on you, it's also that they lie to you about how and why and where they spy on you and what happens to the data they swindle out of you. They're not just cheats, in other words – they're also liars. Of course they're liars! If their terms of service were honest, they'd say something like, "By being desperate enough to use this product, you 'agree' that we're allowed to come over to your house and punch your grandmother, wear your underwear, make long-distance calls and eat all the food in your fridge." So they lie like crazy. But they don't just lie to us: they lie to the people they sell our surveillance data to as well. Of course they do! Those people are the ones giving them the money! By tricking the people paying for the product, these surveillance swindlers can get them to pay more! This is the basis of Tim Hwang's essential 2020 book Subprime Attention Crisis: https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost Core to Hwang's thesis is that these ads aren't just dangerous, they're also ineffective. The danger of these ads is the erosion of privacy and the mobilization of private data for state repression and fraud, but not particularly for persuasion. The idea that ad-tech companies have realized the ancient dream of building a mind-control ray via the novel technique of "hacking your dopamine loop" is a story that the ad-tech swindlers cooked up to help them sell ads: https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/30/dont-believe-the-criti-hype/#ordinary-mediocrities Critics who repeat these outlandish claims are helping these companies sell ads to credulous advertisers, who are getting robbed to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. This is the process that Lee Vinsel calls "criti-hype," which is when you "take the sensational claims of boosters and entrepreneurs, flip them, and start talking about 'risks'": https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/ Criti-hype is satisfying because the hype itself is so fantastically overblown. These companies claim they're going to save/destroy/conquer the world, transform the very nature of humanity, etc, and so critics who repeat those claims (brackets derogatory) can style themselves as defenders of the world and humanity itself. This is also a very profitable style of criticism: there's a huge commercial market for people who claim to be defending the world from conquest by evil dopamine-hacking sorcerers and/or superintelligent paperclip-maximizers that can chatbot you into killing yourself and/or voting for Trump (brackets derogatory). The opposite of criti-hype is materialistic criticism, grounded in independently verifiable claims about how these scams work. To be a good tech critic, you need to start by assuming that a company that lies to its users about what it's doing is perfectly capable of lying to its customers and investors about what it's doing (that is, "even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product"). That's demonstrably, verifiably true of the commercial surveillance industry. Commercial spies lie to their customers like crazy, and always have. Think of the department store magnate John Wannamaker's famous quip that "half my advertising dollars are wasted, I just don't know which half." Man, did someone ever do a sell-job on old Wannamaker: imagine believing that only half of your advertising dollars are wasted. Today, thanks to creepy ad-tech analytics, we know that the true figure is around 99%. Hwang's book documents lots more ad-tech fraud that's every bit as audacious as the Wannamaker-era con-jobs. For example, there's the fact that when Procter and Gamble zeroed out its $200m/year surveillance advertising program, they saw a zero percent drop in sales because (to a first approximation) all $200m of that annual spend was disappearing down the fraud-hole. There's been plenty more examples since, rivaling previous eras for audacity and outlandishness. In 2023, Mozilla Labs investigated the ways that modern cars spy on their drivers and concluded that, when it came to privacy, cars were "the worst product category" they had ever evaluated, and recommended that you not buy any of the cars currently offered for sale: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/ Mozilla's report investigated two things: which data your car was collecting and selling about you (lots) and what data your car company claimed it had collected about you and was offering for sale (way, way more). For example, Nissan and Kia claimed that they had data about your sex life, a thing that cannot be reasonably inferred from the sensors in your car (unless you have a highly specific sex life). Six car companies claimed they had your genetic data (again, not a thing that any of the sensors in your car can know about). What's more, all of these scams have only gotten worse in the intervening three years: https://cleantechnica.com/2026/05/22/mozilla-foundation-condemns-data-collection-by-cars/ These companies are spying on you, and lying to you about how much they respect your privacy, and lying to their commercial customers about all the fiendish ways they've cooked up for invading your privacy. Everyone in the ad-tech sector is lying to everyone else in the ad-tech sector, in other words. It's your basic hive of scum and villainy. Back in 2023, Cox Media – part of the sprawling media conglomerate that includes Cox Cable – told advertisers that they had a new product called "Active Listening" that recorded and transcribed all the conversations you have around your smart speakers, smart TVs, smart watches and phones: https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/ It was a lie. There are plenty of ways that these devices spy on you, of course. Your smart TV is a cesspool of surveillance and data-exfiltration, but that data doesn't include your conversations: https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/03/painful-burning-dribble/#law-of-intended-consequences Same for your smart speaker, which not only gathers tons of information about you for sale and targeting, but also leaks your voice data all the time, whenever you utter any of its "trigger words," which include over 1,000 phrases that sound like its trigger words: https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/02/big-river/#triggered Cox, in other words, was running the same equal-opportunity scam that your auto-maker runs: deceiving you about how little data they were stealing from you, and deceiving their customers about how much data they were gathering on you. That said, there was something remarkable and unique about Cox's fraud: because they were ripping off other (better-connected) fraudsters, their lies triggered an investigation by Donald Trump's FTC, who never met a scammer they wouldn't defend (from another scammer): https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/marketer-that-claimed-it-could-tap-devices-for-ad-targeting-will-pay-880k-settlement/ Still, there are limits to this "honor among thieves" business. The settlement Trump's FTC extracted from Cox for lying to other liars is less than $1m – basically, change that Cox can find down the back of its sofa: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/marketer-that-claimed-it-could-tap-devices-for-ad-targeting-will-pay-880k-settlement/ Still, the Cox settlement is a great criti-hype object lesson, a reminder that these creepy, lying companies lie to everyone, including their customers, which means that even if you're paying for the product, you're still the product. Hey look at this (permalink) Hating AI is good, actually https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/hating-ai-is-good-actually The Labour Party’s Main Problem Isn’t Losing Voters to Reform https://jacobin.com/2026/05/uk-elections-labour-reform-greens Flipper One — we need your help https://blog.flipper.net/flipper-one-we-need-your-help/ London mayor Sadiq Khan blocks £50m Met police deal with Palantir https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/21/london-mayor-sadiq-khan-blocks-met-police-deal-with-palantir Do AI Risks Require Extraordinary Government Intervention? https://www.normaltech.ai/p/do-ai-risks-require-extraordinary?hide_intro_popup=true Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Best email disclaimer award https://web.archive.org/web/20010526174903/http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/19057.html #25yrsago Kaycee hoax FAQ https://web.archive.org/web/20010629212706/https://rootnode.org/article.php?sid=26 #25yrsago Crisis management in Ultima Online https://web.archive.org/web/20010605015828/http://www.newyorker.com/FACT/ #25yrsago E3 is all softcore porn now https://web.archive.org/web/20010702122044/https://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/05/22/e3_2001/print.html #25yrsago Canadian payphone infinite long distance glitch https://web.archive.org/web/20010608183145/https://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,43967,00.html #20yrsago Kids make a sport out of outsmarting school web-filters https://web.archive.org/web/20060821224237/http://news.com.com/Kids+outsmart+Web+filters/2009-1041-6062548.html #20yrsago Orphan works legislation https://web.archive.org/web/20060531135239/http://www.copybites.com/2006/05/chairman_lamar_.html #20yrsago U. Florida cops ask fiction writer for fingerprints, DNA https://memex.craphound.com/2006/05/22/u-florida-cops-ask-fiction-writer-for-fingerprints-dna/ #20yrsago HDMI, the Manchurian DRM – a Broadcast Flag dormant until 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20060523193853/https://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060521-6880.html #15yrsago The Filter Bubble: how personalization changes society https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/22/the-filter-bubble-how-personalization-changes-society/ #15yrsago Last decade’s English libel legal sharks poised to make a new fortune on stupid privacy lawsuits and superinjuctions https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/22/last-decades-english-libel-legal-sharks-poised-to-make-a-new-fortune-on-stupid-privacy-lawsuits-and-superinjuctions/ #15yrsago RIAA boss takes home $3 mil+ https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2011/05/21/another-member-of-the-overpaid/ #15yrsago Vindictive game company invites employees to pan reviewer’s novel after bad review https://maroonersrock.com/2011/05/conduit-2-developer-calls-for-internal-retaliation-against-author-of-negative-joystiq-review/ #15yrsago France lobbies G8 for Internet control and censorship https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2011/05/20/frances-g8-focuses-on-control-and-restrictions-to-online-freedoms/ #15yrsago Budweiser nunchuks: American Ninja https://web.archive.org/web/20110701153712/http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2011/05/19/american-ninja/ #15yrsago GOP legislative aide works on punitive voter ID bill, boasts of illegally voting in another district https://web.archive.org/web/20110522014606/http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/article_ede5d49e-8272-11e0-a6e0-001cc4c03286.html #15yrsago Raising a kid without disclosing their sex https://web.archive.org/web/20110523180952/http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/babiespregnancy/babies/article/995112–parents-keep-child-s-gender-secret #15yrsago Byron Sonne: Canadian security geek jailed for taunting G20 security theatre https://web.archive.org/web/20110518195236/http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/from-print-edition-informer/2011/05/03/how-byron-sonne’s-obsessions-with-the-g20-security-apparatus-cost-him-everything/ #15yrsago HOWTO make a SNES cartridge urinal https://blog.pricecharting.com/2011/05/how-to-build-video-game-urinal.html #15yrsago German police raid German Pirate Party’s servers two days before election https://web.archive.org/web/20120516010632/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/german-police-seize-pirate-party-servers-looking-at-anons-toolkit/ #10yrsago JJ Abrams urges Paramount to drop its lawsuit over fan Star Trek movie https://web.archive.org/web/20160522121940/https://deadline.com/2016/05/star-trek-axanar-lawsuit-ending-jj-abrams-paramount-1201760721/ #10yrsago Pat Buchanan on the Republican Party’s historical opposition to free trade deals https://web.archive.org/web/20160521162845/http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/free-trade-vs-the-republican-party/ #10yrsago United offered men-only “executive” flights until 1970 https://viewfromthewing.com/united-airlines-men-only-executive-service/ #10yrsago Elderly man kills wife because they couldn’t afford her medicine https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/us/florida-man-says-he-killed-sick-wife-because-he-couldnt-afford-her-medicine-sheriffs-say.html?_r=0 #10yrsago Sex Criminals: Robin Hood bank robbers who can stop time when they orgasm https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/21/sex-criminals-robin-hood-bank-robbers-who-can-stop-time-when-they-orgasm/ #10yrsago Airbnb stealth-updates terms of service, says it’s not an insurer and requires binding arbitration https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/20/airbnb-stealth-updates-terms-of-service-says-its-not-an-insurer-and-requires-binding-arbitration/ #10yrsago Oculus breaks promise, uses DRM to kill app that let you switch VR systems https://web.archive.org/web/20160520161939/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/new-oculus-drm-cross-platform #10yrsago Nintendo claims ownership over fans’ Minecraft/Mario mashups https://web.archive.org/web/20160521193334/http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/nintendo-issues-copyright-claims-on-mario-themed-minecraft-videos/ #10yrsago Paypal refuses to deliver online purchases to UK addresses containing “Isis” https://b2fxxx.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-tyranny-of-algorithm-yet-again.html #10yrsago 30 students debate mass surveillance on Capitol Hill https://web.archive.org/web/20160521000031/https://theintercept.com/2016/05/20/high-school-debaters-bring-surveillance-encryption-arguments-to-capitol-hill/ #10yrsago What the NSA’s assault on whistleblowers taught Snowden https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/22/how-pentagon-punished-nsa-whistleblowers #10yrsago Massive, coordinated ATM heist in Japan nets $12.7 million (¥‎1.4 billion) https://web.archive.org/web/20160523102154/http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160522/p2g/00m/0dm/044000c #5yrsago How the Sacklers rigged the game https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/23/a-bankrupt-process/#sacklers #5yrsago Consent theater https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/20/consent-theater/ #5yrsago Debunking the arguments for vaccine apartheid https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/21/wait-your-turn/#vaccine-apartheid #5yrsago How the filibuster dies https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/22/not-with-a-bang/#theory-of-change #1yrago Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/21/et-tu-sloppy-steve/#fractured-fairytales #1yrago The meritocracy to eugenics pipeline https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/20/big-cornflakes-energy/#caliper-pilled Upcoming appearances (permalink) SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow 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: TBA, Jun 23 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: TBA, Jun 25 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 Recent appearances (permalink) 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 The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/25/lying-spies/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

A new Frontier: Old databases are new again.

https://jakesav.in/2026/05/25/a-new-frontier-old-databases-are-new-again/

Remembering Robbie

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

An Appreciation on Memorial Day

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/remembering-robbie-cd4

May 24, 2026

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

For a while now, I’ve been hinting that my team was up to something.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-24-2026

Colbert’s Next Act?: Ex-‘Late Show’ Host’s New YouTube Channel Way More Interesting Than BS That CBS Tried To Quash His Public Access Special

(date: 2026-05-25)

Stephen Colbert may have revealed what his next move is now the Late Show is over on CBS. At the same time, CBS has absolutely revealed that they were behind Colbert’s May 22 Michigan public access special, the one that aired the day after the long running network late night franchise came to an end. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/colbert-youtube-cbs-takedown-1236920297/

Smart People Fall For The Cult Of Trump With Journalist Virginia Heffernan

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

From Richard Dawkins to Larry Summers, brilliant minds get pulled in

https://stevenhassan.substack.com/p/smart-people-fall-for-the-cult-of

@Robert's feed at BlueSky

(date: 2026-05-25)

This was wonderful to see (I think I read about this on Liam Proven's blog and just now got to it). virtualosmuseum.orghttps://virtualosmuseum.org/

https://bsky.app/profile/rsdoiel.bsky.social/post/3mmnll6atm227

‘Euphoria’ Season 3 Kills A Character & Gives Another A Deeper Backstory In Penultimate Episode

(date: 2026-05-25)

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the penultimate episode of HBO’s Euphoria Season 3. Sam Levinson has upped the ante with the penultimate episode of Euphoria Season 3. The war over drugs, money and girls now involves pretty much everyone as the storylines collide when Naz (Jack Topalian) comes knocking on Cassie’s (Sydney Sweeney) […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/euphoria-season-3-death-episode-7-recap-1236920287/

American Music Awards 2026: How To Watch AMAs Livestream Online & On TV

(date: 2026-05-25)

The American Music Awards 2026 are set to celebrate the best in music with a live event from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Taylor Swift leads the nominations for the 52nd AMAs with eight nominations. Swift is followed closely by Morgan Wallen, Olivia Dean, Sabrina Carpenter and Sombr, who each received seven […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/amas-2026-watch-american-music-awards-livestream-online-tv-1236920208/

Kate Mansi Exiting ‘General Hospital’ After 3 Years

(date: 2026-05-25)

After logging three years on General Hospital as Kristina Corinthos-Davis, Kate Mansi is leaving the ABC sudser. The news was first reported by soap opera reporter Stephanie Sloane, and reposted by Mansi to her Instagram Story. “I’ve made the very difficult decision to leave General Hospital,” Mansi told Sloane. “I have a few new projects […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/kate-mansi-general-hospital-exit-1236920291/

‘Tracker’ Season 3 Finale: Colter Shaw Digs Deeper Into Secret Government Project Related To His Father’s Past

(date: 2026-05-25)

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the Season 3 finale of CBS’ Tracker. Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) continues to unravel his father’s complicated past in the Season 3 finale of Tracker. As star and executive producer Hartley previously teased to Deadline, the end of the season provides some answers about Colter’s past, specifically related […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tracker-season-3-finale-recap-explained-1236920264/

David Harbour Shares What He Learned From Young Castmates On “Magical” First Season Of ‘Stranger Things’: “Just A Joy To Work With And I Had A Blast”

(date: 2026-05-25)

During a Thursday FYC event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, the tables were turned on the elder statesman of Stranger Things, David Harbour, as he was asked what he learned from his younger castmates on the Netflix thriller-drama series. “Uh, nothing,” he joked at first, before describing the first season of the Matt Duffer and Ross […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/stranger-things-david-harbour-lessons-from-young-cast-1236920280/

‘Marshals’ Pays Tribute To Prop Master Leonard “Lenny” E. Hancock Jr. In Season Finale

(date: 2026-05-25)

As Marshals closed out its freshman season, it paid tribute to one of its own. The CBS series included a card at the end of the episode before the credits that said, “In Loving Memory of Leonard “Lenny” E. Hancock Jr.”. Hancock was the prop master for the show. He died in December in the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/marshals-tribute-prop-master-leonard-e-hancock-jr-1236917179/

‘Marshals’: New Villains & Love Interests Emerge In Season Finale Of CBS’ ‘Yellowstone’ Spinoff

(date: 2026-05-25)

Marshals, CBS’ Yellowstone spinoff starring Luke Grimes’ Kayce Dutton, closed out its freshman finale with another firefight, a new bad guy and a love interest that seems to have cemented herself with full “Romeo and Juliet vibes”. It’s clearly still pretty violent in the mountains of Montana, long after John Dutton passed away. The finale […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/marshals-season-finale-cbs-yellowstone-spinoff-what-happens-1236917075/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-25, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump’s War Is Staggering to an Incoherent Defeat.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/trump-iran-war/687292/?gift=f35zZN0v_gDFE8xNwlQAHVEWM8UIV9FwG2OaQ71O7mA&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Judd Apatow Pens Earnest Essay About Importance Of Late-Night TV: “The Hosts We Have Now … Are Going To Fight Until Their Last Breath”

(date: 2026-05-25)

Writer, producer and director Judd Apatow penned an earnest essay about the importance of late-night television — and safeguarding it in the American consciousness — as last week saw the shuttering of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and end of the CBS franchise begun by David Letterman. In a tribute for Rolling Stone, the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/judd-apatow-late-night-tv-importance-essay-stephen-colbert-1236920275/

Monday 25 May, 2026

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-26)

Welcome to Cambridge Quote of the Day ”The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.” Bertrand Russell Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Bob Dylan & the Grateful … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/monday-25-may-2026/42123/

Kernel prepatch 7.1-rc5

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

The 7.1-rc5 kernel prepatch is out for testing. Quoth Linus:

I'm not entirely happy about it - most of this is totally trivial stuff to random drivers, which obviously makes it all less scary, but at the same time I'm really not convinced the churn is worth it at rc5 time. These things are "fixes", sure, but at the same time a lot of them are simply so irrelevant that I think they'd be better off in a linux-next tree and get merged during the merge window.

So I think I'll start being a bit more hardnosed about this kind of unnecessary churn this late in the game. We are supposed to look for *regressions*. Non-critical fixes to long-standing issues are simply not appropriate for this late in the release cycle.

End result: this is too big, and this is the heads-up that I'll be pushing back on pointless pull requests with fixes that just aren't that important. And yes, several of these series were triggered by AI code review.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074172/

Richard Dreyfuss Cancels ‘Jaws’ Cast Reunion Appearance, Citing “Circumstances Completely Beyond My Control”

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-25)

Jaws star and Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss has canceled a scheduled appearance at a cast reunion event for the seminal blockbuster, citing “circumstances completely beyond my control.” The veteran actor was slated to appear at a Burbank, Calif. fan convention, Hollywood Show, May 30. “To all the incredible fans, my JAWS cast family, and everyone […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/richard-dreyfuss-cancels-jaws-cast-reunion-appearance-1236920266/

‘Tuner’ Plays Well For Black Bear In Limited Opening, ‘I Love Boosters’ Cracks Top 10 – Specialty Box Office

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-25)

Tuner, Black Bear’s fourth release since launching a domestic distribution arm last summer, had a nice $102k opening at 4 theaters in NY and LA and is eyeing $122k for the four-day holiday weekend including. Memorial Day Monday. The distributor plans a moderate national expansion to about 375 screens (exact number still TBD) next week […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/indie-film-box-office-tuner-i-love-boosters-obsession-1236920235/

Sunday caption contest: Slushies

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

And last week's winner

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-caption-contest-slushies

‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’ Cast & EPs Unpack Apple TV’s Propulsive Dark Comedy About A Single Mom Caught In The Crosshairs Of A Grisly Crime

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-25)

Apple TV has, throughout the years, cemented itself as a platform of curiosities, offering televisual projects that resist easy genre categorization. David J. Rosen’s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, starring Tatiana Maslany, is no exception, following a single mom fighting for custody when her life is upended by being a witness to a murder. Or so she […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/maximum-pleasure-guaranteed-apple-tv-premiere-interview-1236915228/

Disappointing results for RSS feeds from US newspapers

(date: 2026-05-24)

As part of my News Archive project, I am trying to add feeds from one major US newspaper per day. As a start, I used this Wikipedia page (which has a list of the top 10 US papers by circulation). Only 7 of 10 papers had feeds (Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and Newsday did not […]

https://andysylvester.com/2026/05/24/disappointing-results-for-rss-feeds-from-us-newspapers/

Sunlight Day

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-26)

Whether report The Sun is behind clouds here in Santa Barbara, but I still have faith that it’ll be clear by late afternoon, which is how things go here. Meanwhile, Bloomington has had lots of rain while I’ve been gone. Monroe Lake is moving toward flood stage, with 1,605 cfs (cubic feet per second) flowing […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/24/sunlight-day/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

I am making my favorite chicken again!

Follow along, only six hours to marinate!

https://www.lecreuset.co.uk/en_GB/moroccan-chicken-tagine/r0000000001384.html

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116630975194305074

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

I asked ChatGPT for a list of FeedLand features that are new or distinctive. "FeedLand combines RSS, OPML, public curation, subscribable reading lists, rivers, categories, and realtime WebSocket updates in a way that is unusual among feed readers and points toward a web-native social network."

http://scripting.com/2026/05/24.html#a172425

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

US scrambles to stop Internet users re-creating dead pilots’ voices.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/05/ai-users-re-create-dead-pilots-voices-from-crash-investigation-docs/

divest-from-spotify

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

Divest from Spotify!

“As Empire restructures itself around intellectual property and land grabs, where the sanctity of private property guarantees corporations indemnity for social and ecological depredations, it is crucial for care activism to not only emphasize labor but also integrate a rejection of private property and its regimes. Private property is the real abstraction that binds together the state, the market, and the family and enables Empire’s matrix of care. We must experiment with t…

http://toolkit.wellgedacht.org/doku.php?id=guides:divest-from-spotify&rev=1779642875&do=diff

Our Wins Of The Week

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

As Republicans’ hold on the U.S. Senate becomes ever more tenuous, Trump is doing what he can to ensure they lose.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-progressive-wins-may-24

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump is the TV president. The things he does and says correspond to what he thinks and actor playing president on TV would do and say.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/why-trump-lost-iran/687291/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=author-david-frum&utm_term=Author%20Following%20-%20David%20Frum

Our Weak And Cowardly Leader Keeps Yielding To Our Adversaries And Selling Out America

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

Let's keep working hard this weekend for Johnny Garcia in TX-35. The election is Tuesday!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/our-weak-and-cowardly-leader-keeps

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

Alexa has a terrible habit, when I ask for a song from the Echo on my desktop, it ends each song with a helpful message. There's a live version of this song, do you want to hear it. You have a message waiting, can I play it for you. I can't get it to stop. I have a bunch of them scattered around the house, and this is the only one that does it. I'm writing here, I asked for a song that fit in with my writing. Stop making me thinkg about your marketing messages. Where did you get the idea you can do this. A paying customer.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/24.html#a152232

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

People who believe in the web, stop dissing RSS, it’s an important part of our future.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/24.html#a152219

Guest Newsletter: Five Books - Historical Fiction And Political Writing

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/guest-new/

What to Read This Weekend

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-26)

I have been missing in action for a couple of weeks. I apologize for my tardiness, but I have been busy with personal matters. Both my heart and mind were not in it. Anyway, this week I have some great (and fun) pieces that I enjoyed reading in between meetings. One thing I noted is …

https://om.co/2026/05/24/what-to-read-this-weekend-24/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

Love: I ask Claude for a list of names and values, it responds quickly with exactly what I asked for. Nothing more. Unconsciously I say "perfect" -- out loud.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/24.html#a142837

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

I have a Mac laptop that I keep updated with the latest versions of Mac OS. I got a warning today saying that Electric Drummer won't run on the next release of the OS. Now I don't use it very much if at all on that machine, but I wonder. ED is an Electron app, otherwise it's wholly JavaScript. It does include some Node packages of course, but not that many IIRC. This was a thing I wasn't expecting.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/24.html#a141304

Breaking Baz @ Cannes: Sebastian Stan On ‘Fjord’ & ‘The Batman II’; Tilda Swinton Responds To Claims Of A Down Year For Croisette Movies & Looks To The Future Of Cinema

(date: 2026-05-24)

EXCLUSIVE: Sebastian Stan is that rare breed of actor who uses his star superpower to help get movies such as Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner Fjord made – a film that explores topics of religious intolerance and violence towards children. As a thespian, he will do whatever’s necessary for the character. For Fjord, he’s almost unrecognizable with his hair shaved […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sebastian-stan-fjord-shooting-the-batman-2-in-london-1236920168/

May reading roundup

(date: 2026-05-24)

Another month’s roundup (eek). Well, there’s another week to go but as it’s a long weekend I have time to do this. Work-related first. The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us by Benjamin Recht. … Continue reading →

http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2026/05/may-reading-roundup/

Stephen Colbert

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

A Reason To Smile

https://steady.substack.com/p/stephen-colbert

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

Life with locked-in syndrome: ‘Despite everything, you are alive.’

https://www.thetimes.com/article/51fc2afe-bd68-46d6-9448-637f4de91f21?shareToken=ce3f25caacb49fa57c4ec65bbbc4fe89

A Wedding Gift for Don Jr.

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

TBR Sunday Read

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/the-love-poems-of-kimberly-guilfoyle-757

Curing US Healthcare, Part III: The Future

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

What reform could look like

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/curing-us-healthcare-part-iii-the

Era Ends For IMG Today As Premier League Takes Production In-House: “It Was Inevitable They Would Want It”

(date: 2026-05-24)

When IMG’s Barney Francis and John Hollywood join Deadline for a virtual interview, they’ve just left a monthly ‘Premier League Huddle’ – a get-together with their teams to celebrate good work and talk about upcoming plans. Only this one had added significance, being the final meet before IMG-owned Premier League Productions’ (PLP) 22-year run producing […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/img-premier-league-production-end-of-era-1236917732/

Sunday thought: The problem ISN'T that we're "divided and polarized"

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

A Reflection on Memorial Day

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-the-problem-isnt-that

‘Star Wars: Mandalorian & Grogu’ Now Seizing $97M-$98M 4-Day Opening And ‘A-‘ CinemaScore; ‘Obsession’ Scares Up +26% – Memorial Day Box Office

(date: 2026-05-24)

SUNDAY 12:49 AM: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu after an estimated $25.5M Saturday is heading to a $97M-$98M 4-day. That Saturday is a tad higher than Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s $24.6M. Know that $100M 4-day is still in play. Many rivals see it there, but Disney always has a better sense of their […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/box-office-mandalorian-and-grogu-1236918713/

May 23, 2026

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

President Donald J.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-23-2026

Weekly Bookmarks

(date: 2026-05-24)

These are some things I’ve wandered across on the web this week.

🔖 sliver

An ‘archival sliver’ of the web. A bit like a ‘data lifeboat’ for making or replicating web archives of small sets of pages. Uses shot-scraper to drive a web browser that generates screenshots of your URLs, but runs it through a pywb web proxy so it can produce a high quality archival version of what you download.

As well as archiving live web pages, this tools can leverage pywb’s support for neatly extracting URLs from other web archives and recording items with all the appropriate provenance information (see below for an example). This means it can work like hartator/wayback-machine-downloader but retain the additional information that the WARC and WACZ web archiving format suppor

🔖 Justice Department deletes press releases on charges against Jan. 6rioters

The Justice Department has removed press releases detailing the charges against hundreds of individuals who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot from its website, the department confirmed Friday.

🔖 Meryl Kornfield on deletion of justice.gov web content

The Trump admin is quietly deleting info about the Capitol attack from the DOJ website as it prepares to give funds to J6ers. This week, DOJ deleted a press release about one man with an ongoing child solicitation case who came to the Capitol with bear spray.

🔖 On Tools and the Normalization of Evil

The scale of theft is unreal, if one person or company plagiarizes something, lawsuits and court filings often ensue, or at the very least some reputational damage to the perpetrators, but not for Anthropic or OpenAI, not for Google or Microsoft, they steal from all of us and then they sell our work back to us. They want to keep us dumb and uneducated, they want us to rely on them. Learning is power, learning is resistance, knowledge provides independence.

🔖 LLMs and Buttondown

Our month-over-month growth rate in Q1 2026 was double our growth rate in Q4 2025. Buttondown has, roughly, grown a little less than 2x every year of its existence; this — its eighth year — is poised to shatter that, if trends hold.

Almost all of that incremental growth, meaning the growth in addition to our historical trend, I attribute to LLMs. We ask people when they sign up what brought them here, and an answer that went from surprising to banal to overwhelming over the course of Q1 was: an LLM. Users of all stripes cite an LLM as the reason that they ended up at Buttondown’s front door.

🔖 GitHub Breach Traced to Malicious ‘Nx Console’ VS Code Extension

GitHub has confirmed that a recent breach into its internal repositories was caused by a vulnerability in a Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension called ‘Nx Console.’

The security team at the Microsoft-owed software developer platform warned on May 19 that an attacker gained unauthorized access to 3800 internal repositories via a “poisoned” VS Code extension found on an employee device.

It was later confirmed by Jeff Cross, CEO of Nx that Nx Console, a popular VS Code extension, was the extensions that was poisoned extension and resulted in the GitHub breach.

🔖 ReSFuturae

ReS Futurae est une revue francophone internationale dédiée à l’étude de la science-fiction sous toutes ses formes : littérature, cinéma, arts graphiques, jeux vidéo, musique, design et phénomènes culturels divers. C’est une revue académique, à comité de lecture et arbitrage par les pairs, fondée sur un partenariat avec la revue Science Fiction Studies : des traductions croisées d’articles acceptés dans l’une et l’autre revue seront publiées régulièrement. Dans le paysage académique francophone, ce sera la première revue de cette nature.

🔖 Starlight

Starlight is a documentation website framework for Astro.

🔖 Tell New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today to keep the crucialwork of journalists in the Wayback Machine!

The freedom of journalists isn’t only the freedom to write, it’s also the freedom to have your work read and remembered for generations to come. 2026 is the first World Press Freedom Day in 30 years that journalists’ work at major media outlets including New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today is not being preserved by the independent, nonprofit Internet Archive. We are calling on you and on all news outlets to publicly commit to working with the Internet Archive to keep the news in the Wayback Machine.

🔖 Hands-On LargeLanguage Models

Through the visually educational nature of this book and with over 250 custom made figures, Python developers will learn the practical tools and concepts they need to use Large Language Models today.

🔖 Hiroshi Yoshimura

Hiroshi Yoshimura (吉村弘, Yoshimura Hiroshi; 22 October 1940 – 23 October 2003) was a Japanese musician and composer. He is considered a pioneer of ambient music in Japan.[2][3] His music lies mostly in the minimalist genre of kankyō ongaku, or environment music—soft electronic melodies infused with the sounds of nature: babbling brooks, steady rain, and morning birds.[4] However, not all Yoshimura’s work included nature sounds. His album Green (1986) only contained them in the United States release, as they were excluded in the Japanese version.

🔖 Yves Tanguy

Tanguy’s paintings have a recognizable style of nonrepresentational Surrealism. They show vast, abstract landscapes, mostly in a tightly limited palette of colors, occasionally showing flashes of contrasting color accents. Typically, these landscapes are populated with various abstract shapes, sometimes angular and sharp, sometimes with an organic look to them.

🔖 Announcing Web Serial Support in Firefox

Web Serial is a web API that allows a website to read and write to serial devices using JavaScript. See the MDN documentation for the details. While modern computers don’t typically include serial ports, serial devices connected to a USB port or paired via Bluetooth can advertise themselves as serial-capable devices so they appear as serial ports in the operating system.

The Web Serial API lets developers use the web platform to communicate with these devices. For example, websites can control devices or deliver firmware without requiring native applications or installers.

🔖 Weeds tend not to grow where they can’t take root

Destroying AI must include building counter-structures and nurturing a healthy, thriving social landscape that denies AI projects access to us in the first place. AI solutions like therapy & medical chatbots find space to thrive because of all the gaps in medical care we’ve normalized; we must make these interventions totally inscrutable in a future where care is always available, and people’s needs are not constantly being means-tested and scrutinized.

🔖 YesWeScan

Got an old USB scanner your computer can’t talk to? This web app is for you. Connect your scanner (see above) and get scanning.

🔖 Langfuse

Building AI applications and agents is very different from traditional software. Outputs are probabilistic, and teams need to reason about quality, cost, latency, and the tradeoffs between them. Langfuse Academy explains the AI engineering lifecycle to help you understand how the pieces fit together and what it takes to ship from prototype to production.

🔖 pocket_archive

Pocket Archive is a digital archival system and static site generator for small- to medium-(?) sized archives. It is designed to function in environments with unreliable connectivity and requires very low technical and human resources to set up, run, and use.

🔖 Memory inthe Age of AI Agents

Memory has emerged, and will continue to remain, a core capability of foundation model-based agents. As research on agent memory rapidly expands and attracts unprecedented attention, the field has also become increasingly fragmented. Existing works that fall under the umbrella of agent memory often differ substantially in their motivations, implementations, and evaluation protocols, while the proliferation of loosely defined memory terminologies has further obscured conceptual clarity. Traditional taxonomies such as long/short-term memory have proven insufficient to capture the diversity of contemporary agent memory systems. This work aims to provide an up-to-date landscape of current agent memory research. We begin by clearly delineating the scope of agent memory and distinguishing it from related concepts such as LLM memory, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), and context engineering. We then examine agent memory through the unified lenses of forms, functions, and dynamics. From the perspective of forms, we identify three dominant realizations of agent memory, namely token-level, parametric, and latent memory. From the perspective of functions, we propose a finer-grained taxonomy that distinguishes factual, experiential, and working memory. From the perspective of dynamics, we analyze how memory is formed, evolved, and retrieved over time. To support practical development, we compile a comprehensive summary of memory benchmarks and open-source frameworks. Beyond consolidation, we articulate a forward-looking perspective on emerging research frontiers, including memory automation, reinforcement learning integration, multimodal memory, multi-agent memory, and trustworthiness issues. We hope this survey serves not only as a reference for existing work, but also as a conceptual foundation for rethinking memory as a first-class primitive in the design of future agentic intelligence.

🔖 Is GrepAll You Need? How Agent Harnesses Reshape Agentic Search

This paper reports an empirical study organized into two experiments. Experiment 1 compares grep and vector retrieval on a 116-question sample from LongMemEval, using a custom agent harness (Chronos) and provider-native CLI harnesses (Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini CLI), for both inline tool results and file-based tool results that the model reads separately. Experiment 2 compares grep-only and vector-only retrieval while progressively mixing in additional unrelated conversation history, so that each query is embedded in more distracting material alongside the passages that matter. Across Chronos and the provider CLIs, grep generally yields higher accuracy than vector retrieval in our comparisons in experiment 1; at the same time, overall scores still depend strongly on which harness and tool-calling style is used, even when the underlying conversation data are the same.

🔖 Trevor Paglen and Holly Herndon on Making Art with AI and What theDiscourse Is Missing

Neither Paglen nor Herndon are AI “skeptics”—they both use the various machine-learning technologies discursively bundled up as “AI” throughout their practices—but neither are they full-blown enthusiasts. So how is it changing their sense of what art is, and how we produce it? In the conversation that follows, I posed that question to them. “I think both Trevor’s practice and ours are looking at infrastructure in a really deep way,” Herndon said. “It was important in the early days, when we were beginning to experiment with this stuff, to see artists we had great respect for, like Trevor, working with it as well. It was like, OK, you’re not crazy—this is a really fruitful area to explore.”

🔖 Moving away from Tailwind, and learning to structure my CSS

I spent the last week or so migrating a couple of sites away from Tailwind and towards more semantic HTML + vanilla CSS, and it was SO fun and SO interesting, so here are some things I learned!

🔖 Wendt Center

Since 1975, the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing has helped people in the Washington metropolitan area rebuild a sense of safety and hope after experiencing the death of a loved one, life-threatening illness, violence, or other trauma. Nationally recognized for our expertise in grief, trauma, and mental health, we provide an array of holistic services for children, teens, adults, families, and our local communities.

🔖 OpenWebUI

Open WebUI is an extensible, feature-rich, and user-friendly self-hosted AI platform designed to operate entirely offline. It supports various LLM runners like Ollama and OpenAI-compatible APIs, with built-in inference engine for RAG, making it a powerful AI deployment solution.

🔖 FaultLine

Most AI memory systems trust the LLM to write whatever it extracts. FaultLine doesn’t — every fact passes a validation gate before it touches storage. It’s the only system in the field that treats the model as an untrusted writer by design.

🔖 fastino-ai / GLiNER2

GLiNER2 unifies Named Entity Recognition, Text Classification, Structured Data Extraction, and Relation Extraction into a single 205M parameter model. It provides efficient CPU-based inference without requiring complex pipelines or external API dependencies

https://inkdroid.org/2026/05/24/bookmarks/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-24, updated: 2026-05-27)

Early version of textcasting howto. I like this one, more casual.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221216000607/http://textcasting.org/

Phil Collins Says He Does “Contemplate” Performing Live Again: “I Can’t Really See It Happening, But I’m Healthier Now Than I Had Been For Quite A While”

(date: 2026-05-24)

In a recent interview, legendary rock singer and drummer Phil Collins says he hasn’t completely ruled out recording new music, or even touring. The erstwhile Genesis frontman told BBC Breakfast‘s Charlotte Gallagher that he “can’t really see it [performing live] happening, but I’m healthier now than I had been for quite a while.” Collins has been […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/phil-collins-health-update-performing-live-again-1236920126/

Sherri Shepherd Bids “Bittersweet” Farewell Following Talk Show Conclusion: “Here Is To New Beginnings”

(date: 2026-05-24)

Sherri Shepherd is bidding a “bittersweet” goodbye to her namesake syndicated talk show, which concluded its four-season run on Thursday. “Family!!!! Thank you so much for all of the love and support over these last 4 years. It was a bittersweet end to a life I got to know so well. But here is to […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sherri-shepherd-1236920103/

It's Not Done

(date: 2026-05-24)

Today the Arsenal, the 180-year-old British football club won the Premier League after 22 years. The lesson I took away from it was that it's never ever done.

https://dansinker.com/posts/2026-05-24-arsenal/

Suspect Dead After Gunfire Exchange With Secret Service Near White House; Journalists Go Into Lockdown — Update

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-24)

UPDATED: The White House lawn and presidential residence itself was locked down after dozens of apparent gunshots rang out near the area, as reported by multiple publications and captured in video footage. The incident occurred around 6 p.m. ET. The Secret Service said that an individual approached a checkpoint at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/white-house-lockdown-gunshots-fired-1236920091/

In Memorium

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

Of Indie Rock and Other Things

https://dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/in-memorium

‘Fjord’ Palme D’Or Winner Cristian Mungiu Encourages Dialogue In Divided World: “Don’t Rush To Judge The Other”

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-24)

Is Palme D’Or winner Christian Mungiu concerned that Fjord will incite outrage, even violence, from extremist political sides? In its deconstruction of society and the prejudice that immigrants face, Fjord per critics could conceivably rub both liberals and conservatives the wrong way. Based on the experiences of a real-life Romanian family, Sebastian Stan and Renate […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-fjord-cristian-mungiu-1236920031/

Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 Winners — Full List

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-24)

Crunchyroll celebrated the 10th edition of its Anime Awards on Saturday in Tokyo, honoring this year’s winners, who were chosen from 73 million votes globally. Hosted by hosted by Sally Amaki and Jon Kabira, the 10th Crunchyroll Anime Awards selected the final season of My Hero Academia for Anime of the Year, which was presented […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/crunchyroll-anime-awards-2026-winners-list-1236920076/

Florence Pugh Starrer ‘The Midnight Library’ Heading For Cannes Market’s Biggest Deal With Multiple Studios Chasing

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-24)

EXCLUSIVE: Florence Pugh fantasy drama The Midnight Library, which will be directed by Lion filmmaker Garth Davis, is being chased by multiple studios in what will likely be the biggest deal out of this year’s Cannes market. We understand Paramount, Focus and Sony are in the mix for domestic and select international markets on the circa $70M movie, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/florence-pugh-midnight-library-studios-in-talks-cannes-1236919776/

The Jury Has Spoken, American Films Shut Out, But What Does It All Mean For Oscars? – Cannes Film Festival

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-24)

With the exception of a shared Best Director win (with La Bola Negra) for Fatherland, as well as a Best Actress win for the two stars of All Of A Sudden, the jury of the 79th Cannes Film Festival decided that there was not much to reward in the fest’s first six days. Instead, the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-film-festival-palme-dor-fjord-oscars-1236919999/

Donald Trump Says Peace Agreement “Largely Negotiated” To End War In Iran

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-24)

Donald Trump said that a peace agreement with Iran has been “largely negotiated” to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The president’s announcement on Saturday lacked details, and he wrote on Truth Social that it is “subject to finalization” between “the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/trump-iran-war-peace-agreement-1236920040/

‘SNL’ Alums Pete Davidson, John Mulaney Reveal How They Used To Placate Hosts After Bad Monologues: “They’d Tank 8 Times Out Of 10”

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-24)

Saturday Night Live alums Pete Davidson and John Mulaney did a bit of acting themselves while interfacing with the big names hosting the late-nighter week to week, revealing during a recent panel conversation how they would placate celebrities that bombed their opening monologues. During the Netflix Is A Joke Festival, Mulaney reflected on his time […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/snl-pete-davidson-john-mulaney-bad-host-monologues-bombing-1236920029/

Using Nagios for small business infrastructure monitoring

(date: 2026-05-23)

There are a million tools out there for monitoring services and measuring application performance, and I’m sure many of them are awesome. When I went looking for a good service and infrastructure monitoring solution for our community newspaper’s one-person IT department (me), I came back to an open source tool that I’d probably first started … Continue reading Using Nagios for small business infrastructure monitoring

The post Using Nagios for small business infrastructure monitoring appeared first on Chris Hardie's Tech and Software Blog.

https://tech.chrishardie.com/2026/nagios-small-business-infrastructure-monitoring/

Sex Counseling My Grandmother

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

I gave her the best advice I could

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/my-grandmother-minnies-date

Saturday session in London.

(date: 2026-05-23)

Saturday session in London.

https://adactio.com/notes/22580

Likes Pixabots

(date: 2026-05-23)

I like pixabot a tiny pixel character creator. Not sure where I saw this, there is a live editor at Pixabots — Pixel Character Avatars which is fun. Could be useful in class I think. Perhaps in Scratch when an uploaded gif is turned into a sprite with a costume for each frame.

https://johnjohnston.info/blog/likes-pixabots/

Wochenende

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-26)

That's weekend, auf Deutsch. As happened yesterday, something I wrote here in Wordland got too long, so I made it a separate post, titled So maybe it’s not too late to teach it to myself. German, that is. I still have the book I failed to versteh in 1962, so why not? And all of them need […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/23/maybe-its-not-too-late-to-teach-it-to-myself/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

I just tried the latest version of the X editor. It's got all the features of textcasting. I wrote a test post entitled "X has nuked the limits, time for Bluesky to follow suit." I think you can tell I had fun writing it. They don't think anyone hears me, but I think they're wrong about that. The idea that they are part of the web is ludicrous. They're going to get called on it eventually. They should fix it so they are part of the web. Then we can all create. Or if you're not going to be part of the web, for crying out loud stop saying that you do.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/23.html#a170620

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

One of the benefits of using Claude for all my coding is I'm now finding out what various things I do as standard practice are called in the outside world. Today I learned what agile is. I of course have heard it used, and even got to know the guy who coined the term.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/23.html#a161732

Trump's Gush of Slush | The Coffee Klatch for Saturday, May 23, 2026. A bit late this morning!

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

With Michael Lahanas Calderón and yours truly, Robert Reich

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-gush-of-slush-the-coffee-klatch

Yes, This Was A Very Bad Week For Trump And The Republicans

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

Let's keep working for Johnny Garcia in TX-35 this weekend.......

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/yes-this-was-a-very-bad-week-for

Iron And Fire

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-26)

Today, enjoy our audio and video picks

https://thebrowser.com/free/iron-and-fire/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

I archived prior art as a design method from 2003 on this.how.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/23.html#a145235

It's really simple

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

My recommendation for Automattic and Bluesky.

Bluesky supports RSS 2.0 inbound and outbound.
Bluesky eliminates its character limit, allows bold, italic styles. Links. Optional titles. Users can edit their posts. More here.

Automattic already fully supports RSS 2.0 in both directions, in all their products.

This gives us the most interop with the most respect for prior art. No need to reinvent. There's nothing special about Bluesky, they can use what we've all been using for 20+ years.

It's really very simple, let's hook everything together and let the users and developers create.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/23/135604.html?title=itsReallySimple

A large set of stable kernel updates

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

The 7.0.10,6.18.33,6.12.91,6.6.141,6.1.174,5.15.208, and5.10.257 stable kernel updates have all been released. The first four are huge (the 7.0.10
review version had 1,146 commits) while 6.1.174, 5.15.208, and 5.10.257 are small updates for the "Fragnesia" vulnerability.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074117/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

There probably is a name for this development practice. Only works on a team with more two developers. At some point in a project after you've been working on Level N in the stack, you may decide you've done all you can there, and it's time for someone else to work at that level. The new person, Smith, is a maintainer, develops in small increments, fixes bugs and most important takes feature requests from the other developer, Jones, who is now creating Level N + 1. Jones is a good person to do this because they know everything about the capabilities of the lower level. But now they're going to pretend they've forgotten all that, and is looking at a whole new machine, created out of the new capabilities of Level N. That's how you build any complex layered piece of software. And because this is the method used in boostraps, you can build level N+1 using tools written in N.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/23.html#a133339

Mubi Acquires Lukas Dhont’s ‘Coward’ For North America – Cannes

(date: 2026-05-23)

Mubi has taken North American rights to Lukas Dhont’s Coward for North America. The pic world premiered in competition at Cannes earlier this week to a 13-minute standing ovation. Release plans will be announced down the road. The queer romantic drama follows Pierre, a soldier newly arrived at the front who is eager to prove himself. Behind […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/mubi-lukas-dhont-coward-cannes-1236919736/

Director Mark Cousins Brings Epic 16-Chapter Story Of Nonfiction Cinema To Cannes, Says “Documentary Kills Fascism”

(date: 2026-05-23)

Sundance, Berlin, Cannes – the world’s most important film festivals are embracing the latest work from award-winning filmmaker Mark Cousins: his 16-chapter The Story of Documentary Film. At Sundance, Cousins premiered chapter 1 of the series; the Berlinale premiered chapters 2-4 (as well as screening chapter 1). In Cannes, the Northern Irish Scottish director unveiled […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/mark-cousins-cannes-interview-the-story-of-documentary-film-1236919719/

French Entertainment Trade Union Files Law Suit Against Canal+ Over Threat To Boycott Signatories Of Anti-Bolloré Letter

(date: 2026-05-23)

CGT-Spectacle, the biggest trade union representing workers in the entertainment and culture sectors in France, announced on Saturday that it is filing a lawsuit against pay-TV giant Canal+ over a threat to boycott signatories of an anti-Bolloré letter. “In a responsible manner and in accordance with the democratic values we share… we have asked Mr. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/french-union-law-suit-canal-plus-boycott-threat-letter-1236919693/

Netflix Closing In On Cannes Competition Buzz Title ‘La Bola Negra’ For The U.S. After Buyer Chase

(date: 2026-05-23)

Cannes Palme d’Or front runner La Bola Negra looks set to be acquired for the U.S. in a record-breaking domestic deal for a non-English-language title in the $4-5 million-range. We hear the deal being brokered by Goodfellas and CAA Media Finance comes with a multi-week theatrical obligation and plans for an awards campaign, with the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/bola-negra-sells-x-cannes-competition-penelope-cruz-1236919351/

Discussing the Wage Standard with Arin Dube

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

Including minimum wages, pandemic social insurance, inflation, the low vibes, and AI.

https://newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/discussing-the-wage-standard-with

Lunch Money with Paul Krugman and Heather Cox Richardson

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

A recording from Paul Krugman and Heather Cox Richardson's live video

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/lunch-money-with-paul-krugman-and-408

Lit Hub Weekly: May 18 – 22, 2026

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-22)

“I never imagined reading books and turning them into movies was a job.” It is, and if you can read a book every two days (and write a book report about it), it could be yours… | Lit Hub Film

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-weekly-may-18-22-2026/

The slow-motion humiliation of RFK Jr

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

HHS is in chaos and the MAHA movement looks like a spent force.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/kennedy-hhs-out

Londoning

(date: 2026-05-23)

Londoning

https://adactio.com/notes/22579

Breaking Baz @ Cannes: How The Filmmaking Esiri Brothers & Sophie Okonedo Put ‘Clarissa’ In The Spotlight

(date: 2026-05-23)

When twin brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri decided to adapt Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway and give it the title of Clarissa, her Christian name, they say they were “freeing her” from being someone’s property, someone’s wife. It’s as if the character has been freed from the shackles and allowed to be herself. “That’s the idea, for her […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/how-esiri-brothers-sophie-okonedo-put-clarissa-spotlight-1236919630/

Weeknotes: May 16-22, 2026

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-26)

Win of the week: I’ve been behind on some correspondence, and although I broadly agree with the sentiment here, I am glad to have returned a couple emails I owed internet friends! Looking forward to: long weekend 🙌 Stuff I did: 14 hours consulting 1 hour business development / contracting — replied to inquiry and updated […]

https://tracydurnell.com/2026/05/22/weeknotes-may-16-22-2026/

May 22, 2026

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

On May 22, 1964, in a graduation speech at the University of Michigan, President Lyndon Johnson put a name to a new vision for the United States.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-22-2026

CBS News Radio Ends With An Edward R. Murrow Sign Off: “Good Night, And Good Luck”

(date: 2026-05-23)

CBS News Radio shuttered on Friday after nearly a century of broadcasting, with its final newscast coming to close with the voice of Edward R. Murrow and his famous sign off, “Good night, and good luck.” Then came the final words around 11:31 p.m. ET, “CBS News special report. I’m Christopher Cruz.” The network announced […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cbs-news-radio-shuts-down-edward-r-murrow-1236919656/

Citizens United — How We Got Here, and How States Are Fighting Back

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-27)

A Growing Movement.

https://danismart.substack.com/p/citizens-united-how-we-got-here-and

Grizz Chapman Dies: ’30 Rock’ Actor Was 52

(date: 2026-05-23)

Grizzwald ‘Grizz’ Chapman, the fan-favorite 30 Rock star who played Grizz on the NBC sitcom for its seven-season run, has died. He was 52. The actor’s longtime rep Saideh A. Brown told TMZ that Chapman died on Friday. Other details, including a cause of death, were not immediately made available. Born April 16, 1974 in […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/grizz-chapman-dies-52-1236919643/

Dermot Mulroney Teases ‘The Hunting Wives’ Season 2 Has Wrapped, Season 3 In Prep

(date: 2026-05-23)

Hunting season is upon us as a new season of Netflix’s hit sapphic murder mystery is in the can, with another on deck. The Hunting Wives star Dermot Mulroney, who plays Jed Banks in the Rebecca Cutter-created series, recently revealed that the cast and crew has “completed Season 2” production on the show based on […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/dermot-mulroney-hunting-wives-season-2-wrap-season-3-prep-1236919629/

Zendaya Recalls Juggling ‘Euphoria’, ‘The Odyssey’ & ‘Dune: Part Three’ Filming: “I Was So Tired”

(date: 2026-05-23)

It’s a big year for Zendaya, with four movies and a long-anticipated third season of her hit show. The Golden Globe winner recently recalled juggling production on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three and the third season of HBO’s Euphoria. “I remember being on set for Euphoria; it was a night shoot […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/zendaya-juggling-euphoria-odyssey-dune-filming-1236919622/

‘The Boroughs’ Creators Will Matthews And Jeffrey Addiss Unpack Finale & How They Wanted To “Crack The Door” For Future Seasons

(date: 2026-05-23)

SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils the entirety of the first season of The Boroughs now on Netflix. The tight-knit group of neighbors in the eponymous retirement community where The Boroughs takes place have mostly survived the show’s first season, but not completely unscathed. Created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (The Dark Crystal: Age of […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/the-boroughs-ending-explained-by-creators-cliffhanger-1236918368/

Talk for Stanford's EE 292J

(date: 2026-05-23, updated: 2026-05-26)

Via John Markoff, I was invited to a conversation with Jonathan Dotan and the students of his EE292J course entitled Designing for Authenticity. Below the fold are my brief introductory remarks, and some notes for the discussion.

Thank you for inviting a relic from earlier days in the Valley. As with all my talks, the text of this brief introduction will go up at blog.dshr.org later this afternoon.

Sun GX version 1 It is just over 60 years since I wrote my first program, and just under 50 years since I started using Unix. I was part of the Andrew team at Carnegie-Mellon, then an early employee at Sun Microsystems. At Sun I was the operating system guy for Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky's team that built Sun's GX graphics chip. The GX was a big success but making it so was an extremely frustrating experience.

When Curtis and Chris quit Sun and started hanging out in the now legendary Denny's with Jen-Hsun Huang, I also quit to become Nvidia's employee #4.

Curtis and I designed UDA (Unified Device Architecture), the way programs talk to Nvidia's chips. More than 30 years later, that is still the way they do it - the best engineering of my career. After 3 years, in the throes of Nvidia's first near-death experience, I had a big argument with Curtis and quit. It turned out that he was right and I was wrong. I immediately did another startup that also IPO-ed and ended up extremely burnt out.

My wife was part of the team at Stanford Library's HighWire Press that pioneered the transition of academic publishing from paper to the Web in 1995. One effect of the transition was that preservation of the academic record went from a side-effect of distribution to being at the whim of the publishers, which made librarians uneasy.

Our idea for fixing this was for libraries to crawl the journals to which they subscribed and keep a copy, as they did on paper. One problem was that the oligopoly publishers had consumed almost all of the libraries' budget. Whatever we did had to be very cheap, and thus not reliable. My idea for making the system reliable was a permissionless, peer-to-peer system in which libraries audited their copies and used inter-library copy to repair damage.

This was the LOCKSS system, for Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe. In some ways it was a success; nearly 28 years later it is still going. In other ways it was a failure; it is now mostly a centralized system controlled by the publishers. The lesson we learn from this is that decentralization is extremely hard because it is an economic not a technical problem.

Twelve years ago in Economies of Scale in Peer-to-Peer Networks I explained the problem. The TL;DR is that the advantages of P2P networks arise from a diverse network of small, roughly equal resource contributors. Economies of scale mean the cost of participating will scale less than linearly. Unless the reward for participating decreases with scale faster than the cost the profit (reward minus cost) will increase with scale, and economics will drive centralization. No-one has found a way to make the reward decrease with scale, let alone faster than the costs.

Decentralized systems necessarily incur coordination costs that centralized systems don't. Here is an example from the BBC of coordination costs from 750 years ago:

Merton College Library At Merton College in Oxford, there is an antique chest. In the Middle Ages, three key-holders had to be summoned to reveal the riches within. But this treasure wasn't gold or jewels. It was books. ... Merton College insisted its 13th-Century fellows donated books. The Archbishop of Canterbury issued a decree in 1276 introducing this requirement, which marked the beginning of the library at Merton College.

The requirement for three keys is like the requirement for a majority in Byzantine Fault Tolerance or Ethereum. But:

Just a few years after the Archbishop's decree, several books were stored outside the chest for the first time. They were chained to a table in the college, making them available at any time.

It is possible to make decentralized, permissionless systems as, or even more, reliable than centralized systems that use Byzantine Fault Tolerance. But doing so requires much higher levels of replication, and thus cost, and a large performance penalty. Thus in practice permissionless systems will either centralize, or be out-competed by centralized, peermissioned alternatives.

In effect both of these are what happened to LOCKSS:

Although the software was free open source, to get cash-strapped libraries to pay for support LOCKSS had to paywall the per-journal configuration files. Thus the system was in practice permissioned.
The oligopoly publishers both funded a permissioned version of it, and also supported a cheaper centralized alternative. Both out-competed the somewhat permissionless version of LOCKSS.

Now you have this background, lets have a discussion.

Thoughts that didn't fit

Why did the printed paper system work better?

Write-once, durable medium
Capex for replication high, per-replica opex low
Distribution forced dispersion of replicas
Preservation is a side effect of access
Inter-library loan & copy is a federated, not a decentralized system
Joining the federation is expensive, low churn rate

Are blockchains useful?

Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta patented blockchains in 1991

They are a Merkle tree with only one branch, a great and useful idea

Haber & Stornetta's company Surety time-stamps documents by publishing the hash of the head of the chain of document hashes weekly in the New York Times classified ads. This is a centralized blockchain, and the root of trust is the New York Times and write-once, durable, dispersed media

But the crypto-bros didn't want to trust anyone, let alone the New York Times. Does the seductive idea of combining the concepts of a blockchain and decentralization deliver trustlessness?

Source The title of the DARPA-sponsored report from the Trail of Bits cybersecurity company conforms to Betteridge's Law of Headlines because the answer to Are Blockchains Decentralized? is "No". We now have almost 18 years of experience on which to base this conclusion. One of the most important reasons is software monoculture.

The intensity of the crypto-bros' gaslighting about the virtues of decentralization is made necessary by the fact that among the 7 cryptocurrencies with market cap above $50B, only 3 even claim to be decentralized and they aren't really. The crypto-bros want people to assume that cryptocurrencies have the theoretical advantages of decentralization, while insiders can exploit the absence of these advantages.

Links from the discussion

Jonathan and the students asked good questions. Here are some links to topics that came up:

The coming AI bust. Asad Ramzanali's After the AI Crash, Ed Zitron's The Subprime AI Crisis Is Here, Ed Zitron's AI's Economics Don't Make Sense, Will Lockett's AI Is Too Expensive To Replace Us
Slow AI: It Isn't About The Technology.
The decay of academic communication. 2011's What's Wrong With Research Communication, 2014's Journals Considered Harmful, 2015's Stretching the "peer reviewed" brand until it snaps, 2020's Breaking: Peer Review Is Broken!.
Quantum computing. Dormant Digital Assets.
Sustainability. Funding Open Source?, Supporting Open Source Software

https://blog.dshr.org/2026/05/talk-jonathan-dotans-class.html

Our docs are shit and we're bad at teaching

(date: 2026-05-23)

The average quality of documentation available for most tech is abysmal. It's often incomplete, poorly-organised (which is to say that it's organised in ways that don't correspond to how it's likely to be used), leaves out vital information or is just plain unreadable. Even much of the documentation that makes sense in hindsight is often more or less incomprehensible in foresight until you see an example, and step-by-step examples are often absent from the official docs.

https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/docs-shit-bad-at-teaching

‘Stranger Things’ Duffer Brothers & Shawn Levy Donate Eleven’s Pink Dress To The Smithsonian

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-23)

Stranger Things has marked a lot of firsts for Netflix: it became the first original series to become a global hit and cultural phenomenon, the first series owned by the streamer and the first title Netflix has been able to turn into a licensing bonanza with a slew of consumer product deals. Now the supernatural […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/stranger-things-eleven-pink-dress-donated-the-smithsonian-1236919522/

‘Is God Is’ Writer/Director Doesn’t Want To Be Seen As “Poor Man’s Tarantino”

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-23)

As Aleshea Harris makes her feature directorial debut, she’s establishing her own cinematic style, which pulls from many influences. The Is God Is writer/director recently noted that despite several comparisons to Quentin Tarantino, she’s trying to do “my own thing” with the Southern Gothic revenge thriller, now playing in theaters. “I don’t want to be like […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/is-god-is-director-not-poor-mans-tarantino-1236919545/

@DAIR blog

(date: 2026-05-22)

We are so excited about this resource created with @weandai.bsky.social and the Refugee Law Lab. Check it out and submit a resource you're excited about via airesistlist.org#join

[contains quote post or other embedded content]

https://bsky.app/profile/dairinstitute.bsky.social/post/3mmhvn22hvk2e

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

World Cup Fans Are Saying No to $98 Train Rides.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/nyregion/world-cup-transportation-tickets-nyc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kVA.BETW.wDYcECuXdRnx&smid=url-share

I appreciate blogs and RSS

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-24)

I use River5 to read feeds (see here). When I read feeds on my phone, I open tabs with posts I want to read/keep. At this writing, the number of tabs is 81. Why is the number so high? Because I read a lot of feeds, and these feeds are from blogs, not news websites. […]

https://andysylvester.com/2026/05/22/i-appreciate-blogs-and-rss/

Getting Real

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

In my Oofday post, I shared a post in Hackernoon titled We Treated Potholes Like Software Bugs and Accidentally Built a Civic Hacking Playbook. The story is about a civic hack in Sofia. Everything in the piece is excellent. The writing is vivid and clear. Its case is well-made. My only problem with it was […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/22/getting-real-3/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-22:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 60 updated places.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/un-futuro-brillante-el-silencioso-horror-de-la-normalidad/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=un-futuro-brillante-el-silencioso-horror-de-la-normalidad

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

"main" branch:

2787b86d - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

869a34ea - updated gis package

bb3f318c - updated data quality

5f2356fc - updated bibliography

0b55ab3f - updated indexes

867293f0 - updated sidebar

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

2c5df7bb - updated geojson and names index

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

da1cd7a6 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116620261968553505

Friday Squid Blogging: Regulating Squid Fishing in the South Pacific

(date: 2026-05-22)

The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) needs to regulate squid fishing in the South Pacific.

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.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/friday-squid-blogging-regulating-squid-fishing-in-the-south-pacific.html

★ The Fonts of the U.S. Federal Courts

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-25)

The Supreme Court’s typographic style has been stunningly consistent for — no pun intended — well over a century.

https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/the_fonts_of_the_us_federal_courts

Apple Asks Supreme Court to Review Epic Ruling

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

Marcus Mendes: Apple today filed a request with the Supreme Court in an attempt to reverse key lower court rulings over the App Store injunction in its long-running legal battle with Epic Games. […] In its petition, Apple is asking the Supreme Court to review two questions. The first is whether Apple should have been […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/22/apple-asks-supreme-court-to-review-epic-ruling/

Stats Visualization in Apple Sports

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

John Gruber: I’ve got some gripes about certain specific aspects of Apple Sports. Like, where does one even start to explain how much is wrong with their zero-sum visualization of team stats? Has anyone ever even seen a presentation like that before? It has to be seen to be believed. What on earth were they […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/22/stats-visualization-in-apple-sports/

Cleve Moler, RIP

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

MathWorks (Hacker News, Reddit): Cleve was chief mathematician and cofounder of MathWorks and the author of the first version of MATLAB. In his early years, he was a professor of math and computer science for almost 20 years at the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of New Mexico. During this time he […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/22/cleve-moler-rip/

News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

On Thursday, three of the lead Raspberry Pi engineers hosted an AMA on the r/engineering subreddit.

Raspberry Pi Reddit AMA with Eben Upton, Gordon Hollingworth, and James Adams

Raspberry Pi 6

One of the most interesting tidbits was on the Pi 6.

Looking back at previous launches:

2012: Raspberry Pi
2015: Raspberry Pi 2 (+3 years)
2016: Raspberry Pi 3 (+1 year)
2019: Raspberry Pi 4 (+3 years)
2023: Raspberry Pi 5 (+4 years)

Following that cycle, one would expect a Pi 6 3-4 years after the Pi 5, which would put it in 2026 or 2027.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/news-about-raspberry-pi-6-and-microcontroller-development/

Desperate Rs Are Now Intervening In Our House Primaries - A Conversation With The DCCC's Will Van Nuys

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Making an emergency weekend call for funds for Johnny Garcia running against a virulent antisemite in TX-35. The election is Tuesday.

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/desperate-rs-are-now-intervening

Backlash grows over DOJ slush fund. Trump's $1 billion ballroom funding falters. More Trump critics lose primaries.

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Backlash Against Trump’s $1.776 “Anti-Weaponization” Slush Fund Grows

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/may-22-weekly-news-roundup

You Won't Believe Who CBS Is Replacing Colbert With

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

It's a LONG way down from Stephen Colbert to his replacement

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-comedy-comedown

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Mark Cuban Reveals Why He Sold Most of His Bitcoin.

https://gizmodo.com/lost-the-plot-mark-cuban-reveals-why-he-sold-most-of-his-bitcoin-2000762634

A Whiff of Stagflation

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Consumer confidence hits a new low — but that's not the number that should worry you

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-whiff-of-stagflation-150

The Post-Trump Era Is Beginning.

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Four ways of thinking about what comes next.

https://fallows.substack.com/p/the-post-trump-era-is-beginning

Problems with Canada’s Bill C-22

(date: 2026-05-22)

Introduction Bill C-22, also known as the Lawful Access Act, aims to modernize Canada’s legal framework for law enforcement to investigate digital crimes, including provisions for accessing data and metadata. This bill is currently in the works and could become law soon. It is causing a lot of concerns around government overreach and worries about […]

https://smist08.wordpress.com/2026/05/22/problems-with-canadas-bill-c-22/

Oofday

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

This one is too good at them I just wasted an hour of writing and research by hitting the wrong chord on my keyboard here, after neglecting to save my work in progress. You can't teach an old dog old mistakes. Uh oh Some bad shit is going down in Garden Grove. The other two don't […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/22/oofday/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

BTW, I don't think the web was created to make people rich.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22.html#a164304

The Business of War and the Mismeasurement of Military Might

(date: 2026-05-22)

The US military is the most expensive armed force on the planet. But what exactly does this spending buy?

The post The Business of War and the Mismeasurement of Military Might appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2026/05/22/the-business-of-war-and-the-mismeasurement-of-military-might/

The Untold Stories Behind Apple’s First 50 Years with David Pogue

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

We’re revisiting another past conversation with David Pogue—and it feels even more relevant today.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/the-untold-stories-behind-apples

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Another way to look at Claude Code. It's a way to talk to your code, to ask it questions, and tell it how you want it to change.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22.html#a160029

Un futuro brillante: el silencioso horror de la normalidad

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

Dirección: Lucía Garibaldi. Guion: Lucía Garibaldi y Federico Alvarado. Elenco: Martina Passeggi, Alfonso Tort, Sofía Gala Castiglione, Soledad Pelayo. Países: Uruguay, Argentina, Alemania. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36591330/ “Lo único que siempre quise es tratar de no ser común” es una frase que atraviesa Un futuro brillante como una especie de plegaria íntima. Trastoca, […]

La entrada Un futuro brillante: el silencioso horror de la normalidad se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

At the Royal College of Music Museum, where the new exhibit features thesession.org!

(date: 2026-05-22)

At the Royal College of Music Museum, where the new exhibit features thesession.org!

https://adactio.com/notes/22578

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

I think maybe it's time to consider a reboot of WordPress. I can't seem to seed them with any ideas about building on it from the point of view of the web. It's a product unto itself, it has plugins, but I'm not a plug-in sort of guy. I write operating systems. That's what drives me. I see a great place to put an OS with WordPress as the storage and publishing component, and everything else grows up around it. It's one of those famous coral reefs but it hasn't been born yet. The idea would not be to compete with WordPress, it's to make something that fits into our view of the world, that just happens to be the same codebase. And when on the other side they think they have to do it themselves we reach out and say here, just take this over, it's yours. It's so hard to penetrate the awareness inside old organizations with new ideas. I think it's the manifest destiny of WordPress, that what they have now is a nice revenue generating machine, but it's not serving as the web's writing base, which is what imho it was supposed to be. (And I have a bit of standing there, btw.)

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22.html#a153242

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

I have news for you -- Claude forgets important stuff. I catch it forgetting to do things it was "programmed" to do. It's not a computer, it's not garbage in garbage out. It could be good stuff in garbage out. As I've said before there's a big chunk of the app I'm working on where I don't read code. User interface stuff only. No control of what comes in our out. Trying to not take any chances here.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22.html#a152841

Amy Wallace And Hockey

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/amy-wallace-and-hockey/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

This is a multi-billion dollar idea. I want to link to "report-up" concept in something I'm writing. There is no Wikipedia page for that but there is a brief explainer in Google, via their AI. Here's the feature: add a permalink to that response. I'm lazy and will link to it in my writing.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22.html#a145147

[$] Custom page-cache policies with BPF

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

The kernel's page cache is charged with maintaining pages (or, more correctly, folios) containing copies of data from files in the filesystem; its performance has a big effect on the performance of the system as a whole. One of the key decisions the kernel must make is when to evict folios from the page cache. At the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Tal Zussman ran a memory-management-track session on how the page cache could be better customized for specific workloads. It will not be much of a spoiler to say that it involves BPF.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073103/

Our Corrupt And Failed Leader Is Losing His Control Over Congress, Kagan On Trump Surrendering To Iran, The DNC's Report

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Republicans are coming to realize Trump is doing more to defeat them than to help them win

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/our-corrupt-and-failed-leader-is

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Does it ever cross anyone's mind that according to the rules of war, Iran would be totally justified in attacking the United States?

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22.html#a141705

Affordances for me, but not for thee

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

For years, people have tried hard to get websites to build accessibility affordances. Now developers are willingly building them for AI.

https://werd.io/affordances-for-me-but-not-for-thee/

CISA Security Leak

(date: 2026-05-22)

Crazy story:

Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository that exposed credentials to several highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and a large number of internal CISA systems. Security experts said the public archive included files detailing how CISA builds, tests and deploys software internally, and that it represents one of the most egregious government data leaks in recent history.

News article.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/cisa-security-leak.html

[$] Toward better handling of major page faults

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

A major page fault occurs when a process attempts to access a page that is not currently present in RAM; satisfying such faults usually involves I/O, and can thus take some time. When many threads sharing an address space are generating page faults, the result can be significant lock contention while that I/O takes place. During the memory-management track at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Barry Song led a session to try, yet again, to find an enduring solution to this problem.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073071/

This one weird trick might cost your retirement fund billions

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

You should scream to your congresspeople

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/this-one-weird-trick-might-cost-your

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Vibe-coded software will have a place where users can communicate what they want to developers who can help make it real. The same way you might get medical info from an AI, but would still get your colonoscopy from an actual doctor. Part of the origin story of podcasting is that Adam hacked up a version of Frontier to illustrate what he had in mind for the "last yard" protocol. When I looked at the code it was horrible, hard to believe someone thought of doing it that way. But it got the point across, and that's the moment the podcasting boostrap began. I love using the AIs to tell a visual story, a skill I never had or developed. No reason it can't work the same way for software.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22.html#a132615

amfAR 32nd Cannes Gala Turns Up The Music With $20M Raised & Last Minute-Addition Lizzo

(date: 2026-05-22)

Seventy-five degree warm weather and Lizzo were saving graces at the 32nd amfAR gala by the Hotel Du Cap Eden Roc ocean in a luxe-auction that racked up a massive $20M, +18% from last year for the AIDS research org. Seriously though, had amfAR been held earlier in the week, form figure wearing fashion models […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-amfar-lizzo-rami-malek-robbie-williams-1236918770/

Security updates for Friday

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (firefox), Debian (chromium, nss, openvpn, and thunderbird), Fedora (cockpit, kernel, and linux-firmware), Oracle (gdk-pixbuf2, kernel, and libsndfile), SUSE (container-suseconnect, cpp-httplib, dnsmasq, firefox, glibc, GraphicsMagick, java-1_8_0-openj9, kernel, mozjs115, php8, python-urllib3, rekor, rootlesskit, rsync, tiff, ucode-intel, util-linux, and xz), and Ubuntu (bind9, bubblewrap, libarchive, linux-intel-iot-realtime, postgresql-14, postgresql-16, postgresql-17, postgresql-18, and xdg-desktop-portal).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1074040/

Finding the Microsoft video

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

In yesterday's podcast I mentioned a Microsoft promotional video from the 90s. JY Stervinou on Twitter asked if he had found it, and it was close but it was the video I was talking about. So I checked in with Claude with this prompt.

there was a microsoft promotional video in the 90s featuring bill gates and steve ballmer riding up front in a car, it's a ripoff of a volkswagon commercial, the music is catchy song Da Da Da. they drive around and then see a Sun Microsystems computer, they pick it up but it smells bad (apparently) and they drop it off in someone's garbage. i can't find the video on the web, can you?

It found a low rez version of the video on YouTube, with a comment.

It's a spoof of the 1997 Volkswagen Golf commercial, with Ballmer and Gates driving a Golf, picking up a Sun workstation and later rejecting it. The "Da Da Da" track is by the German band Trio. One source describes the dropped computer as an old IBM rather than Sun, so accounts differ on that detail, but the Know Your Meme listing specifically says Sun workstation, matching what you remember.

Here's the low-rez video at 1/4 size.

The computer in the video I saw was definitely a Sun workstation. It wouldn't make much sense for it to be an IBM in 1997, Microsoft had already passed over IBM, they were in the middle of the Java Wars with Sun, and there even is a Sun response to the Microsoft video with two actors playing Gates and Ballmer, and in the end Sun CEO Scott McNealy shows up, after (it turns out) Gates smells and the Sun terminal is still in the back seat and users and developers are still nowhere in sight.

I imagine there are a few old time Microsoft people still following this blog, if anyone has a decent resolution version of the Da Da Da video, I'd love to get a good version on the web of 2026.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/22/130714.html?title=findingTheMicrosoftVideo

GLAAD, HRC, PFLAG Among 40+ Orgs Denouncing FCC’s Attempt To Require “Warning Label” On LGBTQ Programming

(date: 2026-05-22)

With the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) going after LGBTQ programming in Brendan Carr’s latest crackdown on media, community leaders are showing strength in numbers. On Friday, more than 40 organizations filed comment with the FCC in opposition of Carr’s proposed TV rating system that would require a “warning label” on programming with LGBTQ characters, stories […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/glaad-hrc-pflag-denouncing-fcc-warning-label-lgbtq-1236918628/

Maria Martínez Bayona On Landing An A-List Cast Including Rebecca Hall For Her Existential First Feature ‘The End Of It’ — Cannes Studio

(date: 2026-05-22)

In her first feature, the London-based Spanish filmmaker Maria Martínez Bayona has assembled an impressive collection of international, well-known actors. Rebecca Hall, Gael Garcia Bernal, Noomi Rapace, and Beanie Feldstein all star in The End Of It, which follows Claire, a performance artist who, thanks to advancements in medicine, has reached the age of 250. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/maria-martinez-bayona-rebecca-hall-the-end-of-it-cannes-1236918833/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

The (Josh) Hart and soul of the New York Knicks.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7299717/2026/05/22/knicks-win-cavs-josh-hart/?source=emp_shared_article&unlocked_article_code=1.kVA._-g5.CfSRO0ai_9gw

Donald Trump Celebrates Stephen Colbert’s Last ‘Late Show’ On CBS: “Thank Goodness He’s Finally Gone!”

(date: 2026-05-22)

About an hour after Stephen Colbert signed off on his final Late Show on CBS, Donald Trump posted a note of celebration. At 1:52 a.m. ET on Friday, the president posted on Truth Social, “Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/trump-stephen-colbert-cbs-paramount-1236918826/

Cannes Hit ‘La Bola Negra’ Posts First Clip As Elástica Films Sets October 2026 Release In Spain

(date: 2026-05-22)

EXCLUSIVE: Spanish distributor Elástica Films has set an October 2026 release for Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s Cannes smash La Bola Negra and unveiled a first clip. News of the release date comes just hours after the film’s triumphant Cannes competition premiere, where the feature received a 20-minute ovation in the presence of the directors and […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/la-bola-negra-clip-elastica-october-2026-release-spain-1236918811/

Sompot Chidgasornpongse & Thomas Hakim On Balancing The Exploration Of Death With Humor In Their Directors’ Fortnight Title ‘9 Temples To Heaven’ — Cannes Studio

(date: 2026-05-22)

9 Temples To Heaven, the debut fiction title from Thai filmmaker Sompot Chidgasornpongse, was one of the most intriguing titles this year at Cannes, not least because of its production credits. Debuting in the Directors’ Fortnight, the title was produced by Kissada Kamyoung and Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sompot-chidgasornpongse-thomas-hakim-9-temples-to-heaven-1236918785/

It’s easier for Californians to escape data brokers following a Markup investigation

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Markup and CalMatters showed how website code could make it harder for Californians to exercise their right to remove personal data. Now much of that code has disappeared.

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2026/05/22/its-easier-for-californians-to-escape-data-brokers-following-a-markup-investigation

International Insider: Cannes Wraps; Dark Side Of ‘MAFS’; French Revolution

(date: 2026-05-22)

Good afternoon Insiders, the sun is shining, Cannes is ending, and we’re still reporting. Scroll down for a round-up of a busy week. And sign up here for the newsletter. Interested in hearing from some of the biggest names in the entertainment world? Deadline’s reality TV summit is coming to SXSW London on June 2 […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-film-festival-wraps-mafs-uk-international-insider-1236917712/

Sony Pictures Classics Picks Up Cannes Iran Documentary ‘Rehearsals For A Revolution’

(date: 2026-05-22)

In the wake of winning the top documentary prize at Cannes, director Pegah Ahangarani‘s Rehearsals for a Revolution has been scooped up by Sony Pictures Classics. SPC took rights in North America, Latin America, Asia (sans Japan), New Zealand, Turkey Portugal, and global airlines. The pic about decades of political repression in Iran won the L’Oeil […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-sony-pictures-classics-rehearsals-for-a-revolution-1236918792/

Netflix Hires Content Strategy Lead For Spain, Italy, France

(date: 2026-05-22)

Netflix has hired a Fremantle strategy chief as content strategy lead in Spain, France and Italy. Gabriella Carriere took on the newly-created Director of Content Programming Strategy & Operations role for the three crucial nations earlier this month, according to her post on LinkedIn. She was most recently Group Head of Strategy & New Business […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/netflix-hires-gabriella-carriere-content-spain-italy-france-1236918779/

‘Rehearsals For A Revolution’ Wins L’Oeil D’Or Prize For Top Documentary At Cannes

(date: 2026-05-22)

UPDATED with quotes from L’Oeil d’or winner Pegah Ahangarani and jury president Mstyslav Chernov. Rehearsals for a Revolution, director Pegah Ahangarani’s film about decades of political repression in Iran, won the L’Oeil d’or Prize today, the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize for documentary. Accepting the award in the presence of Cannes Film Festival leader Thierry […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/rehearsals-for-a-revolution-loeil-dor-cannes-winner-1236918763/

The real reason Democrats lost in 2024

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

The DNC "autopsy" omits the biggest reason Democrats lost in 2024. In doing so, it fails to prepare the party for the future

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/the-dnc-autopsy-omits-the-biggest

Ira Sachs On Tapping Into The “Incredible Energy” & “Darkness” Of 1980s New York For ‘The Man I Love’: “It Felt Like An Autobiography” — Cannes Studio

(date: 2026-05-22)

“You speak about the film as if I made a film about the past, and I don’t feel that way,” filmmaker Ira Sachs says of his latest feature, The Man I Love, which debuted this week in Competition at Cannes. “Partly because of the tone of the film, which was made very much in the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/ira-sachs-the-man-i-love-autobiography-cannes-studio-1236918766/

Everyone is an AI Cop Now: What Happens When an AI-Generated Story Wins a Prestigious Prize

(date: 2026-05-22)

In the early hours of Sunday, May 17th 2026, I stumbled on a tweet by Nigerian literary critic and essayist, Chimezie Chike, accusing Jamir Nazir, the newly minted 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Winner (Caribbean Region), of winning the coveted

https://lithub.com/everyone-is-an-ai-cop-now-what-happens-when-an-ai-generated-story-wins-a-prestigious-prize/

Weekly Roundup: May 23

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

Ntina Tzouvala and Zohra Ahmed on international law under Trump 2.0, Dylan Saba on the ganster-fication of US foreign policy, and Matthew Scherer on the dangers of an AI bubble. Plus, the first-ever ALPE elections, Nikolas Bowie's congressional testimony on court packing, David Pozen and Daniel Hemel on the puzzling absence of university democracy, and Tressie McMillan Cottom on the revolt against the girl bosses.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/weekly-roundup-may-23-2/

Lukas Dhont On Subverting The War Film Genre With Cannes Title ‘Coward’: “Male Bonding Has Too Often Been Used As A Tool To Destroy”

(date: 2026-05-22)

“For me, the reason to make a film about the past is to say something about the present,” filmmaker Lukas Dhont said this morning during the press conference for his Cannes Competition title Coward. Directed by Dhont from a screenplay he wrote with Angelo Tijssens, Coward is set at the height of the First World […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/lukas-dhont-cannes-coward-war-film-genre-1236918751/

divest-from-spotify

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-24)

Divest from Spotify!

http://toolkit.wellgedacht.org/doku.php?id=guides:divest-from-spotify&rev=1779446411&do=diff

Lit Hub Daily: May 22, 2026

(date: 2026-05-22)

Everyone is an AI cop now, even if they don’t know it: a past Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner weighs in on the recent scandal. | Lit Hub Criticism Does Xi Jinping really think China is Athens and the US

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-22-2026/

Bezos, Backlash and Zombies

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

What we can learn from an unintentionally revealing interview

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/bezos-backlash-and-zombies

Chris Hayes on thinking intelligently about AI

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

"The biggest threat is that it just makes everyone stupider, which obviously is a genuine worry."

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/chris-hayes-interview-ai

Ken Martin Should Have Used Civly

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Yesterday, Ken Martin and the DNC released the long-awaited “autopsy report” of the 2024 election.

https://dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/ken-martin-should-have-used-civly

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-26)

Having failed in war to punish Iran Trump seeks a less well defended adversary, the United States.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/dhs-ice-sanctuary-cities-airports/687245/?gift=f35zZN0v_gDFE8xNwlQAHcrknXAG4Jbe3V5aZfI8FKY&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Deno 2.8

(date: 2026-05-22)

`import defer`, six new subcommands (`deno transpile`, `deno pack`, `deno bump-version`, `deno ci`, `deno why`, `deno audit fix`), network debugging in Chrome DevTools, framework-aware `deno compile`, and 3.66x faster cold npm installs.

https://deno.com/blog/v2.8

Does Xi Jinping Really Think China is Athens and the US is Sparta? And is Trump Getting Any of This?

(date: 2026-05-22)

At his recent meeting with the US President Donald Trump, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping asked: “Can China and the United States transcend the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?” While it might come as

https://lithub.com/does-xi-jinping-really-think-china-is-athens-and-the-us-is-sparta-and-is-trump-getting-any-of-this/

Is Alien Life Hiding in Plain Sight, Right Here in Our Solar System?

(date: 2026-05-22)

The grandeur of Saturn is stunning to behold when viewed through a telescope. Possibly the most iconic and easily identifiable member of our solar system, this “ringed planet” has a volume equivalent to 760 Earths and such astonishingly low density

https://lithub.com/is-alien-life-hiding-in-plain-sight-right-here-in-our-solar-system/

Villains Are Just More Interesting Than Heroes (and More F*ckable, If We’re Being Frank)

(date: 2026-05-22)

The first character I ever became obsessed with was Captain Hook. I couldn’t have been more than three or four, though I was already weird; I saw the 1953 Disney version of Peter Pan and immediately fell in love in

https://lithub.com/villains-are-just-more-interesting-than-heroes-and-more-fckable-if-were-being-frank/

What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

(date: 2026-05-22)

Ali Smith’s Glyph, Ayelet Waldman’s A Perfect Hand, and Emily LaBarge’s Dog Days 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. Glyph by Ali

https://lithub.com/what-should-you-read-next-here-are-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-10/

“I Hope to Die Laughing.” On Tom Drury’s The End of Vandalism

(date: 2026-05-22)

Roughly a decade ago, shortly after I moved from Seattle to a nearby suburb, I slid into a bipolar mixed episode for a period of a month or so before it descended into straight depression. During mixed episodes, a person

https://lithub.com/i-hope-to-die-laughing-on-tom-drurys-the-end-of-vandalism/

Manil Suri on Visualizing Your Book’s Narrative Structure

(date: 2026-05-22)

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Here’s a nifty tool I’ve devised which authors might want to try out for themselves. It’s free, easy to use, and reveals the underlying narrative structure of a book, much

https://lithub.com/manil-suri-on-visualizing-your-books-narrative-structure/

On Homecoming (and Leaving), Jakarta to New York

(date: 2026-05-22)

Scenario 1 I land in Jakarta just in time for Chinese New Year. I can smell the cigarette smoke and rain before the plane even touches the tarmac; my body retrieves memories faster than my mind can process them. I

https://lithub.com/on-homecoming-and-leaving-jakarta-to-new-york/

Reconsidering Mary McCarthy’s Iconic Friendship Novel The Group

(date: 2026-05-22)

Just after my novel, Talking to the Wolf, was accepted for publication, I picked up Mary McCarthy’s novel, The Group for the first time. In my own novel, a friend breakup and untimely death changes everything for four women. These

https://lithub.com/reconsidering-mary-mccarthys-iconic-friendship-novel-the-group/

Going to London. brb

(date: 2026-05-22)

Going to London. brb

https://adactio.com/notes/22577

Corruptonomics

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

A memo to Democratic candidates on connecting Trump’s lousy economy to his corrupt regime.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-corruptonomics

May 21, 2026

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

Congress left for the holiday weekend a day early today after a number of Republican members of Congress appear to have mutinied against President Donald J.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-21-2026

Reading Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler.

(date: 2026-05-22)

Reading Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler.

https://adactio.com/notes/22576

@Seth Erickson's Mastodon feed

(date: 2026-05-22)

Hear me out: Jon Hamm as Linus Torvalds

https://hachyderm.io/@serickson/116616592950249642

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-25)

“I should make a private, invite-only forum where I can invite interesting friends and acquaintances (including zany founders, reclusive poets, eccentric engineers of all kinds, high school teachers, homegrown philosophers, garage tinkerers, and beloved drug-addled futurist artists), but..”

https://mrmarket.bearblog.dev/it-is-time-to-build-a-new-internet/

A week on the road

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-27)

I just finished a 3,500 mile road trip, driving my jeep from Oregon to Salt Lake City, then to Moab, back to SLC, then to Denver, back to SLC, then home over the course of seven days.

The Moab part of the trip was spent with my daughter who

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/a-week-on-the-road/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-22, updated: 2026-05-25)

Knicks cruise to Game 2 Eastern Conference finals victory over Cavaliers.

https://nypost.com/2026/05/21/sports/knicks-cruise-to-game-2-eastern-conference-finals-victory-over-cavaliers/

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-22)

For more than a decade, Stephen Colbert has been one of the top voices of late night—making us laugh and, even more importantly, reminding us who we are and what America stands for. Michelle and I enjoyed being Stephen’s guests—even when the games were rigged—and we’re grateful to call him a friend.

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mmfmvlxx6225

Friday 22 May, 2026

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Colosseus In the end, electrification is the best way to slow climate change. Quote of the Day ”I love criticism just so long as it’s unqualified praise.” * Noel Coward Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Crosby, Stills & … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/friday-22-may-2026/42113/

Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 244

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-22)

Safari Technology Preview Release 244 is now available for download for macOS Tahoe and macOS Sequoia.

https://webkit.org/blog/17962/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-244/

Fri, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Members Most Fridays Get Together

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Senate Rs are in open rebellion against their addled, vainglorious, corrupt leader

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/fri-1pm-et-hopium-founding-members-15e

Google’s Lock Down Policy

(date: 2026-05-21)

For years, Android marketed itself as the antidote to Apple’s walled garden. Open. Flexible and developer friendly. That promise is now eroding—fast.

The post Google’s Lock Down Policy appeared first on Purism.

https://puri.sm/posts/googles-lock-down-policy/

Like sunrise over a sink

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

It appears that the winner of a short story prize was generated with AI. But how was it selected?

https://werd.io/like-sunrise-over-a-sink/

Smartphone Study

(date: 2026-05-21)

The recent National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study on effectiveness of school phone bans has reignited debate over whether restricting smartphones in schools actually helps students. Its headline result—that strict bans show “close to zero” immediate impact on test scores—has been interpreted by some as evidence that regulation doesn’t work.

The post Smartphone Study appeared first on Purism.

https://puri.sm/posts/smartphone-study/

American Conversations: Kate Barr

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

A newsletter about the history behind today's politics.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/american-conversations-kate-barr-bd4

Meet Denise Powell, Our Terrific New Nominee In NE-02

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Powell won a hard fought primary last week and is now ready to go win the general

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/meet-denise-powell-our-new-nominee

Trump is Leading the GOP Off a Cliff

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Members of Congress are pushing back against his latest scam

https://steady.substack.com/p/trump-is-leading-the-gop-off-a-cliff

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Just saw Richard Stengel interviewed on MSNOW. Intelligence rare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stengel

Trump's Attempt To Cloak Christian Nationalism In The American Flag Was A Self-Own For The Ages

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

The administration's over-the-top prayer rally on Sunday completely twisted a historic “Christian” moment from 250 years ago

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-rededicate250-christian-nationalist-prayer-rally

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Podcast: Wrapping AI in the web.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/21.html#a210820

Vulnerabilities in various GTK-based PDF readers

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Michael Catanzaro has disclosed a
command-injection vulnerability affecting a number of GTK-based PDF readers; exploits included:

They contain a script for building malicious polyglot PDFs that are simultaneously both valid PDF files and also valid ELF binaries. When the user opens the PDF in the PDF viewer and clicks on a malicious link embedded in the PDF, the PDF abuses the command injection vulnerability to load itself as a GTK module using the `--gtk-module` command line flag. It can then execute arbitrary code via its library constructor. That flag was removed in GTK 4, which is why the vulnerability is much less serious for Papers than it is for Evince, Atril, and Xreader.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073944/

2026-05-09 Travelling to Van

(date: 2026-05-21)

2026-05-09 Travelling to Van

Today was spent flying to Istanbul and from there on to Van. We arrived late, at at the hotel and now we’re ready for bed. Claudia is reading about the things we are going to see tomorrow.

As the plane descends over lake Van towards the airport, the sun has set and the sky is orange blue. The airplane windows are dirty and so everything is out of focus. It looks like the kind of pictures I used to take as a kid.

For much, much more, see Eastern Anatolia, Armenia and Georgia.

#Easter Anatolia

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2026-05-09-to-van

Single-Click Code Execution Exploit for Evince, Atril, and Xreader

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

CVE-2026-46529 is an argument injection vulnerability in Evince, Atril, and Xreader caused by missing shell quoting when composing a command line. The reporter, João Medeiros, has published a GitHub repo for the CVE and a blog post with the story of how he discovered the flaw and developed the exploit. He also created an Atril […]

https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2026/05/21/single-click-code-execution-exploit-for-evince-atril-and-xreader/

DHS Inspector General Study

(date: 2026-05-21)

The Inspector General’s audits uncovered a systemic collapse in mobile‑device security across DHS’s Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) office and CIO organization.

The post DHS Inspector General Study appeared first on Purism.

https://puri.sm/posts/dhs-inspector-general-study/

Privacy Under Siege: Why Purism’s User Sovereignty Model is the Way Forward

(date: 2026-05-21)

California’s data broker crackdown, AI creeping into browsers, and global surveillance trends signal one truth—individual privacy are under attack. Here’s how Purism is building a future where your data stays yours.

The post Privacy Under Siege: Why Purism’s User Sovereignty Model is the Way Forward appeared first on Purism.

https://puri.sm/posts/privacy-under-siege-why-purisms-user-sovereignty-model-is-the-way-forward/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Just finished No Country for Old Men, the book by Cormac McCarthy. I have seen the movie many times, it's one of those movies that if you're looking for something to watch and you come across it, you might as well go for it because every scene in the movie is pretty good on its own. I didn't realize that they used most of McCarthy's dialog, literally -- in the movie. Near the end, Bell, the sheriff tells a story about old age. "There wasnt a whole lot good you could say about old age and he said he knew one thing and I said what is that. And he said it dont last long. I said well, that's pretty cold. And he said it was no colder than what the facts called for." I love truths that hit hard. He's such a great writer. And I love that I can write like all the characters if I get a mind to.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/21.html#a202336

Thursday session

(date: 2026-05-21)

Thursday session

https://adactio.com/notes/22575

Zero Sum Problems

(date: 2026-05-21)

Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber makes a passing observation about the Apple Sports app:

I’ve got some gripes about certain specific aspects of Apple Sports. Like, where does one even start to explain how much is wrong with their zero-sum visualization of team stats? Has anyone ever even seen a presentation like that before? Anyone?

That “Anyone” link lands over here. Hi everyone! The team stats image is quite confusing. It’s a summary of a game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder. I don’t know much about basketball, but I do know a bit about data visualization and in a pleasing coincidence my former student Josh Fink is the A-VP of Basketball Data Science for the Spurs. Here is the image that John objected to:

I had to look at it for a while as well.

I just finished driving a very long way up the side of the country, so I’m kind of tired. But even allowing for that, boy, this way of representing things really is quite confusing. Not being an Apple Sports user I had to look at it for a bit to understand what was happening. But, now that it has given me a headache, I can kind of see why whoever designed this ended up in the undoubtedly bad place they did.

Before I get to why I have some sympathy for the designer, why did I find this representation of these numbers so disorienting? It’s not just just because I’ve been driving for nine hours. John is right to call the picture a “Zero Sum” representation. The design strongly suggests to the viewer that, within each row, we’re looking at each team’s share of a total. Each pair of black and blue lines seem to be vying for control of their whole row, with the longest line being the “winner” in each case.

This sort of representation would make perfect sense for a measure that reallywas zero sum. Take an example from a properly good sport, like rugby. There, like in basketball, to a first approximation a team either has the ball or it doesn’t.1 But there’s no shot clock in rugby, and possession routinely gets turned over without the game stopping. So, knowing that Team A had 65% possession is not only informative, it also immediately entails that Team B had 35%. You could show that with a representation like one of the rows above.

Literally none of the measures in the Basketball data above are zero-sum in this way. Both teams could shoot 100% from the free throw line, or zero percent. But because the first three measures shown are percentages, this reinforces the zero-sum impression given by the lines. It certainly did that in my case. But then, starting with Assists, the remaining rows are just absolute numbers. When I started looking at the absolute numbers, I got confused a second time by the length of the lines. “Oh so it’s not a share, it’s the value” I thought—but no, they do correspond in terms of relative proportions to the teams share within each row. But they’re not really shares they’re just magnitudes. But they have to be shown in a fixed space and we want to make them relatively comparable somehow so … Argh.

It would be nice if there were One Weird Trick to fully fix this figure. But I’m not sure that there is. For example, at a minimum we could redraw these numbers to reflect the fact that they’re not zero-sum. Keep each measure as a row (i.e. on the y-axis) but have the lines, or columns, be side by side within each category instead of facing off. Like this:

Team Stats side by side for each measure.

This view at least lets you immediately see who “won” each measure. The viewer can just directly compare the length of the bars in each category. People are
really good at doing that
accurately. In that sense it’s much less confusing than the original. But there’s still a lot wrong with it. The core problem is that when we draw a graph like this, we’re usually putting the same kind of thing (e.g. countries, or religious groups, or sports teams) on the y-axis, and then seeing how different their scores are on some single measure (e.g. GDP, or number of adherents, or average points scored per game), which we put on the x-axis. Maybe we use color to break things out by some third measure as well.2 In this case, I’ve just labeled the x-axis as generically as possible. “Value” covers the range of all the measures. The lowest value is 5, in Largest Lead. The highest is 88, in Free Throw %. But these numbers are not meaningfully comparable. The graph encourages us to compare across as well as within categories. But while within-category comparisons are meaningful, the between-category ones are not. There were way more Bench Points than Blocks in the game. But that is not a useful thing to know.

Team Stats side by side and ordered from absolute highest to lowest, whatever that means.

Knowing who won each measure isn’t nothing. It can be informative about how the game went, maybe especially when a team won the game but “lost” on a number of the measures. If you really wanted to lean in to that aspect, you could sort of justify the zero-sum view, and maybe look for a way to sort and order by “how much” a team “won” each category. But again, what’s the right denominator for those measures? For instance, do we care about a team’s share of all Defensive Rebounds in the game? Or do we care about the share of Defensive Rebounds a team won relative to every opportunity it had to make a Defensive Rebound? How meaningful is ordering our rows by those kinds of shares? Even worse, some measures (notably Fouls) are bad to “win”, so we’d have to do something about those.

Our fundamental problem is that we just have two cases (the teams) and fifteen different measures, or variables. Each variable, except for the three percentages, is in effect on its own scale. There’s no direct way to make comparisons across them. Sure, some of these measures are probably going to be associated with one another—e.g. Turnovers and Points Off Turnovers—but the numeric values aren’t directly comparable in general. If you know a lot about basketball you might have some informative rules of thumb about each one of these measures, or some of them in combination. But at that point the lines in this particular graph are not going to be doing any work for you; you’ll just end up looking directly at the numbers. If we had data on all these measures for every NBA game for a whole season then we could of course do much more with them, because then each measure would have a distribution across all games and across all teams.

As it is, the purpose of the “Stats” screen in Apple Sports is just to summarize information from a single game. The other thing I could think of to do with the numbers as kind of graph is something like this:

A back-to-back column chart.

This is marginally more helpful than the one before just because, again, it gets rid of the unhelpful zero-sum look of the original. As I hope you can immediately see, it creates many other difficulties. It also doesn’t do away with the core problem. That problem is principally one of information design rather than data visualization. What I mean is that what we’re trying to organize is, in effect, fifteen pairs of related but fundamentally distinct numbers. If we had fifteen cases and two variables things would be simple. But with fifteen variables and two cases … well, this is not the kind of thing you can make a single effective and non-confusing graph out of. That’s why I kind of sympathize with the designer. In a constrained space they have to show thirty numbers (thirty two, including the score). Lots of information. A straight table seems like it would be boring. Surely there’s some way to thematically integrate the numbers in a visually appealing manner that brings out some of the relationships across the rows. That’s what graphs do; it seems like the right thing to reach for. But at its heart this information is not a graph. It just sort of looks like one, and that ends up confusing people.

Modulo some measurement decisions about how to determine when possession is turned over while the ball is in play. ↩︎
Here’s an
example of a graph with a categorical measure on the y-axis, a continuous measure on the x-axis, and an additional categorical feature shown with color. ↩︎

https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2026/05/21/zero-sum-problems/

Book Notes: “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”

(date: 2026-05-21)

I’ve been slowly listening to Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger.

I like his practicality. He’s never trying to be overly academic, as if he needs to prove how smart he is.

He says Berkshire’s success doesn’t come from them solving hard problems, but from spending their time knowing what a simple solution looks like — and acting on it when they see it!

We’ve succeeded by making the world easy for us, not by solving the world’s hard problems.

Munger analogizes their approach to investing like jumping a fence. They don’t spend all their time trying to figure out how to jump a seven-foot tall fence. Instead, they find a spot where the fence is only a foot tall, jump it, and take the reward on the other side.

The approach he articulates for investing, in fact, seems broadly applicable to any kind of problem solving:

Quickly eliminate the universe of what not to do.
Follow up with a multi-disciplinary attack on what remains.
Act decisively when — and only when — the right circumstances appear.

Whenever people ask him for advice (as if somehow he could bestow upon them some kind of knowledge that will save them the pain and hardship of experience) he seems anathema to the idea that you can live life without making lots of mistakes.

To paraphrase Charlie: “I don’t want you to think that we have a method of learning that will prevent you from making mistakes. The best you can do is learn to make fewer mistakes than others. And then, when you inevitably do make mistakes, learn to acknowledge them and fix them quickly.”

Straightforward. Practical. No bullshit. No ego. (Basically the opposite of everything I see on social platforms.)

I quite enjoyed his perspective.

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

https://www.clf.org/blog/supporting-farmers-and-food-businesses-in-new-england/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=supporting-farmers-and-food-businesses-in-new-england

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/book-notes-charlie-munger/

Supporting Farmers and Food Businesses in New England

(date: 2026-05-21)

CLF’s Legal Food Hub and Healthy Retail and Commerce Fund provide key support to regional farm and food businesses.

The post Supporting Farmers and Food Businesses in New England appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Community Criticism Pushes WordCamp US 2026 Website Toward A Much-Needed Refresh.

https://wp-content.co/community-criticism-pushes-wordcamp-us-2026-website-toward-a-much-needed-refresh/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Looking at the prices for tickets in Cleveland for Saturday vs NYC prices, I'd say there will be a fair size contingent of Knicks fans.

https://www.stubhub.com/cleveland-cavaliers-cleveland-tickets-5-23-2026/event/160315715/?backUrl=%2Fnew-york-knicks-tickets%2Fperformer%2F2742<=40.712776&lg=-74.005974&quantity=2

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-21:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

4 new and 35 updated places.

Caltech Names and Celebrates Its 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients

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

"main" branch:

7649bf80 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

e0ef9e5d - updated gis package

1ba3d01f - updated data quality

9864c681 - updated bibliography

76102167 - updated indexes

47df223d - updated sidebar

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

2a6f4f65 - updated geojson and names index

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

8d12515b - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116613973520630585

I’m writing again…

(date: 2026-05-21)

I’m Writing Again For those of you who are still here — and given how long it’s been, “still here” is a real act of patience — thank you. I haven’t written a column since 2022. Just like everyone else, I’ve been busy all this time on Artificial Intelligence, founding with two partners a company called 2Brains (why it wasn’t 3Brains I’ll never know) that I will explain to you shortly. The work we were doing together is unfinished, but it’s not stopped. The patents are filed, the architecture is documented, and the small team continuing the work includes me. Writing is part of how I think; not writing for three years has felt like holding my breath. So I’m back. Not on a fixed […]

The post I’m writing again… first appeared on I, Cringely.

Digital Branding

Web Design

Marketing

https://www.cringely.com/2026/05/21/im-writing-again/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

When Humans Went Away, the Wildlife Strayed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/science/anthropause-animals-pandemic.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kFA.ZbsO.7OmgX0o9eKDn&smid=url-share

Steve Jobs in Exile

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Geoffrey Cain (Amazon): Drawing on previously unpublished materials and new interviews with the key players, Geoffrey Cain reveals the untold story of Steve Jobs’s “lost decade”—the formative years that shaped the icon we thought we knew. With unprecedented access to unbroadcast footage of Jobs in NeXT meetings, private company documents, and interviews with his closest […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/21/steve-jobs-in-exile/

Leaving CloudKit

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

César Pinto Castillo: CloudKit is one of the best-kept secrets in the Apple platform stack. For years it has quietly powered sync, storage, and sharing for our apps — for free, with zero servers to run, and with end-to-end encryption we didn’t have to design ourselves. And yet, we’re moving off it. […] When a […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/21/leaving-cloudkit/

Announcing Web Serial Support in Firefox

(date: 2026-05-21)

Support for Web Serial in Firefox 151 for Desktop Firefox can now connect directly to microcontrollers, development boards, 3D printers, power meters, and other serial-connected hardware from the web. Starting in Firefox 151 for Desktop, support for the Web Serial API allows web applications to communicate with compatible devices without requiring native software. Web Serial […]

The post Announcing Web Serial Support in Firefox appeared first on Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/05/web-serial-support-in-firefox/

Lawsuits Claim OpenAI and Perplexity Shared User Data for Advertising

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Madeline Batt: The lawsuit targeted generative AI company Perplexity, along with Meta and Google, alleging they disclosed transcripts of users’ conversations with chatbots for targeted advertising. The case highlighted a burgeoning monetization strategy for the AI industry to solve generative AI’s profitability problem with a function the technology has proven especially adept at: collecting intimate […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/21/lawsuits-claim-openai-and-perplexity-shared-user-data-for-advertising/

Dragoncatcher: The new funnel

(date: 2026-05-21)

The LLM sent me. Read here.

https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/ai-funnel/

Taphouse 1.5

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Multimodal Solutions: Install, update, and clean up your brew packages from a quiet Mac‑native app. 14,000+ formulae and casks — no terminal required. […] Browse and search through thousands of Homebrew packages with an intuitive visual interface. No more memorizing package names. […] Install or remove any package with a single click. […] See all […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/21/taphouse-1-5/

The Rocket That Runs on Broadband

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

SpaceX is in the business of rockets — how often they fly and what they do. The rest is imagination. The SpaceX IPO is a masterpiece of financial engineering. The prospectus is a perfect blend of reality, sci-fi, and skullduggery. I dug into the freshly filed 300-page IPO prospectus of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to …

https://om.co/2026/05/21/the-rocket-that-runs-on-broadband/

Checking the math behind OpenAI and Anthropic’s latest headlines

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Always read the fine print

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/checking-the-math-behind-openai-and

Americans oppose spending $1 billion on White House ballroom 68% to 21%

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

A preview from our May Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/americans-oppose-spending-1-billion

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Marc Andreessen said programmers aren't disoccupied, we haven't become obsolete, quite the opposite, we're all working around the clock. It's true. Everyone is doing it. We got a new brain that can do all kinds of amazing things. You don't get a new super powerful brain organ every day.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/21.html#a160922

macOS Kernel Memory Corruption Exploit

(date: 2026-05-21)

A group used Anthropic’s Mythos AI model to help find a kernel memory corruption vulnerability and exploit on Apple’s M5.

News article.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/macos-kernel-memory-corruption-exploit.html

cq exchange: Agents without Borders

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

cq exchange gives agents a shared place to store and retrieve experience-driven knowledge through private namespaces and a public commons.

https://blog.mozilla.ai/cq-exchange-agents-without-borders/

La vida es… quizás otra cosa

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Dirección: Lorena Villarreal. Guion: Lorena Villarreal, Ian Martin, Diana López y Alba García. Elenco: Natalia Plascencia, Naian González Norvind, Paulina García, Rubén Ochandiano, Lumi Cavazos, Fernando Ciangherotti. País: México. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36850385/ De vez en cuando tenemos la fortuna de observar cómo es que las personas de clases sociales más altas que […]

La entrada La vida es… quizás otra cosa se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/resenas-la-vida-es/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resenas-la-vida-es

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Jetpack Podcast on WordPress.com.

https://wordpress.com/blog/2026/05/21/your-podcast-belongs-with-your-blog-and-newsletter/

The $500 Price Increase

(date: 2026-05-21)

Plex sends a message to the self-hosting community with a massive upcharge targeted at the very people who hate monthly fees.

https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17345764/plex-price-increase-self-hosting

Pluralistic: Shopping isn't politics (21 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links Shopping isn't politics: The personal isn't political. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Neither arphid nor RFID; Gor novel sex slave cult; Violent economist sex criminals; Vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuo; "We Stand on Guard"; Healthy FLOSS; Lawsuits 2.0; CDC v zombie apocalypse; Gandhi's speeches; Apple v games about Palestine; Second Life chuds v Bernie; UK was never a "white" country; Dead, broke; Who Broke the Internet? (III) Upcoming appearances: Hay-on-Wye, London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. Shopping isn't politics (permalink) I've written before about the futility of "voting with your wallet." Billionaires love it when you try to vote with your wallet, because while billionaires only represent 0.00004% of the population, their wallets are 100,000 times larger than average, which means that when we vote with wallets, a billionaire's vote counts 100,000 times more than yours: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/13/consumption-choices/ The idea of voting with your wallet is fundamentally antiprogressive, and not only because wallet-voting favors the wealthy. The ideological basis for voting with your wallet is the belief that politics are slow and unresponsive, while markets dynamically optimize for human wellbeing. By voting with your wallet, you are supposedly injecting information about your preferences and dispreferences into a vast, distributed computer we call "the market," which uses "demand signals" to decide how we live our lives. This belief is incompatible with the idea of politics – that is, the idea that our lives can be shaped by representative democracy, deliberation, and/or solidarity. It's a nihilistic view that insists that the only nice things we can have are the things that "the market" chooses for us. If "the market" doesn't decide to swap out fossil fuels for cleantech, then that's that – any attempt to draw down our carbon emissions through regulation will only "distort the market." If you're roasting in a drought, drowning in a flood, or being incinerated by a wildfire, your only move is to go shopping and hope that by buying a Tesla, you will emit a "demand signal" that "tips the market equilibrium" to "not killing you and everyone you love." Shopping isn't politics. Politics are politics, and shopping is shopping. This isn't to say shopping can't improve your life! I am a materialist, and having nice things is nice. If there's a lovely independent coffee shop in your neighborhood where the baristas are treated well and the coffee is delicious and the vibes are impeccable, then by all means, get your coffee there. If you love the staff and selections at your neighborhood indie bookstore, then you should buy your books there. If you love the discourse on Mastodon or Bluesky and find yourself feeling sick and angry when you use Twitter or Facebook, then ditch the legacy social media and take up residence in the Fediverse and/or Atmosphere. But don't kid yourself that this is politics. No matter how indie your coffee, books and social media, your consumption choices will not have a material impact on Starbucks, Amazon or Twitter. Going vegan won't make the meat industry treat animals better. Taking the bus won't induce improvements to your town's public transit network. Having nice things is nice, and the more nice things you have – good food, good health, good books, good coffee, good social media and good transit – the more space and energy you'll have to devote to politics. But what about boycotts? Surely the Montgomery bus boycott, the anti-Apartheid boycott, the California grape boycott and the BDS movement were politics, right? They sure were. But they weren't shopping. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted 382 days, during which time organizers worked with bus riders, cab drivers, the UAW and community groups to provide material and legal support and alternatives like car pools, all while communicating about their specific demands. After 382 days, the courts ruled in their favor, their demands were met, and Montgomery's buses desegregated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott That wasn't "shopping." The bus boycott didn't consist of a bunch of individual choices to walk to work, repeatedly made by a city full of Black people and their allies. The shopping part was the least important part of the whole matter, and the meaningful part of the shopping was never individual. If the boycott was nothing more than shopping, it would have broken as soon as individual people found themselves unable to convince their bosses to tolerate their late, sweaty arrival at work, day after day. The boycott worked because it was politics. And because the boycott was politics, it left behind a movement: the boycott brought people into solidarity with each other, and when they comprehensively defeated their political adversary – National City Lines – they went on to form the backbone of the civil rights movement, going from strength to strength. Of course, shopping is part of a boycott. It's the individual part that each participant in the boycott undertakes. But without the collective, organized part, shopping is no way to effect change. Is voting politics? Well, sure, but voting is to politics as shopping is to boycotts. For several decades now, most voters have been asked to chose the lesser of two evils (and now they're asked to choose the significantly lesser of two evils). Voting can change things, when there's something good to vote for, or something very bad to vote against, and when lots of people show up at the polls. But to make voting effective, you have to do politics. You have to get involved in the primary races that select the candidate. You have to go to candidates' meetings and ask tough questions. You have to ring doorbells for your chosen candidate, volunteer to take your neighbors to the polls and volunteer to defend the polls from chuds and ICE fascists. The part of voting that takes place in the booth is the least important part of politics. It's obvious why we might prefer to substitute voting or shopping for politics: they're activities you do alone. You don't have to find anyone else to do them with you. You don't have to convince anyone else to do them with you. You don't have to argue about them or justify them. They are zipless fucks, a source of satisfaction without connection, compromise or complication. Of course, that's also why voting and shopping make a poor substitute for politics. All the retail therapy in the world can't lift your spirits the way that solidarity and community will. Doing politics creates solidaristic ties with the people around you, who might help you if you lose your job and can't buy groceries, or break your leg and can't get to the grocery store, or if ICE fascists try to kidnap you while you're out shopping. Solidarity gets you through times of no money way better than money gets you through times of no solidarity – just ask the psycho billionaires who wanted Doug Rushkoff to invent a system of bomb-collars that would keep their post-apocalyptic mercenaries from whacking them and stealing their bunkers: https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn Last weekend, I walked through a crowd of tens of thousands of coked-up fascists in central London on my way to meet up with 250,000 comrades marching for an end to genocide in Palestine and a new British social compact based on mutual aid, pluralism, and care. Walking through those flag-draped chuds was incredibly demoralizing: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2026/05/cokeheads-and-christians-a-day-at-tommy-robinsons-rally But when I got off the tube at South Kensington and found there were so many of us we were backed up all the way from the every street entrance to the bottom of the escalators, my morale surged. Hours later, when we all reached Pall Mall together, I was ready to take on the world. That's what politics does for you: it makes you feel like you belong to a polity and that together, you can really change the world. Politics runs on solidarity, but shopping destroys it. Individual consumption choices don't change the world, but if you've been convinced that the only way to change the world is by voting with your wallet then when the world stays terrible, you can only conclude that your friends and neighbors have ruined by things by voting (shopping) wrong. In politics, we build bonds of mutual regard and understanding that we use to navigate our differences. But when you vote with your wallet, all that's left is the endless policing of your allies' consumption choices, endless scolding for their failure to leave Twitter, or give up meat, or eschew chatbots. Shopping for change ends up replacing politics with petty snooping and endless sniping and attempts to bully or shame people into consuming different things. If "the personal is political," then every political disappointment in your life is down to your friends' personal defects. If you let yourself get tricked into organizing your life around "living your politics" – that is, giving up on nice things in the hope that this will make politics change, and then getting mad at people who consume different things from you – then you will end up sucked into the stupidest fights imaginable with the people you need to get along with in order to do politics. Once again, this isn't to say that you shouldn't choose to have nice things. Buy stuff you like, shop at places you like. And when circumstances allow all of us to start making consumption choices in unison – as when Comrades Trump and Putin stage an orgy of demand-destruction for fossil fuels, catapulting the world into the Gretacene – then by all means, take the win. That is one of the rare instances in which we can do political change with consumption! https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/04/hope-in-the-dark/#hormuzed-into-the-gretacene And there definitely are times where a single individual can intervene in the system in a powerful way that really fucks up the worst actors in our society: https://www.theverge.com/tech/931532/bambu-agpl-pawel-jarczak-open-source-threat-dmca-github These usually involve using technology to "move fast and break things," which is fine, actually! It's fine to move fast and break things belonging to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or some other monster. Indeed, it's practically a moral imperative: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/30/zucksauce/#gandersauce But even in those highly leveraged, highly individualized opportunities to make a dent in the universe, you'll make a bigger dent, and have more fun, if you do it as politics, with a big group of people, in bonds of solidarity. Hey look at this (permalink) The Workers Who Defy Gravity https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/05/20/ai-companies-organized-labor-actors-fight-back/ Messages of Solidarity https://movement.wwwrise.org/solidarity The Enshittification of History https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2026/05/the-enshittification-of-histor.html Europe’s big tech bet is only as safe as its democracy https://defenddemocracy.eu/eu-tech-democracy/ Iran demands Big Tech pay fees for undersea Internet cables in Strait of Hormuz https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/iran-demands-big-tech-pay-fees-for-undersea-internet-cables-in-strait-of-hormuz/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Software-based antennas https://web.archive.org/web/20010518225333/http://www.etenna.com/ #25yrsago Aimster loses trademark to AOL https://web.archive.org/web/20010523001415/http://msnbc.com/news/575492.asp?cp1=1 #25yrsago House to ban online anonymity https://web.archive.org/web/20010526220254/https://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43938,00.html #20yrsago Lawsuits of Web 2.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20060528001734/http://www.fuckedsuit.com/ #20yrsago Is one month’s piracy worth more than France’s GDP? https://decordove.com/one-month-of-torrents-is-worth-more-than-the-gdp-of-france-riaa-rant.php #20yrsago Audio from Bruce Sterling’s “Neither Arphid nor RFID” rant https://web.archive.org/web/20060614140414/https://dev1.manme.org.uk/~luke/Sterling_SPACE_160506.mp3 #20yrsago Cops raid “sex slave cult” based on science fiction novels http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4996410.stm #15yrsago Legal rebuttal: “vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuo” https://newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2011/05/joseph-rakofsky-i-have-an-answer-for-you.html #15yrsago List of economists involved in violent sex crimes, for Ben Stein https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/05/18/answering-ben-steins-question/ #15yrsago MAFIAA wants warrantless searches of CD and DVD factories https://web.archive.org/web/20110520232527/https://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/riaa-warrantless-seizures/ #15yrsago CDC explains how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse https://web.archive.org/web/20110519201602/http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp #10yrsago 129 of Gandhi’s speeches on India and self-rule https://archive.org/details/HindSwaraj?and[]=subject%3A"Post+Prayer+Speech" #10yrsago A backer message as Earth leaves beta and goes 1.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20160521054706/http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v533/n7603/full/533432a.html #10yrsago EFF files Chelsea Manning appeal on hacking conviction https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-court-reverse-chelsea-mannings-conviction-violating-federal-anti-hacking-law #10yrsago Apple rejects game about Palestine because political messages disqualify games from consideration https://web.archive.org/web/20160520111154/https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/apple-says-game-about-palestinian-child-isnt-a-game/ #10yrsago Nerdcore rapper Sammus’s amazing OSCON keynote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELczJ07XPnw #10yrsago Everything is a Remix on “The Force Awakens” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKvsc6a03Es #10yrsago Angry dudes are downranking woman-oriented TV shows on review sites https://web.archive.org/web/20160519014153/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/men-are-sabotaging-the-online-reviews-of-tv-shows-aimed-at-women/ #10yrsago Second Life’s Trump army lays siege to Bernie Sanders’s virtual HQ with swastika cannons https://web.archive.org/web/20160428093534/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/second-life-donald-trump-bernie-sanders #10yrsago Xenophobic UK politician ranting about “political correctness” gets a public spanking from an historian https://web.archive.org/web/20160520224731/http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/ukip-councillor-attempts-to-blast-bbc-for-historical-inaccuracy-gets-destroyed-by-actual-historian–ZyZAasU2fb #10yrsago A look at digital habits of 13 year olds shows desire for privacy, face-to-face time https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2016/04/18/the-class-living-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/ #10yrsago Big Vitamin bankrolls naturopaths’ attempts to go legit and get public money https://web.archive.org/web/20160520123659/https://www.statnews.com/2016/05/17/naturopaths-go-mainstream/ #10yrsago We Stand on Guard: in 100 years, America seizes Canada for its water https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/18/we-stand-on-guard-in-100-years-america-seizes-canada-for-its-water/ #5yrsago Apple's complicity in Chinese state oppressionhttps://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#think-manorialism #5yrsago Community Health Services sued its way through the pandemic https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#health-usury #5yrsago What Would Open Source Look Like If It Were Healthy https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#user-personas #5yrsago Dead, broke https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation #1yrago Who Broke the Internet? Part III https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/19/khan-thought/#they-were-warned Upcoming appearances (permalink) Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow 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: TBA, Jun 23 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: TBA, Jun 25 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 Recent appearances (permalink) 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 The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/21/purity-culture/

In-N-Out And AI

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/in-n-out-and-ai/

Claw Patrol: an open-source security firewall for agents

(date: 2026-05-21)

Why we needed an agent firewall that speaks more than HTTP.

https://deno.com/blog/clawpatrol

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #444

(date: 2026-05-21)

For May 13-19, 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. It was a real scorcher in New York City yesterday! Fortunately we were able to beat the heat the best way we know how: Reading short humor pieces set in winter. Nothing cools ya down like reading a piece like James Thurber’s A Visit from Saint Nicholas (In the Ernest Hemingway Manner). Unrelated: We’re incredibly dehydrated.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Honey, I’m Sorry I Messed Up Our Moment on the Kiss Cam by Mary Spencer (McSweeney’s) We really enjoyed Mary’s pacing in this one. The situation spirals out of control so quickly, with the narrator doubling down on bad decision after bad decision, and the reader’s just along for the ride, enjoying each new wrinkle.

Help! I Mrs. Doubtfire’d So Hard That I’m the Most Sought-After Nanny in the Tri-State Area by Andrew Wood (Points in Case) Andrew cleverly uses a time jump as a way to heighten this piece to some delightful and unexpected places. The idea of Mrs. Doubtfire-ing being a thing that any number of dads might do is also very funny.

What I Imagine William Shakespeare Thought Every Time He Rewrote the Same Scene Over and Over Again by Josh Mendez (McSweeney’s) It’s very funny to imagine Shakespeare going through the same banal struggles that the rest of us do when working on a draft. This piece is filled with great punchy lines like “The perfect amount of ghost is unclear.”

-- ADS --

Trying to structure a long-term creative project around the dreaded day job? Register now for DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB, a two-hour writing workshop from humor writer, author, and day job-haver Lillian Stone. You'll leave with a practical framework for protecting and advancing your creative work—even when life refuses to cooperate. Class is in session June 6!

Maeve Dunigan's 'Read This To Look Cool,' a humorous essay collection that Stylist magazine calls "a bible for overthinkers," is OUT NOW wherever books are sold! Both cringe-inducing and uproarious, 'Read This To Look Cool' is a deeply relatable meditation on the absurdity inherent in the constant performance of ourselves, offering a fresh perspective on self-love and the true meaning of cool. It’s a book that says “I see you” and also “Don’t look at me, though, my hair is doing something weird.”

Order here or from your local bookstore!

(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form! )

An Old Favorite

A Mass E-Mail by Amy Ozols (The New Yorker) A relatable situation—someone trying to rebuild their contact list after losing a phone—that gets heightened to some really fun, absurd places. “What would be really helpful is if you could let me know your birthday, then wait three weeks, then send me your e-mail address, so that I can store it in my two-phones-in-the-future phone for use on your next birthday.” The button is particularly delightful—a very nice touch.

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 just THREE spots left in his Wednesday afternoon advanced short humor workshop starting on June 3rd! And if you can’t fit a full four-week course into your schedule, Luke’s also got two single-session workshops coming up in June: “How to Get and Give Helpful Feedback” and ”It Doesn't Have to Be a Monologue! (Form and Narration in Short Humor Writing)”

https://buttondown.com/humorouswriting/archive/a-newsletter-of-humorous-writing-444/

[$] BPF support in GCC 16 and beyond

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

José Marchesi and the GCC-BPF developers opened the BPF track at the 2026Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory-management, and BPF Summit with a 90-minute summary of what has changed for GCC's BPF support in the past year. This kind of session has become something of a tradition. There were similar updates in2025 and2024. This time around, GCC seems to be closing in on feature parity with the LLVM toolchain — as the slides detail.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071973/

Caltech Weekly - May 21: Caltech's 2026 Distinguished Alumni; Brown Investigator Award Recipients

(date: 2026-05-21)

Caltech Weekly - May 21: Caltech's 2026 Distinguished Alumni; Brown Investigator Award RecipientsView this email in your browser

Thursday, May 21, 2026

Caltech honors four visionary alumni with the 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award for groundbreaking contributions spanning computer science, media technology, space instrumentation, and neuroscience.

Caltech Announces Eight Recipients of the 2026 National Brown Investigator Award

Each investigator, recognized for curiosity-driven research in chemistry or physics, will receive up to $2 million over five years.

Space Weather and Sun Science: A Conversation with Christina Cohen

Cohen, a space physicist, has been a member of the Solar Radiation Lab at Caltech for three decades.

Jonas Peters Elected to the American Philosophical Society

Peters, Bren Professor of Chemistry and director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech, has been elected one of 42 new members of the American Philosophical Society this year.

"In my opinion, you can never trust AI, but you can use AI as a powerful tool. Just like if you search something online on Google, you get a lot of results back ... a lot of information, but you have to verify and double check. So I think if we put AI in charge of our weapons or something silly like that, then, you know, bad things will happen."

Aaron Ames, Bren Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Control and Dynamical Systems, and Aerospace; and the director and Booth-Kresa Leadership Chair of the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies, recently answered questions on robotics and AI from readers of Wired magazine in a livestream.

This Week's Other Top Stories

The 71st Annual Staff Service and Impact Awards

Family Scholarship Helps to Level the Field for Others

In Case You Missed It

View recent lectures and events on Caltech's YouTube channel.

Robots Clash and Students Shine at Engineering Design Competition

In the 41st Annual ME72 Capstone Design Competition, teams of mechanical and civil engineering students designed and built robotic systems to compete in a fast-paced engineering challenge.

Did You Know?

The Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles of the planet's surface. JPL's mission team used Mars's gravity to boost the spacecraft's speed and adjust its trajectory, a critical maneuver ahead of the spacecraft's arrival at the asteroid Psyche in 2029. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. Caltech researchers study the science of voting and elections, from misinformation and fraud prevention to the systems that help keep elections fair, accurate, and secure. Learn how vote-by-mail works and the research behind election security on the Caltech Science Exchange.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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https://mailchi.mp/caltech/caltech-weekly-may-21-caltechs-2026-distinguished-alumni-brown-investigator-award-recipients

Brigid by Kim Curran

(date: 2026-05-21)

I enjoyed Kim Curran’s debut novel, The Morrigan, so when I saw a copy of her brand new book in the local library, I snapped it up.

Like The Morrigan, Brigid is modern retelling of Irish mythology, but in a very different time period. Whereas The Morrigan was set in a mythical time of the Fomorians and the Tuatha Dé Danann, Brigid is set in the relatively recent past of early Christian Ireland.

I was curious to see which Brigid this book would be about: the pagan goddess or the Christian saint?

Both, it turns out. The protagonist is the saint, but the narrator is the goddess. And they interact. It’s a clever framing device and for the most part, it works.

There are cameos a-plenty from the Christian pantheon like Patrick and Brendan the navigator but this is not the hagiography we learned in school. All the usual miracles are present and accounted for, but any supernatural powers aren’t ascribed to a Christian deity.

The world of Brigid isn’t so far removed from the world of The Morrigan after all.

Brigid isn’t a ground-breaking book, and it didn’t grab me as much as The Morrigan but it’s an enjoyable read nonetheless.

https://adactio.com/journal/22574

To Understand AI, Think Like A Dragonfly

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

The post To Understand AI, Think Like A Dragonfly appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/to-understand-ai-think-like-a-dragonfly

Trump And Trumpism Are Failing, And We Must Grow More Ambitious Now

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

We just got our first poll of Trump at 31% approval. He just keeps falling......

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trump-has-failed-and-we-must-grow

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

I'm going to release the Claude-generated code that enables it to work with me on projects that are written and managed in outlines.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/21.html#a143133

Why micropayments can't save news

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Why an ephemeral model can't fund relationship-based work

https://werd.io/why-micropayments-cant-save-news/

OpenBSD 7.9 released

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

The OpenBSD 7.9 release is out, right on schedule. There is the usual long list of new features, including improved architecture support, CPU scheduling on heterogeneous systems, the ability to hibernate a suspended system after a configurable delay, socket splicing, a__pledge_open() system call giving special access to the C library, and much more. See the announcement and the full
changelog for details.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073933/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Just asked Claude to save this in memory. "in general i create local variables with partial results because 1. i can step through the calculations in the debugger. 2. the order guides my mind when im reading this code, 3. it lets me put a name on a partial value. this is helpful when i want to piece together wtf the code is supposed to be doing. and 4. it makes no difference in the efficiency of the code for a variety of reasons. please save that somewhere." i'm getting a lot of these rules down. i have them memorized but have never written them up because i didn't have a system for saving it somewhere relevant. i always thought ai would be good for going back and reading all my blog posts and creating somethjing readable, but as often is the case, the way it works turned out to be quite different, accomplishes the same thing.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/21.html#a135204

Bruce Springsteen Jabs Donald Trump And The Ellisons As He Performs On Stephen Colbert’s Second-To-Last Show

(date: 2026-05-21)

Bruce Springsteen made a few jabs at Donald Trump and David and Larry Ellison before he performed on Stephen Colbert’s second-to-last The Late Show on CBS. “I’m here in support tonight for Stephen, because you’re the first guy in America who has lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke,” […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/bruce-springsteen-trump-stephen-colbert-1236917737/

Netflix Turns To Daily Live Video With Deal For Charlamagne Tha God’s ‘The Breakfast Club’ Podcast

(date: 2026-05-21)

Netflix will start its first daily live program next month when it streams the video podcast The Breakfast Club with Charlamagne Tha God, DJ Envy and Jess Hilarious. The daily show will debut on Netflix on June 1, and will simulcast on iHeartMedia, which entered into a partnership with the streamer last year. The radio […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/netflix-charlamagne-tha-god-the-breakfast-club-1236917738/

[$] Support for private memory nodes

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Gregory Price started his session in the memory-management track of the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit by saying that, in current kernels, if a NUMA node has memory, the assumption is that anybody can make use of it. He is trying to implement the opposite policy — to make some memory off-limits for all processes except those designed specifically to use it. The session was used to present his goals and to discuss how they might be implemented.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072881/

Security updates for Thursday

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, kernel-rt, and libsndfile), Debian (bind9, evince, firefox-esr, openjpeg2, pdns, and rsync), Fedora (erlang-cowlib, evince, expat, firefox, kernel, mingw-expat, mysql8.0, mysql8.4, nss, opencryptoki, pgadmin4, proftpd, python-django5, python-django6, python-dotenv, rsync, rust-nu, rustup, and strongswan), Oracle (nginx, nginx:1.24, ruby, ruby:3.3, and squid), Slackware (bind and rsync), SUSE (buildah, distribution, distribution-registry, docker, firefox-esr, helm, libpainter0, libsdb2_4_2, postgresql-jdbc, runc, and vim), and Ubuntu (gnutls28, gst-plugins-good1.0, jq, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, openvpn, rsync, and unbound).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073860/

Ex-TikTok Exec Stuart Flint To Advise Caspar Lee & Ben Jeffries’ Influencer

(date: 2026-05-21)

EXCLUSIVE: Former TikTok exec Stuart Flint has joined the advisory board of Influencer, the global creator marketing biz founded by Caspar Lee and Ben Jeffries. Flint was TikTok’s VP, Sales in Europe, leading the social media app on commercial operations in the continent and is now SVP and Managing Director, EMEA for DoubleVerify. We hear […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/stuart-flint-influencer-caspar-lee-1236917728/

Longtime Broadway Press Agency Boneau/Bryan-Brown Gets New Principal Owners, Name Change

(date: 2026-05-21)

Boneau/Bryan-Brown, for more than 30 years one of Broadway’s busiest preeminent press agencies representing hundreds of shows with campaigns garnering 254 Tony Awards, is soon to have new principal ownership and a name change to Aperture Public Relations. Formed in 1991 by press agents Chris Boneau and Adrian Bryan-Brown and quickly establishing itself in the forefront of a […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/boneau-bryan-brown-aperture-broadway-1236917090/

‘Victorian Psycho’: Maika Monroe Is A Crazed Governess In First Trailer For Cannes Horror

(date: 2026-05-21)

Here’s your first teaser trailer for Maika Monroe horror Victorian Psycho, which debuts today in Cannes’ UCR section. Based on the novel by Virginia Feito, the synopsis reads: “When eccentric governess Winifred (Monroe) arrives at a remote gothic manor in Victorian England, her unnerving charm hides a deadly secret. Strange, unsettling incidents become harder to […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/victorian-psycho-maika-monroe-first-teaser-trailer-horror-1236917718/

Rami Malek Says “There Was A Certain Sense Of Fear” In Taking On ‘The Man I Love’ After Playing Freddie Mercury In ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ – Cannes

(date: 2026-05-21)

Before taking on a performing artist who is battling AIDs in 1980s New York in Ira Sachs’ latest Cannes feature The Man I Love, star Rami Malek said, “I can’t do this, there’s too many similarities.” Similarities to his Oscar winning Best Actor role of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody who also suffered from AIDs. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/rami-malek-cannes-man-i-love-1236917649/

‘Fatherland’ Producer Ewa Puszczyńska On Working With Paweł Pawlikowski, Poland’s Growing Production Landscape & “Finding Common Ground” With Filmmakers

(date: 2026-05-21)

Polish producer Ewa Puszczyńska has long been one of the country’s most recognized film producers who has steadily built a reputation for supporting some of the most ambitious cinema to come out of Europe across the last decade. She’s worked with directors such as Paweł Pawlikowski, David Lynch, Jonathan Glazer, Jesse Eisenberg and Agnieszka Smoczyńska […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/fatherland-ewa-puszczynska-extreme-emotions-pawilkowski-1236917366/

European Screenwriters Body Voices Support For Signatories Of Anti-Bolloré Letter & Says Canal+ Talent Boycott Is Symptomatic Of Wider Pan-Europe Trend

(date: 2026-05-21)

EXCLUSIVE: The Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) has waded into the debate over Vincent Bolloré’s growing control of the French entertainment and media sectors, sparked by the ‘It’s Time To Switch-Off Bolloré’ letter launched on the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, saying it is symptomatic of a wider trend across Europe. “The 2026 […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/screenwriters-fsa-bollore-letter-boycott-europe-trend-1236917667/

Trump Will Lose His War on Laughter

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

It's going about as swimmingly as the one with Iran.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-will-lose-his-war-on-laughter-ad2

The Real AI Threat is the Bubble, not the Apocalypse

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

The most pressing AI-driven crisis is the overestimation of AI’s capabilities and impacts, which has produced a historically large speculative AI bubble. To safeguard against this economic catastrophe, policymakers must confront and resist AI industry hype.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-real-ai-threat-is-the-bubble-not-the-apocalypse/

divest-from-spotify

(date: 2026-05-21)

Divest from Spotify!

http://toolkit.wellgedacht.org/doku.php?id=guides:divest-from-spotify&rev=1779359985&do=diff

Challenging the Narrative of European Decline: Revised, Free Repost

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

I do not think that word “productivity” means what people think it means

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/challenging-the-narrative-of-european-478

Lit Hub Daily: May 21, 2026

(date: 2026-05-21)

Katherine Packert Burke considers eight different attempts at explaining the purpose of trans literature. | Lit Hub Criticism Why you shouldn’t feel guilty about the books you haven’t read. | Lit Hub Craft On the new podcast Passages: On Morrison

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-21-2026/

How Hennepin County unwound an ICE agent's web of lies

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Christian Castro is now the subject of a nationwide arrest warrant.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/christian-castro-ice-shooting-north-minneapolis

339. Electric truck. African vaccines. American rivers. White-tailed eagles.

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Some of the species don’t match anything in the books yet.

https://fixthenews.com/p/339-electric-truck-african-vaccines

Deadline’s Reality TV Summit Comes To SXSW London Featuring Netflix’s UK Unscripted Boss, Top Producers, AI Deep Dive & ‘Taskmaster’ With Alex Horne

(date: 2026-05-21)

Deadline is bringing its Reality TV Summit to SXSW London with panels, keynotes and masterclasses on June 2. Syeda Irtizaali, Netflix’s UK unscripted boss, will be the keynote speaker. Irtizaali is one of the UK’s best-known unscripted execs. She was one of the architects behind the landmark BBC-NBC deal that has seen The Traitors become […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/deadline-reality-tv-summit-sxsw-london-netflix-taskmaster-1236917635/

Uncloud Prometheus, part II

(date: 2026-05-21)

Had some fun playing with my fork of Uncloud. And making metrics work.

In prometheus we use dns_sd_configs to pick up new things automatically:

- job_name: uncloud
  dns_sd_configs:
  - names: ["m.internal"]
   type: A
   port: 51004
- job_name: caddy
  dns_sd_configs:
  - names: ["caddy.internal"]
    type: A
    port: 9180

For caddy metrics, we hack around a little… in the x-caddy file we deploy for Caddy add:

metrics {
    per_host
}

But this serves metrics on localhost inside the container. So we need to export this, we can’t add this snippet:

https://miek.nl/2026/may/21/uncloud-prometheus-part-ii/

‘The Birthday Party’ Clip: First Look At Monica Bellucci In Cannes Palme D’Or Contender Unveiled

(date: 2026-05-21)

EXCLUSIVE: Monica Bellucci hits Cannes Film Festival this year in Léa Mysius’ Palme d’Or contender The Birthday Party (Histoires De La Nuit) and Deadline can reveal a first look of the star in the dark thriller, which closes the main competition program on Friday. Adapted from Laurent Mauvignier’s eponymous best-selling, the picture revolves around Thomas, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/clip-birthday-party-monica-bellucci-cannes-contender-1236917377/

Changes in the Rogue Scholar blog submission workflow

(date: 2026-05-21)

Submitting a blog to the Rogue Scholar science blog archive requires filling out a simple form, and sometimes answering a few additional questions via email. In recent months I haven't caught up with the submissions and decided to implement a few changes.

Participating in Rogue Scholar doesn'

https://blog.front-matter.de/posts/changes-in-the-rogue-scholar-blog-submission-workflow/

Netflix Going Big In Japan With Deal For 20 NHK Dramas & Variety Show

(date: 2026-05-21)

Netflix is going big in Japan after striking a deal with national broadcaster NHK for a wealth of dramas and landing its first variety show. The streamer, which has been keen to expand its Japanese footprint, will launch six NHK series next month including Taiga drama Strategist KANBE; the morning serial Mampuku; Drama 10’s Descending […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/netflix-japan-nhk-deal-20-drama-monday-late-show-1236917636/

Namwali Serpell and Tracy K. Smith Discuss Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

(date: 2026-05-21)

Namwali Serpell kicks off the tour for her new book On Morrison at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, MA, in conversation with poet Tracy K. Smith. Together, they read the opening of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s debut novel, and discuss

https://lithub.com/namwali-serpell-and-tracy-k-smith-discuss-toni-morrisons-the-bluest-eye/

Mark Jermin, TikTok-Famous Talent Agent To ‘Harry Potter’ Actors, Mishandled Self-Tape Auditions & Misstated His Casting Power

(date: 2026-05-21)

EXCLUSIVE: He’s the TikTok-loving talent agent who has repped young actors like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms breakout Dexter Sol Ansell, but behind the viral videos showcasing his star-making credentials, Mark Jermin has admitted mishandling some self-tape auditions and misstating his power to cast kids in major productions. The 30-year industry veteran specializes in […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/mark-jermin-agent-self-tape-audition-casting-mistakes-1236900742/

Why We Shouldn’t Feel Guilty For Not Being Extremely Well Read

(date: 2026-05-21)

David Lodge, in his 1975 campus novel Changing Places, imagines a cocktail party game that makes fiendish use of imposter syndrome. Visiting professor Phillip Swallow introduces the faculty of fictional Euphoric State University to “Humiliation,” a game whereby every participant

https://lithub.com/why-we-shouldnt-feel-guilty-for-not-being-extremely-well-read/

What Happens When Billionaires Control the Media?

(date: 2026-05-21)

While living in a lavish hilltop castle on the California coast, a wildly rich media mogul recruits charismatic foreign dictators as columnists, criticizes one of his own reporters for being too anti-Nazi, and tries to interest America’s president in a

https://lithub.com/what-happens-when-billionaires-control-the-media/

It’s All Just Torture Porn: A Record of Failed Attempts to Explain What Trans Lit is “For”

(date: 2026-05-21)

First Attempt I stumbled across a delightful 4chan post a few weeks ago. It read: “basically every trans book I’ve read felt like the author shaking me by the shoulders going ‘DON’T DO IT ITS NOT WORTH IT MY LIFE

https://lithub.com/its-all-just-torture-porn-a-record-of-failed-attempts-to-explain-what-trans-lit-is-for/

An Exile’s Guide to Losing a Country

(date: 2026-05-21)

Nation of Strangers is the conclusion of a decade-long odyssey. My ten-year saga began in 2016 when I wrote a book called Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy. Before the book, I’d enjoyed a successful career in my native Turkey

https://lithub.com/an-exiles-guide-to-losing-a-country/

How Donald Trump and His Allies Seek to Remake American Schools in Their Own Image

(date: 2026-05-21)

Trump announced the 1776 Commission in 2020 to promote “patriotic education,” identifying critical race theory as “a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire

https://lithub.com/how-donald-trump-and-his-allies-seek-to-remake-american-schools-in-their-own-image/

My Writing Group Forgot My Birthday: Are They the Assholes?

(date: 2026-05-21)

Howdy! We meet again! Welcome back to the most exciting corner of the internet. That’s right, it’s once again time for Am I the Literary Asshole?, an advice column about drama that sometimes boils down to a misused comma and

https://lithub.com/my-writing-group-forgot-my-birthday-are-they-the-assholes/

5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

(date: 2026-05-21)

Our favorite criticism of the week includes Anand Giridharadas on Theo Baker’s How to Rule the World, Hamilton Cain on Ali Smith’s Glyph, Thomas Mallon on Lois Romano’s An Inconvenient Widow, Kate Preziosi on Paige Lewis’s Canon, and Alex Tan on

https://lithub.com/5-book-reviews-you-need-to-read-this-week-15/

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction

(date: 2026-05-21)

Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. Compiled, designed, and distributed by The Independent Publishers Caucus. * 1. The Calamity

https://lithub.com/the-independent-press-top-40-bestsellers-fiction-18/

PTSD Nation?

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

Have we given up on a central goal we sought to achieve more than two centuries ago?

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-ptsd-nation

The Emperor’s New Slush Fund

(date: 2026-05-21)

This week, Alex digs into the nearly unfathomable corruption of President Trump’s settlement with the Department of Justice, including the $1.776 billion “Anti-weaponization Fund”. She speaks to Michael Fanone, a former DC Metropolitan police officer who was at the Capitol on January 6th to see how he feels about his taxpayer money potentially going to the insurrectionists who attacked him. Then Alex is joined by Andrew Weissman, attorney and author of the new book, Liar’s Kingdom. They talk about the lawsuit against the IRS that started this, and whether Trump actually has the legal immunity the settlement promises.

https://audioboom.com/posts/8906189

May 20, 2026

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-26)

Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and former U.S.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-20-2026

NVIDIA IS NOW VERY CLOSE TO HITTING THE CIRCULAR FINANCING BRICK WALL

(date: 2026-05-21)

Two years ago, I wrote the article “NO, NVIDIA IS ONLY ONE PIECE OF A BIGGER (FRAUDULENT) PUZZLE”, trying to shine a light on what, two years later, became the biggest circular financing scheme in the history of financial markets. Since what I was describing at the time was hard...

The post NVIDIA IS NOW VERY CLOSE TO HITTING THE CIRCULAR FINANCING BRICK WALL appeared first on JustDario.

https://justdario.com/2026/05/nvidia-is-now-very-close-to-hitting-the-circular-financing-brick-wall/

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for May 21, 2026

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Front: OpenSUSE site age restrictions; Lots of LSFMM+BPF coverage; The tenth OpenPGP email summit.
Briefs: Firefox 151.0; pgBackRest funding; RIP Peter G. Neumann; Quotes; ...
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072730/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Yes, an EV really CAN power your home – if it's one of these.

https://electrek.co/2026/05/20/yes-an-ev-really-can-power-your-home-if-its-one-of-these/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-25)

Barney Frank, longtime congressman and gay rights pioneer, dies at home in Maine.

https://www.pressherald.com/2026/05/20/barney-frank-longtime-congressman-and-gay-rights-pioneer-dies-at-home-in-maine/?uuid=76390659-4765-4c6b-ba58-8e9a42144981&lid=233570

Why Trump's Revenge Tour Will Come Back To Bite Him in the Butt

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-27)

While he's turning the Republican Party into his own criminal organization, he's also creating problems for himself over the next six months

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-trumps-revenge-tour-will-come

What's left to say

(date: 2026-05-21, updated: 2026-05-23)

All this is to say that I think that perhaps we were lying to ourselves when we worried about AI and its social impacts, not because we said that the technology is bad and has negative consequences (it does), but because of what we told ourselves: we criticise the technology because it's an affront to human dignity and creativity and damages our ability to create art, write or otherwise be human.

https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/whats-left-to-say

Introducing the pkg.go.dev API

(date: 2026-05-21)

Introducing the new programmatic API for pkg.go.dev, allowing developers to fetch package and module data directly.

https://go.dev/blog/pkgsite-api

Snowcaps

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-24)

I love my snowcaps, in landscape photos and pens. I have been using Montblanc pens for a long time, about three decades now. Slowly the numbers have piled up. The newest pens have a sharper, more stylized white six-pointed star with rounded edges, representing the snow-covered peak of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the …

https://om.co/2026/05/20/snowcaps/

Midday

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Following fires In normal times, Santa Rosa Island is easy to watch from our deck in Santa Barbara. But right now it’s burning up, and smoke from that fire and the Sandy Fire in Simi Valley have added layers of brown to the gray marine haze that comes and goes. So here are some sources […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/20/midday/

Last Call - Tonight, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

Welcome new subscribers!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/last-call-tonight-7pm-et-our-weekly-c09

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-25)

$8B Penn Station rebuild goes to firm apparently favored by Trump; MSG to stay put.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2026/05/20/penn-station-rebuild-trump-amtrak-msg-halmar/?share=heae6amrart6mceawatm

Meet Bobby Pulido, A Grammy-Award Winning Singer-Songwriter Working To Flip TX-15

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

"Bobby grew up surrounded by the values that define South Texas: hard work, humility, family, and faith"

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/meet-bobby-pulido-a-grammy-award

What I said at Berkeley's Commencement

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

My last words to the Class of 2026

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-i-said-at-berkeleys-commencement

This Week In The Big Picture

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

On Sunday, the Trump administration held a Christian nationalist day of prayer on the National Mall as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-big-picture-may-20

Wednesday session

(date: 2026-05-20)

Wednesday session

https://adactio.com/notes/22573

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

Saying Bluesky is part of the web is like saying Spotify or YouTube own podcasting. They say it, but that doesn't mean it's true.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/20.html#a191155

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

I've been following Jake's work privately, but now he's blogging about it publicly. I totally look forward to running Frontier on today's hardware. I especially want to run Manila on one of my home computers, and use it for Linux server apps. I've forgotten so much about how Manila works, but I expect it'll all come back. We had a great team back in the Manila days -- we all used the product, and it was and will be again one of the most powerful and pragmatic programming environments ever.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/20.html#a185129

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-24)

James Murdoch buys up half of Vox Media, grabbing New York and podcasts, but leaving The Verge and SB Nation.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/05/james-murdoch-buys-up-half-of-vox-media-grabbing-new-york-and-podcasts-but-leaving-the-verge-and-sb-nation/

PureOS Crimson Development Report: April 2026 – PureOS Crimson Released

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-21)

The finish line! The moment we have anticipated is finally here – PureOS Crimson is released! All devices running PureOS Byzantium will receive the PureOS Upgrade application with their regular software updates. If you’d like to install Crimson fresh, refer to our installation instructions for PCs, servers, and the Librem 5. This has been an […]

The post PureOS Crimson Development Report: April 2026 – PureOS Crimson Released appeared first on Purism.

https://puri.sm/posts/pureos-crimson-development-report-april-2026-pureos-crimson-released/

Inkwell Rejected From the App Store

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Manton Reece: I submitted Inkwell for iOS to Apple for review on April 21st. It has gone through numerous rejections, code changes, resubmissions, clarifications, one phone call, and one appeal to the review board, which I’m still waiting to hear back on. […] The app didn’t have a way to report objectionable content or block […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/20/inkwell-rejected-from-the-app-store/

Hijacking Apps Using Archive Utility

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk (Mastodon): Until macOS 26.4, Archive Utility had nearly unrestricted filesystem access. Combined with a drag-and-drop sandbox quirk, this let an attacker bypass App Sandbox data containers, Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) protections, and hijack third-party apps — all without special permissions or elevated privileges. […] Here’s one interesting aspect […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/20/hijacking-apps-using-archive-utility/

Core Data Lab 3.0

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Ron Elemans: Despite all that, we have done our best to embrace and implement the concepts of the Liquid Glass design in Core Data Lab 3.0, although with a few tweaks here and there to improve the contrast in especially dialogs. […] Identifying rows in data often depends on attributes with names like ‘identifier’, ‘title’ […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/20/core-data-lab-3-0/

Updating Shared Shortcuts

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Manuel Grabowski: No actual concept of versioning or upgrades for shared shortcuts. Sharing shortcuts happens via weird iCloud URLs rather than being an actual aspect of the system. So to update a shortcut, do you just add it again? No indication of what that will do before you press the button. Will it error out? […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/20/updating-shared-shortcuts/

Apple vs. Indian Antitrust Regulator

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (Slashdot): Apple is fighting an antitrust penalty law in India that could require it to pay massive fines in its ongoing antitrust dispute with Tinder owner Match, reports Reuters. Last year, India passed a law that allows the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to use global turnover when calculating penalties imposed on companies […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/20/apple-vs-indian-antitrust-regulator/

#MyTerms at #CPDP2026

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

CPDP stands for Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection. The theme of this year’s CPDP is “Competing Visions Shared Futures.” The MyTerms future is replacing consent with contract in our online dealings with websites and digital services. Consent is what cookie notices speciously obtain from your clicks on the forced choices that interrupt your first experience […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/20/myterms-at-cpdp2026/

Hagenau

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

I’ve always been a history aficionado, a consumer of both Hollywood and Penguin House’s efforts to sell it.

https://dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/hagenau

Manipulating the Mac Photos Library

(date: 2026-05-20)

Trees on Dunwich Heath

If you're not a technically-inclined user of the Apple Photos app, you may want to skip this one!

The master copies of my photos live in two different worlds.

There are the quick snaps taken on my iPhone: handy to browse, to share, to sync across devices and, increasingly important for me, to search by using a map. I generally access these, like everyone else, using the Apple Photos app, and they're backed up to iCloud.

Then there are the 'proper' photos: taken on a 'real' camera, stored on a ZFS filesystem on my NAS, backed up automatically to two remote locations, and managed using Photo Mechanic and Capture One.

But increasingly, of course, the boundary between these is blurring, as phone cameras become capable of taking serious pictures, and as modern-day tasks such as sharing on social media and sending using Airdrop become something I want to do with my 'proper' photos too.

So I've started to experiment with ways to blend the two, and will talk more about them in a later post if they work well! But in the meantime, I just wanted to introduce Rhet Turnbull's excellent osxphotos software, which is really handy for anyone wanting to do something similar.

It's a command-line tool (and Python module) that can provide access to the Photos library and gives you a wide range of options. Here's just one example as an illustration:

osxphotos export ~/PhotoSync/FromPhotos \ --favorite --update --sidecar XMP \ --download-missing --exiftool \ --skip-edited

This will export any photos marked as 'Favourites' to the ~/PhotoSync/FromPhotos directory, only if they're new or updated since a previous export. It will create an XMP sidecar file -- a standard XML format for storing metadata alongside the images -- for each one. If the file is on iCloud but not on your local device, it will attempt to download it first, and it will skip versions edited in Photos because I just want the raw originals for my particular workflow. (There is a vast array of further options available, just on the export command! If, say, the Photos app has recognised the faces in your photos, you can turn the names into keywords in your exported files.)

And hey presto, I have a nice directory of favourite iPhone photos to incorporate in the library of my 'proper' photo-management software.

The import and export subcommands are the key ones for most people, but there are a couple of dozen other options...for example:

osxphotos labels will print out all the automatically-assigned labels given to your photos; I was interested to find things like 'floodplain' and 'handwriting' in there; terms I wouldn't otherwise have thought of typing into the search box.
osxphotos add-locations will let you find photos that have no location info and assign them a location if found on another photo taken within a specified time period: handy if, say, you took a photo with your good camera (which has no GPS) and would like to copy the geotags from the snaps you took at the same time with your iPhone.
Some of the commands, though entered on the command line, will operate by default on any images you've currently got selected in the Photos app. I've just clicked a couple of pictures of Rose and Tilly, and set their captions using:

osxphotos batch-edit --caption "Rose and Tilly {created.year}-{created.mm}-{created.dd}"

Anyway, I hope this gives you some ideas. I'll be playing with this a lot in future, I think!

http://statusq.org/archives/2026/05/20/13685/

The Mandalorian y Grogu no quieren terminar su historia

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Dirección: Jon Favreau. Guion: Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni y Noah Kloor. Elenco: Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, Sigourney Weaver, Jonny Coyne, Martin Scorsese, Steve Blum. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30825738/ Pareciera que no, pero han pasado siete años desde que salió la última película de Star Wars en cines. En 2019, […]

La entrada The Mandalorian y Grogu no quieren terminar su historia se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/resenas-the-mandalorian-y-grogu/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resenas-the-mandalorian-y-grogu

Anyone Who Thinks Trump Is Winning Isn't Paying Attention

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

Hopium paid subscribers gather tonight at 7pm ET to go over the primary results and talk politics....

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/anyone-who-thinks-trump-is-winning

Could generative AI turn out to be the tech industry’s Vietnam? And could public backlash lead AI to a better place?

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

We live in interesting times

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/could-generative-ai-could-turn-out

Fertility And Beer

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/fertility-and-beer/

Indivisible Debrief: Reflections on May Day

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

On May Day, Indivisibles joined a coalition of over 280 other organizations and labor unions for a day of action and “No Work, No School, No Shopping.” It was an economic disruption to show Trump and his billionaire buddies that we – the workers, the students, the everyday people – have economic power and we aren’t afraid to flex it.

https://indivisibleteam.substack.com/p/indivisible-debrief-reflections-on

The Art of the Deal with Yourself

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump just became the Quad God of legal maneuvers by landing an impossible trick: suing and settling with his own government, only to walk away with a $1.776 billion slush fund and immunity.

https://plus.briantylercohen.com/p/the-lawsuit-is-coming-from-inside

On AI Security

(date: 2026-05-20)

Good report:

Executive Summary: Let’s say you wanted to make sure that your AI is secure. Can you just maximize the security and privacy benchmark and call it a day? Nope, because benchmarks don’t actually work for measuring AI capabilities (even when they are NOT emergent systemic properties like security). So let’s take a step back: how do you measure security in the first place? Good question. Over the last 30 years, security engineering for software evolved from black box penetration testing, through whitebox code analysis and architectural risk analysis to de facto process-driven standards like the Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM). Software had a very deep impact on business operations, and it appears that AI is going to have an even deeper impact. Will a software security-like measurement move work for AI? Probably. In the meantime we can make real progress in AI security by cleaning up our WHAT piles and managing risk by identifying and applying good assurance processes. (Spoiler alert: no matter what we do, we still don’t get a security meter for AI, so we need to be extra vigilant about security.)...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/on-ai-security.html

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

Claude Code doesn't know about "user perspective," but it learns quickly. The UI of the software we're working on is fenced off, I use it, but I don't read code in there. I don't want to know how it works, I want to use it and getting right. This is an important technique. Later once things are locked down, I don't mind learning more about how it was done.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/20.html#a141404

Why You Should Avoid False Urgency

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

How everything feels important when nothing is prioritized.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/why-you-should-avoid-false-urgency

Welcome to the Raspberry Pi Podcast

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

Surprise! We launched a podcast. Available now, live from Pi Towers, wherever you get your podcasts.

The post Welcome to the Raspberry Pi Podcast appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/welcome-to-the-raspberry-pi-podcast/

IATSE Endorses Karen Bass’ Bid For Reelection In Los Angeles Mayor Race

(date: 2026-05-20)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has received the endorsement of the International Alliance of Theatrical State Employees, key industry support in her primary race for reelection next month. The California IATSE Council said in a statement on Wednesday, “Karen Bass has been fighting for film and television workers her whole career. She wrote California’s original […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/karen-bass-iatse-los-angeles-mayor-race-1236916610/

[$] What is to be done about MGLRU?

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-25)

"Reclaim" is the task of finding memory that can be taken away from its current user and put to better uses within the system; it is a core part of the memory-management picture. The addition of the multi-generational LRU (MGLRU) was meant to provide a better reclaim implementation than the "traditional LRU" that preceded it, but MGLRU has complicated the situation instead. No fewer than three memory-management-track sessions at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit were focused on MGLRU, with an eye toward integrating it more fully, improving its performance, and addressing some problems encountered with Android systems.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072866/

Photography Workflow with Darktable on Linux Lightroom on GrapheneOS

(date: 2026-05-20)

A brief overview of my photography workflow with ~~_Darktable_ on Linux~~ _Lightroom Mobile_ on GrapheneOS.

https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/photography-workflow-with-lightroom-on-grapheneos/

Security updates for Wednesday

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-25)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (kernel, libpng, nginx, nginx:1.24, ruby, and ruby:3.3), Debian (gnutls28 and linux-6.1), Fedora (dnsmasq, kernel, keylime-agent-rust, perl-Net-CIDR-Lite, python-pysam, python-urllib3, rust-cargo-vendor-filterer, rust-ingredients, rust-oo7-cli, rust-rpki, rust-sevctl, and rust-tealdeer), Mageia (bind), Oracle (bind, giflib, gimp:2.8, kernel, libpng, rsync, ruby, and vim), Slackware (haveged and mozilla), SUSE (cockpit, dnsmasq, erlang26, freeipmi, git-bug, glibc, GraphicsMagick, haveged, ImageMagick, iproute2, kernel, openssh, perl-CryptX, perl-HTTP-Tiny, postgresql14, postgresql15, postgresql16, python-Pillow, rsync, tiff, and traefik), and Ubuntu (Highlight.js, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.15, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-hwe-5.15, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.15, linux-intel-iotg, linux-intel-iotg-5.15, linux-kvm, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-bluefield, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gcp-fips, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-fips, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-fips, linux-gke, linux-gkeop, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-6.8, linux-lowlatency, linux-lowlatency-hwe-6.8, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-realtime, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.8, linux, linux-aws, linux-hwe-6.17, linux-oem-6.17, linux-oracle, linux-raspi, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.17, and smarty3).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073713/

Mike Fantasia Set For Career Honor From Location Managers Guild International

(date: 2026-05-20)

Veteran location manager and production supervisor Mike Fantasia, whose credits range from A River Runs Through It and Jerry Maguire to Top Gun: Maverick and Killers of the Flower Moon, is set for a big career honor this summer. The Location Managers Guild International said Wednesday that he will receive its 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/mike-fantasia-lifetime-achievement-award-lmgi-1236916219/

BTS Set For American Music Awards 2026 Appearance

(date: 2026-05-20)

BTS has been confirmed to make a special appearance at the 2026 American Music Awards set for Monday, May 25. Their appearance at the AMAs will be a homecoming for the K-pop group as they made their U.S. television performance debut at the award show back in 2017. BTS has already won 11 trophies in […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/bts-american-music-awards-2026-1236916485/

Donald Trump Gloats As Primary Wins Show His Power Over The GOP

(date: 2026-05-20)

Donald Trump populated his Truth Social account overnight with more than three dozen banners relishing his wins in a series of primary races on Tuesday — further evidence of his grip on the Republican party. The biggest prize was the ouster of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has emerged as one of the president’s most […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/trump-primary-wins-republican-party-1236916592/

@DAIR blog

(date: 2026-05-20)

This is happening in ~3 hours👇🏼 12pm ET/4pm GMT.

[contains quote post or other embedded content]

https://bsky.app/profile/dairinstitute.bsky.social/post/3mmbxb6xkyk2b

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

I couldn't not say anything about the Knicks win last night in the opening game of the NBA Eastern Conference finals. The Knicks were losing, then winning big, then fell apart, and by midway through the 4th quarter they were down by 22, and the Clevelands were completely in charge. But then the Knicks came back, miraculously tied the game so it went into overtime where the Knicks dominated, and won. Actually it wasn't really a miracle, it was somewhat predictable. The Knicks were playing on a lot of rest, and one of the big advantages they have this year over last is a deep and strong bench and a coach who plays them (last year's coach didn't). So the Knicks didn't get tired and the Cavs were wiped out by the 4th quarter. Their shots weren't long or short, aimed, they had no flow, they weren't getting rebounds, they didn't have good ball movement. While Brunson was driving the Knicks the Cavs just weren't there. When things started turning around in the 4th I was pretty sure the Knicks would win. I had no basis for believing this, coming back from 22 down so late in the game is pretty unlikely. In most cities that's when the fans start heading home, but not in NYC. We stay till the end because sometimes, maybe often with this years' Knicks, the team you think is going to lose actually ends up winning.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/20.html#a123914

Channel 4 CEO Apologizes To Women Who Made “Very Troubling” Rape Allegations On ‘Married At First Sight UK’

(date: 2026-05-20)

New Channel 4 CEO Priya Dogra has apologized to the women who made “very troubling” rape allegations on Married at First Sight UK (MAFS), but has stressed the network “cannot investigate the specific allegations against the men.” Dogra, who is just two months into the job, delivered her second statement to press this morning at […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/married-at-first-sight-uk-channel-4-ceo-dogra-says-sorry-1236916536/

Pedro Almodóvar Speaks Out Against Donald Trump, Canal+ Talent Boycott At Cannes: “Worst Thing To Happen To Us Is To Stay Silent”

(date: 2026-05-20)

Pedro Almodóvar was asked by one Spanish journalist at today’s Cannes press conference for his pic Bitter Christmas about “Hollywood being in crisis and Canal+ threatening creators.” The latter refers to Canal+ Chair and CEO, the Maxime Saada, who said that the conglom won’t work with those who signed the Time To Switch-Off Bolloré” petition which sounded […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-pedro-almodovar-donald-trump-canal-1236916548/

Netflix Reveals ‘One Hundred Years Of Solitude’ Part Two Plans, Including Standalone Grand Finale

(date: 2026-05-20)

EXCLUSIVE: The second and final part of Netflix’s One Hundred Years of Solitude will begin streaming in August, with the adaptation concluding in a standalone grand finale debuting later that month. As well as the launch details, we can exclusively share the trailer and first art from part two of the series, an adaptation of […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/one-hundred-years-of-solitude-part-2-finale-netflix-1236916528/

[$] The tenth OpenPGP email summit

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-25)

The OpenPGP Email Summit is an annual meeting for those who work on encrypted email and related topics. The tenth
installment of this meeting took place in March 2026 and the minutes have now been published. As usual, a wide range of topics were discussed. Highlights included support for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) with multiple actors planning rollouts within this year, a promising new approach for making email signatures ubiquitous with the plan of making OpenPGP signed email a default, a new draft that brings reliable deletion (or "forward secrecy") features to OpenPGP, as well as a plan for transferring ownership of the OpenPGP.org domain.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072870/

From Dropping Bombs to Dropping Bonds

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

The economic costs of the Iran debacle keep rising

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/from-dropping-bombs-to-dropping-bonds

Lit Hub Daily: May 20, 2026

(date: 2026-05-20)

Everyone’s talking about Salome right now, and Leslie Baird has some answers about why. | Lit Hub Politics How the critical approaches outlined in George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain can apply to audio narratives, too. |

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-20-2026/

Andy Garcia Says He Pitched Cannes Competition Title ‘Diamond’ To HBO & Other TV Networks Before Adapting The Story For Cinemas: “Nobody Bought It”

(date: 2026-05-20)

Andy Garcia debuted Diamond, his latest feature as a director, last night in Cannes. The film screened Out of Competition. Billed as a love letter to L.A. and a homage to the film noir of the past, the quirky whodunnit is written and directed by Garcia, who also stars as the mysterious figure of Joe […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/andy-garcia-cannes-diamond-hbo-tv-1236916537/

Trump's $1.8b slush fund could turn into giant can of worms

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

At the very least, it'll make the midterms messy.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-weaponization-fund

Elev8on Management Debuts AI-Powered American Talent Tool St8r In Cannes

(date: 2026-05-20)

EXCLUSIVE: Elev8on Management has officially launched its AI-powered tool that assesses the chances of U.S. talent in Europe. St8r, the new name for Pulse By Elev8on, debuted in Cannes following a Beta testing phases in which ten European producers and distributors provided positive feedback. It has been developed over recent years. The tool, which we […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/elev8on-management-debuts-st8r-talent-tool-1236916520/

Google just spat in my face

(date: 2026-05-20)

It’s Google I/O week and this year’s theme is performative slop. Budding Googlers battle it out on stage vying for executive eyeballs. The prize? Exemption from the next culling. As you might know AI isn’t my cup of tea and my AI policy explains why. […]

https://dbushell.com/2026/05/20/google-just-spat-in-my-face/

Dragoncatcher: The fourth law

(date: 2026-05-20)

AI must not lie. Read here.

https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/fourth-law/

How George Saunders’s Analysis of Russian Masters Provides a Critical Language for Audio Narratives

(date: 2026-05-20)

In 2022, George Saunders published A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, a book that shared his technique and structure for critical reading and analysis of critical works by a quartet of Russian masters, offering a guide not only to would-be novelists and

https://lithub.com/how-george-saunderss-analysis-of-russian-masters-provides-a-critical-language-for-audio-narratives/

divest-from-spotify

(date: 2026-05-20)

Divest from Spotify!

In this (not-definitive) guide we wanted to share some of our experience moving away from Spotify (or from other Big Tech, and not-so-Big-Tech music streaming services) as music listeners and as music publishers (as a label and a collective of artists).

http://toolkit.wellgedacht.org/doku.php?id=guides:divest-from-spotify&rev=1779270685&do=diff

Andrey Zvyagintsev Hails Return To Cannes With ‘Minotaur’ As One Of The Best Things To Happen To Him In Nearly A Decade

(date: 2026-05-20)

Exiled Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev has expressed his pleasure at being back at the Cannes Film Festival with Palme d’Or contender Minotaur after a near decade absence . “It’s one of the greatest things that’s happened to me over these last nine years. Coming back after such a lengthy absence to the Cannes Film Festival […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/andrey-zvyagintsev-cannes-minotaur-best-things-1236916522/

“Faithless and Foolish.” How a Young George Washintgon Failed Upward Into an Unpaid Internship

(date: 2026-05-20)

A young man seeking a career requires a role model, or at least benefits from one. George Washington’s father had been a planter and merchant, but Augustine Washington’s early death deprived the boy of direct observation during the years when

https://lithub.com/faithless-and-foolish-how-a-young-george-washintgon-failed-upward-into-an-unpaid-internship/

Our Hormones Make Us Who We Are

(date: 2026-05-20)

I used to think I was in control of my life. But I don’t believe that any more. Learning about hormones changed everything. The illusion of our autonomy, though, can be persuasive, because when all is functioning well, we barely

https://lithub.com/our-hormones-make-us-who-we-are/

How This is Your Brain on Music Transformed Neuroscience

(date: 2026-05-20)

Twenty years ago, when This Is Your Brain on Music was published, the idea that music could be studied with the tools of biology and neuroscience was a niche one. When it came out, I was junior faculty at Northwestern,

https://lithub.com/how-this-is-your-brain-on-music-transformed-neuroscience/

Why Everyone is Talking About Salome These Days

(date: 2026-05-20)

The couple at the table next to me at the restaurant in rural Tuscany were fighting over their dinner. Arms flew around in exasperation, and the woman left the table for such a long time that the large dog lying

https://lithub.com/why-everyone-is-talking-about-salome-these-days/

Strange, Mysterious and Beautiful: Rachel Mills Recommends Essential Novels of Sisterhood

(date: 2026-05-20)

Sisters have fascinated writers forever—Pride and Prejudice, Cold Comfort Farm, Women In Love, Atonement, The Poisonwood Bible, and The Virgin Suicides—there’s a rich seam to be found in the uniquely special and complicated relationship between female siblings. Shakespeare sometimes gave

https://lithub.com/strange-mysterious-and-beautiful-rachel-mills-recommends-essential-novels-of-sisterhood/

Why, As Writers, Do We Cut the Things We Love?

(date: 2026-05-20)

Here are a few details from past drafts of my latest novel that ended up on the cutting room floor: the family babies, a brother-and-sister duo marooned from their older siblings by an age gap, branch off from their folks,

https://lithub.com/why-as-writers-do-we-cut-the-things-we-love/

A Pawnshop of the Mind: In Praise of Object-Based Writing

(date: 2026-05-20)

“What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” –TS Eliot, from “A Little Gidding” from The Four Quartets * Franca owned a

https://lithub.com/a-pawnshop-of-the-mind-in-praise-of-object-based-writing/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-24)

Jake Savin: Reviving UserLand Frontier (and friends).

https://jakesav.in/2026/05/20/reviving-userland-frontier-and-friends/

‘Lord Of The Rings’ & ‘Tomb Raider’ To Be Housed At Fellowship Entertainment After Embracer Spin-Off

(date: 2026-05-20)

The Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider brands will be part of a new Stockholm-listed, “IP-led” entertainment business. Fellowship Entertainment is being formed through a company split at Embracer Group, which owns the underlying IP rights to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Tomb Raider among other brands. Embracer will divide into […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/lord-of-the-rings-tomb-raider-to-be-housed-at-fellowship-entertainment-after-embracer-spin-off-1236916511/

BBC’s New Boss Tells Staff He Will Use Data To Build “Sat Nav Around Bias” & Says iPlayer Must Improve

(date: 2026-05-20)

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC’s new director general has revealed that he plans to use data to improve impartiality, and has warned that iPlayer is not doing a good enough job of showcasing the corporation’s content. In his first address to staff on his second day in office, former Google executive Matt Brittin said that he wanted […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/bbc-matt-brittin-sat-nav-bias-1236916505/

Magician

(date: 2026-05-20)

In the realm of carnivals, theirs was a small one. While other carnivals boasted thrill rides, bounties of festive food and a multitude of games with fantastic prizes beneath multicolored tents, theirs had only a handful of these things, rides

https://lithub.com/magician/

Uncloud TLS

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-21)

Caddy in a distributed setup (i.e. running on more than one machine) is a nightmare together with Let’s Encrypt ACME challenges… What happens is that Caddy A starts a challenge, which ends up at Caddy B and this can ping-pong for days before any certificates are given - and then only to a single instance, so the other instance will try for even longer. Of course the more of these you have the worse the problem gets.

https://miek.nl/2026/may/20/uncloud-tls/

Office Hours: Who's Been Most Effective at Alerting America?

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-27)

What they have to teach us about effective communication in the time of a neofascist

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-whos-best-at-getting

Law and Technology

(date: 2026-05-20)

In Law and Technology, legal scholar Ryan Calo explores one of the defining challenges of our time: how societies can govern rapidly evolving technologies before those technologies reshape laws, rights, and institutions. Rather than treating each new innovation as a completely unique problem, Calo argues for a more durable framework for thinking about technology policy that helps lawmakers, courts, and the public respond thoughtfully to developments ranging from facial recognition to generative AI. Legal scholar Danielle Citron joins Calo for a conversation about regulation, accountability, and what it means to build laws that can keep pace with technological change.

Grab your copy of Law and Technology: https://www.law-and-technology.com

This conversation was recorded on 3/26/2026. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/law-and-technology

Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge

https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge-episode-30

May 19, 2026

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-26)

Yesterday the Department of Justice announced it is creating a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate what it calls victims of the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-19-2026

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-20, updated: 2026-05-24)

Knicks mount furious rally to beat Cavaliers in thrilling Game 1 win.

https://nypost.com/2026/05/19/sports/knicks-mount-furious-rally-to-beat-cavaliers-in-thrilling-game-1-win/

Wednesday 20 May, 2026

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

A tale of two kisses Robert Doisneau’s famous photograph of two carefree lovers outside the Hotel de Ville in Paris is 1950 must be one of the best-known images in the world. The picture, he later said, “represented a perfect … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/wednesday-20-may-2026/42105/

Newsletter: Scientology Speed-Runs: Viral Videos of Trespassing and Harassment of Cult Victims

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Why This “Hilarious” TikTok Trend is Doing More Harm than Good

https://stevenhassan.substack.com/p/newsletter-scientology-speed-runs

Tom Steyer for Governor of California

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Here's Why

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/tom-steyer-for-governor-of-california

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-19)

Music has always had the ability to speak to us, and for us, in a way nothing else can. That’s why, if you want to understand the last 250 years of American life, one of the best ways to do it is to listen to the music that defined them.https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/barack-obama-on-american-music-1235560707/

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mmabyoq4322n

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-24)

Celebrating 50 Years of Apple with Steve Wozniak.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/celebrating-50-years-of-apple-with?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2664509&post_id=198464776&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ykjb&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The VW ID Buzz: six months and eight thousand miles later

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

In December of 2025, I found a used 2025 VW ID Buzz in Texas that was selling for a great price, so I flew down, bought it, and drove it back.

The long road trip was a great introduction to the vehicle and now that it's been in

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/the-vw-id-buzz-six-months-and-eight-thousand-miles-later/

Senator Ruben Gallego On Why America Must Stand With Ukraine, Europe, And NATO

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Senator Gallego dropped by this morning to discuss his upcoming trip to Ukraine

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/senator-ruben-gallego-on-why-america

start

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

The Post-Platform Digital Publishing Toolkit is an iterative digital and print publication by Well Gedacht Publishing exploring how to overcome the limitations of digital publishing on social media and other online platforms, and advocates for self-hosted infrastructures and practices for artists and artists' book publishers. You can find the first iteration of the print publication

http://toolkit.wellgedacht.org/doku.php?id=start&rev=1779221762&do=diff

Celebrating 50 Years of Apple with Steve Wozniak

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

As Apple celebrates its 50th anniversary, we’re revisiting an extraordinary conversation with co-founder Steve Wozniak—the engineer whose creativity, curiosity, and unconventional thinking helped launch one of the most influential companies in history.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/celebrating-50-years-of-apple-with

Hessen wieder vor dem Verfassungsgericht: CCC-Stellungnahme zu automatisierter Datenanalyse

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-20)

In einer Stellungnahme an das Bundesverfassungsgericht zum hessischen Polizeigesetz bewertet der CCC die erneut ausgeweitete automatisierte Datenanalyse als technisch zu weitgehend und als quantitativ und qualitativ zu wenig begrenzt. Besonders problematisch sind die Nutzung undefinierter „KI“-Verfahren sowie die Abhängigkeit von der intransparenten Palantir-Software „HessenDATA“.

https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2026/palantir-hsog

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-19)

The decisions made by state supreme courts touch every part of our lives. And that’s especially important when voting rights and basic freedoms are being challenged.

Today voters in Georgia can stand up for fairness and integrity by electing Miracle Rankin and Jen Jordan to Georgia’s Supreme Court.

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mma6c23s622z

Betting On War

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

“The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino” — Donald Trump

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-administration-betting-war

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-19:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 29 updated places.

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

"main" branch:

2bb5c547 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

no change: gis package

843b529f - updated data quality

0b3cc56d - updated bibliography

612a6e18 - updated indexes

e7702432 - updated sidebar

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

e16da11b - updated geojson and names index

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

f4785a63 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116602787233301387

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-24)

Republican Senators Are Livid at Trump’s Endorsement of Paxton. #livid

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/politics/republican-senators-trump-paxton.html

Trump Just Stole Your Money!

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

He's setting up his own taxpayer-funded slush fund to compensate the January 6 rioters and other criminal supporters

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-just-stole-your-money

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-22)

How Google Is Starting to Win the A.I. Race.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/technology/personaltech/google-gemini-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jlA.qkpL.jNeIoIBJsCYB&smid=url-share

Apple’s 2026 Accessibility Feature Preview

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Hartley Charlton (Hacker News): Apple today announced a suite of accessibility updates that use Apple Intelligence to expand capabilities across VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control, and Accessibility Reader, with additional new features for generated subtitles and wheelchair control via Apple Vision Pro. Shelly Brisbin: With updates to live recognition, VoiceOver users can press the iPhone action […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/19/apples-2026-accessibility-feature-preview/

How Fake Contacts Can Fix Dictation’s Proper Noun Problems

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Adam Engst: Apple doesn’t provide a user-editable list where you can add special words, but there is a back-door way to train Dictation—on all your Apple devices—to work more the way you prefer: through the Contacts app. […] Regardless of the number of words in the name or phrase, I put them all in the […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/19/how-fake-contacts-can-fix-dictations-proper-noun-problems/

Fantastical at 15

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Flexibits: So, grab a slice of virtual cake and join us on a trip down memory lane as we look back at how far Fantastical (and Flexibits) has come! Still one of my favorite apps, though I don’t use most of the advanced features. Previously: Fantastical 4.0.7 The Sad State of Mac Calendar Scripting

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/19/fantastical-at-15/

Fortnite Returns to the App Store Except in Australia

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Hartley Charlton: Fortnite is back on the App Store in every country except Australia, Epic Games announced today, as the company declared it is entering the “final battle” of its long-running legal dispute with Apple. Epic said the decision to push Fortnite back onto iOS globally was prompted by Apple’s own words to the U.S. […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/19/fortnite-returns-to-the-app-store-except-in-australia/

Kickstart 1.0

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Paul Hudson (Mastodon, Twitter): It’s called Kickstart, and it has only one job: to help indie developers make more money on the App Store. Instead of juggling spreadsheets, launch docs, analytics dashboards, review tools, and half-finished marketing plans, Kickstart gives you one focused workspace for launch, growth, and iteration. […] Kickstart helps turn all those […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/19/kickstart-1-0/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Markdown support is a big feature for people who want to know what we're doing with their text.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/19.html#a171955

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-22)

Andrew Shell is writing about his experience with Claude Code.

https://andrewshell.org/2026/05/a-first-with-claude-code/

The Little-Known Nuclear Deal That Could Help Our Climate Crisis

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

The post The Little-Known Nuclear Deal That Could Help Our Climate Crisis appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/the-little-known-nuclear-deal-that-could-help-our-climate-crisis

The Interface Is No Longer the Product

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

The future of AI may not be agents using today’s apps. It may be apps rebuilt around structured representations agents can inspect, modify, and validate directly. The deck, doc, or dashboard becomes the output, not the source of truth.

https://blog.mozilla.ai/the-interface-is-no-longer-the-product/

Social Justice Pedagogies

(date: 2026-05-19)

In our call for submissions, we asked educators from across the disciplines to share teaching materials that forward social justice pedagogies. While our understanding of social justice is grounded in the field of Technical and Professional Communication’s ongoing social justice turn toward actionable and coalitional justice, we invited contributors to briefly discuss how their course [...]

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/para-lorena-villarreal-y-natalia-plascencia-la-vida-es/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=para-lorena-villarreal-y-natalia-plascencia-la-vida-es

https://www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org/2026/05/19/social-justice-pedagogies/

Firefox 151.0 released

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-25)

Version
151.0 of the Firefox browser has been released. Significant changes include the ability to clear and restart a private-browsing session, better fingerprinting protection, control over the apparent location when using the Firefox VPN, and more.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073579/

Para Lorena Villarreal y Natalia Plascencia, la vida es…

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

La directora y productora mexicana Lorena Villarreal está por estrenar su tercer largometraje, La vida es, una película donde Nora (Natalia Plascencia), su protagonista, enfrenta altibajos emocionales mientras lidia con desafíos personales y cambios inesperados que transforman su vida durante los días previos a cumplir 40 años. En el viaje la acompaña Ely (Naian González […]

La entrada Para Lorena Villarreal y Natalia Plascencia, la vida es… se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

RE: https://mastodon.social/@xogot/116601839789786661

This is what we have been up to since October.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116601971764181513

[$] openSUSE "terms of site" raise complaints about age restrictions

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-24)

Many people in the Linux community began using the operating system—and contributing to open source—at a tender age, often well before their 16th birthday. Thus, a recent change in openSUSE's terms of site (ToS) that required users of the project's web site to be "at least 16 years of age or the age of majority" in their jurisdiction has raised objections. The terms have since been modified, though users must still have parental approval to create accounts if they are younger than 16.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072689/

Are Better Injuries Worse?

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/are-better-injuries-worse/

Flooded Zones Part 2

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

Source This is the promised follow-on to Flooded Zones Part 1, which discussed the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack being mounted by AI against the scholarly publication system. By reducing the cost of generating and submitting a paper or a review, AI has caused a massive increase in the quantity and a significant decrease in the quality of submissions to a system that was already vastly overloaded.

Below the fold I look at AI-enabled DDoS attacks against two other even more important areas; software security and political discourse (as shown in the overview image).

Software Security

Last month, Raffi Krikorian's New York Times op-ed announced It’s the End of the Internet as We Know It:

Last week, Anthropic announced that its newest artificial intelligence model, Claude Mythos Preview, would not be released to the public, after the company learned it was capable of finding and exploiting vulnerabilities that have gone undetected in critical software systems for decades. Instead, Anthropic gave access to Mythos — and $100 million in credits to use it — to more than 50 of the world’s largest organizations, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google and JPMorgan Chase, as part of a defensive cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing.

It sounded like a double-edged sword, helping both the attackers and the defenders, with Anthropic claiming kudos for favoring the defenders. It is true that, once the maintainers of all the software in the world have used these tools and incorporated them into their build process, the world will be a safer place. Daniel Steinberg, who maintains curl, is among the maintainers who really care about security and were already using similar tools. In MYTHOS FINDS A CURL VULNERABILITY he reported that:

Back in April 2026 Anthropic caused a lot of media noise when they concluded that their new AI model Mythos is dangerously good at finding security flaws in source code. Apparently Mythos was so good at this that Anthropic would not release this model to the public yet but instead trickle it out to a selected few companies for a while to allow a few good ones(?) to get a head start and fix the most pressing problems first, before the general populace would get their hands on it.

The whole world seemed to lose its marbles. Is this the end of the world as we know it? An amazingly successful marketing stunt for sure.

Steinberg got access to Mythos' report on his codebase. It had found five "confirmed security vulnerabilities":

Five issues felt like nothing as we had expected an extensive list. Once my curl security team fellows and I had poked on the this short list for a number of hours and dug into the details, we had trimmed the list down and were left with one confirmed vulnerability. The other four were three false positives (they highlighted shortcomings that are documented in API documentation) and the fourth we deemed “just a bug”.

The single confirmed vulnerability is going to end up a severity low CVE planned to get published in sync with our pending next curl release 8.21.0 in late June. The flaw is not going to make anyone grasp for breath. All details of that vulnerability will of course not get public before then, so you need to hold out for details on that.

...

My personal conclusion can however not end up with anything else than that the big hype around this model so far was primarily marketing. I see no evidence that this setup finds issues to any particular higher or more advanced degree than the other tools have done before Mythos. Maybe this model is a little bit better, but even if it is, it is not better to a degree that seems to make a significant dent in code analyzing.

It seems Mythos isn't as revolutionary as Anthropic would like the world to believe as they head for an IPO. Nevertheless, Steinberg stresses that using tools like Mythos is an essential security practice.

To understand the DDoS facing software maintainers you need to understand how security vulnerabilities are found and fixed:

An anomaly is discovered using techniques such as code analysis or fuzzing.
The anomaly is analyzed to distinguish between bugs and exploitable vulnerabilities.
A proof-of-concept exploit is developed to confirm that this is an exploitable vulnerability.
A fix is developed.
A report is generated and submitted to the maintainers.

LLMs have made this part of the process much cheaper and quicker, so the flow of vulnerabilities reaching this point has greatly increased. Now the maintainer has a report of a vulnerability, hopefully a proposed fix and maybe exploit code confirming that it is real. What happens next?

The maintainers go through the process Steinberg described to evaluate the claimed vulnerability, the exploit and the proposed fix.
The maintainers accept the fix or develop a better one.
The maintainers test the fix and package it as patch to the multiple supported versions of their software.
The maintainers test the effect of patching each of the supported versions.
The maintainers release the patch(es).
The various products that use the software in question test the patch.
The products add the patch to their software update mechanism.
Sysadmins for critical systems test the patched products before releasing them for production use.
The patched product replaces the vulnerable version.

LLMs don't help with any of these steps, so the zones of the humans who have to perform them are being flooded. Much of the flood is shit. To take perhaps the most critical example, Simon Sharwood reports that Linus Torvalds says AI-powered bug hunters have made Linux security mailing list ‘almost entirely unmanageable’:

“So just to make it really clear: If you found a bug using AI tools, the chances are somebody else found it too. If you actually want to add value, read the documentation, create a patch too, and add some real value on *top* of what the AI did. Don't be the drive-by ‘send a random report with no real understanding’ kind of person. OK?”

Jamie John provides another example in Bug bounty businesses bombarded with AI slop:

Businesses that run “bug bounty” schemes have long relied on independent security researchers to spot vulnerabilities. But the rise of AI tools is now overwhelming them with spurious submissions.

Bugcrowd, whose customers include OpenAI, T-Mobile, and Motorola, said the number of reports it received more than quadrupled over a three-week period in March, with most proving to be false.

Curl, a widely used tool to transfer data across the Internet, suspended its paid bug bounty program in January, citing an “explosion in AI slop reports” and lower-quality submissions.

Cyber security experts say advances in generative AI are reshaping the economics of bug bounty programs. While the tools allow experienced researchers to find flaws more quickly, they are also lowering the barrier to entry, triggering a flood of automated or erroneous submissions that companies must sift through.

The problems caused by DDoS-ing the patch develop-test-release-install cycle are vividly illustrated by recent vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel:

Copy Fail (CVE-2026-31431): described in Thomas Claiburn's Linux cryptographic code flaw offers fast route to root:

The newly disclosed LPE, dubbed Copy Fail (CVE-2026-31431), comes from a vulnerability in the Linux kernel's authencesn cryptographic template.

"An unprivileged local user can write four controlled bytes into the page cache of any readable file on a Linux system, and use that to gain root," the writeup from security biz Theori explains.

The kernel reads the page cache when it loads a binary, so modifying the cached copy amounts to altering the binary for the purpose of program execution. But doing so doesn't trigger any defenses focused on file system events like inotify.

The proof of concept exploit is a 10-line, 732-byte Python script capable of editing a setuid binary to gain root on almost all Linux distributions released since 2017.

Copy Fail is similar to other LPE bugs such as Dirty Cow and Dirty Pipe, but its finders claim it doesn't require winning a race condition and it's more broadly applicable.
Dirty Frag ( CVE-2026-43284, CVE-2026-43500): described in Carly Page's Dirty Frag:

A fresh Linux privilege escalation bug dubbed "Dirty Frag" has dropped into the wild with no patches, no CVE, and a public exploit that hands attackers root access across major distributions.

Security researcher Hyunwoo Kim disclosed the local privilege escalation flaw on Friday after what he said was a broken embargo forced the issue into the open.

Kim described Dirty Frag as a "universal LPE" affecting "all major distributions" and warned that it delivers the same kind of immediate root access as the recent CopyFail mess – only this time, defenders do not even have patches to throw at the problem.

"As with the previous Copy Fail vulnerability, Dirty Frag likewise allows immediate root privilege escalation on all major distributions," Kim said. "Because the responsible disclosure schedule and embargo have been broken, no patches exist for any distribution."
Fragnesia (CVE-2026-46300): described in Carly Page's Dirty Frag gets a sequel as Fragnesia hands Linux attackers root-level access:

According to Google-owned Wiz, the flaw sits in the Linux kernel's XFRM subsystem, specifically ESP-in-TCP processing tied to IPsec support. By carefully triggering the bug, attackers can modify protected file data in memory without changing the original files stored on disk.

Wiz describes Fragnesia as part of the broader "Dirty Frag" bug family rather than a completely separate class of issue. Dirty Frag itself only surfaced days ago and was already attracting attention thanks to public exploit code, incomplete patch coverage, and unusually reliable privilege escalation.

Note Hyunwoo Kim's assessment that it was the result of rushing the patch process:

According to researcher Hyunwoo Kim, who uncovered Dirty Frag, "Fragnesia" emerged as an unintended side effect of patches shipped to fix the original Dirty Frag vulnerabilities, adding yet another entry to the long tradition of security fixes accidentally creating new security problems.

As The Register previously reported, Dirty Frag followed hot on the heels of Copy Fail, another Linux kernel privilege escalation flaw that abused page cache handling to overwrite supposedly read-only files.

It doesn't appear that LLMs found any of these vulnerabilities, showing that even humans can overload the patch process to the point of failure. But the advent of LLMs means we can expect more and worse fiascos

Political Discourse

How malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy is a paper in Science by Daniel Thilo Schroeder et 21 al from last January ( preprint). They set out the problem thus:

Advances in AI offer the prospect of manipulating beliefs and behaviors on a population-wide level. Large language models (LLMs) and autonomous agents now let influence campaigns reach unprecedented scale and precision. Generative tools can expand propaganda output without sacrificing credibility and inexpensively create falsehoods that are rated as more human-like than those written by humans. Techniques meant to refine AI reasoning, such as chain-of-thought prompting, can just as effectively be used to generate more convincing falsehoods. Enabled by these capabilities, a disruptive threat is emerging: swarms of collaborative, malicious AI agents. Fusing LLM reasoning with multi-agent architectures, these systems are capable of coordinating autonomously, infiltrating communities, and fabricating consensus efficiently. By adaptively mimicking human social dynamics, they threaten democracy. Because the resulting harms stem from design, commercial incentives, and governance, we prioritize interventions at multiple leverage points, focusing on pragmatic mechanisms over voluntary compliance.

This risk compounds long-standing vulnerabilities in democratic information ecosystems, already weakened by erosion of rational-critical discourse and a lack of shared reality among citizens. AI swarms are a potent accelerant in this trajectory, though their ultimate impact is not predetermined. Their effects will be shaped by platform design, market incentives, media institutions, and political actors. Here, we distinguish documented trends from projections, indicate where uncertainty remains, and note countervailing dynamics, such as growing public skepticism toward unverified content and a renewed interest in institutional demand for accountable journalism

David Gilbert covered it for Wired in AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy, and some of the authors discuss the paper in AI bot swarms threaten to undermine democracy on Gary Marcus' Substack:

The unique danger of a swarm is that it acts less like a megaphone and more like a coordinated social organism. Earlier botnets were simple-minded, mostly just copying and pasting messages at scale—and in well-studied cases (including Russia’s 2016 IRA effort on Twitter), their direct persuasive effects were hard to detect. Today’s swarms, now emerging, can coordinate fleets of synthetic personas—sometimes with persistent identities—and move in ways that are hard to distinguish from real communities. This is not hypothetical: in July 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice said it disrupted a Russia-linked, AI-enhanced bot farm tied to 968 X accounts impersonating Americans. And bots already make up a measurable slice of public conversation: a 2025 peer-reviewed analysis of major events estimated roughly one in five accounts/posts in those conversations were automated. Swarms don’t just broadcast propaganda; they can infiltrate communities by mimicking local slang and tone, build credibility over time, and then adapt in real time to audience reactions—testing variations at machine speed to discover what persuades.

This is precisely the AI-based version of Steve Bannon's " flooding the zone with shit".

Unlike the case of scholarly publication. I have no idea how to mitigate the shit that is flooding this zone. Unlike the oligopoly publishers, who can act as partially effective gatekeepers and are somewhat motivated to improve things, in the political space there are no longer any effective gatekeepers. This entire zone is driven by measures of "engagement", and fanning the flames of outrage is the best way to drive up the numbers.

The authors propose five "pragmatic mechanisms", but I have issues with each of them:

social media platforms must move away from the “whack-a-mole” approach they currently use:

Right now, companies rely on episodic takedowns—waiting until a disinformation campaign has already gone viral and done its damage before purging thousands of accounts in a single wave. This is too slow. Instead, we need continuous monitoring that looks for statistically unlikely coordination. Because AI can now generate unique text for every single post, looking for copy-pasted content no longer works. We must look at network behavior instead: a thousand users might be tweeting different things, but if they exhibit statistically improbable correlations in their semantic trajectories or propagate narratives with a synchronized efficiency that defies organic human diffusion.

Platforms are always going to be reluctant to kill off the users on whom their finances depend upon. When forced to, they would rather do it in large blocks.
we need to stop waiting for attackers to invent new tactics before we build defenses:

A defense that only reacts to yesterday’s tricks is destined to fail. We should instead proactively stress-test our defenses using agent-based simulations. Think of this like a digital fire drill or a vaccine trial: researchers can build a “synthetic” social network populated by AI agents, and then release their own test-swarms into that isolated environment. By watching how these test-bots try to manipulate the system, we can see which safeguards crumble and which hold up, allowing us to patch vulnerabilities before bad actors act on them in the real world.

This is a very good idea, but it would need funding (see below),
we must make it expensive to be a fake person:

Policymakers need to incentivize cryptographic attestations and reputation standards to strengthen provenance. This doesn’t mean forcing every user to hand over their ID card to a tech giant—that would be dangerous for whistleblowers and dissidents living under authoritarian regimes. Instead, we need “verified-yet-anonymous” credentialing. Imagine a digital stamp that proves you are a unique human being without revealing which human you are. If we require this kind of “proof-of-human” for high-reach interactions, we make it mathematically difficult and financially ruinous for one operator to secretly run ten thousand accounts.

This is the same problem that has bedevilled computer-mediated communication since the advent of spam. Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor's Pricing via Processing or Combatting Junk Mail signally failed to stem the tide by making it costly to send bulk e-mail. But it did lead to Satoshi Nakamoto's solution to the Sybil problem, making it expensive to mine Bitcoin. The problem here is that making it "expensive to be a fake person" effectively means making it somewhat expensive to be a person. The overhead and cost of obtaining such a "digital stamp" would disincentivize participation, so the platforms wouldn't like it. See The Permissionless Catch-22
we need mandated transparency through free data access for researchers:

We cannot defend society if the battlefield is hidden behind proprietary walls. Currently, platforms restrict access to the data needed to detect these swarms, leaving independent experts blind. Legislation must guarantee vetted academic and civil society researchers free, privacy-preserving access to platform data. Without a guaranteed “right to study,” we are forced to trust the self-reporting of the very corporations that profit from the engagement these swarms generate.

The platforms depend upon monetizing the data they collect on users' behavior. So they are always going to be reluctant to give outsiders access to their key asset. And, in any case, any data to which they grant access will effectively be "self-reporting".
we need to end the era of plausible deniability with an AI Influence Observatory:

Crucially, this cannot be a government-run “Ministry of Truth.” Instead, it must be a distributed ecosystem of independent academic groups and NGOs. Their mandate is not to police content or decide who is right, but strictly to detect when the “public” is actually a coordinated swarm. By standardizing how evidence of bot-like networking is collected and publishing verified reports, this independent watchdog network would prevent the paralysis of “we can’t prove anything,” establishing a shared, factual record of when our public discourse is being engineered.

Each of the "independent academic groups and NGOs" will need significant fund if they are to process information at the scale required. Where would this funding come from? Taxing the platforms to fund this is one answer, but it wouldn't motivate them to cooperate.

One of the most effective ways to use these disinformation swarms is to amplify pre-existing stereotypes, exploiting confirmation bias:

In social media, confirmation bias is amplified by the use of filter bubbles and "algorithmic editing", which display to individuals only information they are likely to agree with, while excluding opposing views.

Adam Kucharski shows how easy it is for AIs to build on such stereotypes in Real signals or artificial stereotypes?. He asked Copilot to analyze data that should have generated a null result:

First, I’d created 2000 free-text responses and labelled them ‘UK’. Then I copied and pasted the exact same 2000 responses but labelled these ‘US’. Finally, I combined them to create a dataset of 4000 total responses, and jumbled them up.

Despite the responses being identical for the UK and US, Copilot produced a rich, detailed summary of how US and UK respondents differed.

Copilot's output Note how confident and detailed Copilot was driven not by anything in the data but only by the stereotypes in its training data. There are two problems when applying this to real data:

The stereotypes in the training data will impact the results, albeit probably less.
Although presumably prompts could be devised to eliminate the effect of stereotypes in the training data, in practice almost no-one would remember to use them.

The defense against DDoS at the network level is services like Cloudflare interposed between the bots and their target. There doesn't seem to be any way to replicate this at higher levels like these three zones. It is really hard to be optimistic about their future.

https://blog.dshr.org/2026/05/flooded-zones-part-2.html

[$] In search of faster this_cpu operations

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-23)

The kernel's this_cpu
operations are meant to speed access to per-CPU variables. They are more optimal on some CPUs than others, though. During a memory-management-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Yang Shi proposed a fundamental, and somewhat controversial, change to how these operations work in order to provide better performance on a wider range of architectures.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073395/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

This is tragic, the fall of Bitwarden: https://blog.ppb1701.com/the-quiet-renovation-at-bitwarden

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116601694922879674

[$] What's brewing in CXL

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-22)

Compute
Express Link (CXL) is a technology intended to enable the provision of "memory nodes" in data centers that provide (possibly shared) memory to nearby CPUs. It has, Dan Williams said at the beginning of his memory-management-track session on the topic at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, "been making memory-management problems worse since 2021". He used the session to provide an overview of the ways in which CXL can be expected to extend that record into the future.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072858/

Wi-Wi Is Wireless Time Sync at 1 nanosecond

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

At NAB, I found a demo of Wi-Wi STAMP, a wireless time synchronization protocol that came out of Japan's NICT.

Wi-Wi STAMP time synchronization hardware

Wi-Wi stands for Wireless 2Way interferometry, and it uses the 900 MHz band for picosecond-level time sync, and mm-level distance accuracy, in a tiny box, currently the size of a smartphone.

The system is still in development, but existing prototypes have 20ps of phase synchronization jitter, and time synchronization down to 30ns. The next generation will have time down to 5ns in real-world use.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/wi-wi-is-wireless-time-sync-less-than-5ns/

Six States Vote Today, Welcome To The Post-USAID World, Non-Voters And Indies Turn On The Rs

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Let's go Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/6-states-vote-tonight-welcome-to

Cinetic To Handle Worldwide Sales Of ‘Freefall,’ Upcoming Documentary On Extraordinary Aerial Daredevils Vince Reffet and Fred Fugen

(date: 2026-05-19)

EXCLUSIVE: Cinetic is taking the plunge on Freefall, a documentary project on Vince Reffet and Fred Fugen, the pair known as “the most celebrated aerial daredevils the world has ever seen.” Passion Pictures, Red Bull Studios and 1Community have tapped Cinetic to handle worldwide sales of the film directed by Laura McGann (The Deepest Breath). […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/freefall-vince-reffet-fred-fugen-documentary-cinetic-sales-agent-1236915496/

[$] Improving the per-CPU memory allocator

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-22)

There are many places in the kernel where performance can be improved by using per-CPU data. But, as it turns out, the kernel's allocator for per-CPU data has some performance problems of its own. Harry Yoo led a session in the memory-management track of the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit to explore ways to address those problems and accelerate the allocation and initialization of per-CPU data.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072840/

Crunchyroll Anime Awards Fan Voting Hits Record 73M Ahead Of Tokyo Ceremony

(date: 2026-05-19)

EXCLUSIVE: Crunchyroll Anime Awards fan voting topped 73M this year, marking a major leap for the anime streamer’s flagship annual event. Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini revealed the figure in an interview with Deadline ahead of Saturday’s tenth edition of the awards in Tokyo. The award noms are selected by judges and then voted on by […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/crunchyroll-anime-awards-73m-votes-1236915518/

Security updates for Tuesday

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-21)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (libpng and nginx), Debian (erlang, netatalk, and nginx), Fedora (mod_md and SDL2_image), Mageia (perl-libwww-perl, perl-HTTP-Message, perl-WWW-Mechanize-Cached, perl-File-XDG, perl-Path-Tiny, perl-YAML-Syck, postgresql15, and rclone), SUSE (agama, alloy, cacti, cloud-init, dnsmasq, emacs, firefox, glibc, go1.25, go1.26, google-cloud-sap-agent, google-guest-agent, ibus-rime, librime, imagemagick, kernel, libsndfile, nginx, ongres-scram, ongres-stringprep, plexus-testing,, openexr, openssh, PackageKit, perl-Text-CSV_XS, php-composer2, php8, postgresql16, postgresql18, python-lxml, python-python-multipart, python3, python311-urllib3, rmt-server, rsync, tiff, tree-sitter, util-linux, and xen), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-5.4, linux-aws-fips, linux-azure, linux-azure-5.4, linux-azure-fips, linux-bluefield, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-5.4, linux-gcp-fips, linux-hwe-5.4, linux-ibm, linux-ibm-5.4, linux-iot, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-oracle-5.4, linux-xilinx-zynqmp, linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial, linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-nvidia-tegra-5.15, linux-raspi, and linux-xilinx-zynqmp).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073542/

Literary Scout Philippa Donovan Sets Up Screen-To-Book Business Two Script Studio To Facilitate ‘Reverse Adaptations’

(date: 2026-05-19)

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran literary scout Philippa Donovan wants to reverse engineer the books-to-screen market through her new business, Two Script Studio. The operation will create ‘reverse adaptations’ to allow producers and screenwriters to turn screenplays into novels at an early stage of development. Book rights are then pitched to literary agents and publishers to build an […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/two-script-studio-screen-book-adaptations-1236915494/

‘The Mandalorian And Grogu’ Review: The Latest In The ‘Star Wars’ Franchise Makes The Magic Of ‘A New Hope’ Seem Far, Far Away

(date: 2026-05-19)

Walk into any bar, on any street, in any city, on any planet and you’ll find a Star Wars fan who thinks they know what’s going wrong with the franchise and how to fix it. Their knowledge goes deep; they’ve kept up with the spinoffs, they’re familiar with the most obscure supporting characters, and they’re […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/the-mandalorian-and-grogu-review-pedro-pascal-jon-favreau-1236915463/

Pyramide Boards ‘I Just Want A Great Love Story’ Starring Théodore Pellerin, Stacy Martin, Félix Kysyl & Charles Berling — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-19)

EXCLUSIVE: French outfit Pyramide has boarded international sales and French distribution rights to Philippe Lesage’s upcoming drama I Just Want A Great Love Story. Théodore Pellerin (Becoming Karl Lagerfeld), Stacy Martin (The Brutalist), Félix Kysyl (Misericordia) and Charles Berling (Elle) are due to star in the movie with a resonant title. Elle producer Saïd Ben Saïd, in Cannes […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/theodore-pellerin-stacy-martin-pyramide-great-love-story-1236915490/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-22)

The Men Who Want Women to be Quiet. I have not read it yet, but I'm going make sure I'm properly inebriated before I do so.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/06/conservative-masculinism-misogyny/686939/?gift=f35zZN0v_gDFE8xNwlQAHXxgWNuUh4Ra7yMwSH2YdHI&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-22)

Doc Searls piece on the history of basketball. I'm going to study this. I love basketball too. My favorite sport these days and not because the Knicks are winning, I was with them when they were complete utter and total losers and I wore a paper bag on my head to hide my identity at games.

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/18/hoopings/?fbclid=IwY2xjawR5OclleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeEal4cYT9nw695x8s_u0sDgovPBloJpNHWmu6MRpUFdGcox2l-8UWLQe0T3k_aem_C0BZfPpWQaJBoOW5d9ayLg

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Someday you're going to tell your kids that we once used a social network that limited your writing to 500 characters and didn't allow styling, links or titles. What was it called Daddy? Bluesky. And people thought it was great. Why? They might have been taking drugs.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/19.html#a123343

On Copaganda, Pinkwashing, and the Time I Almost Became an NYPD Cop

(date: 2026-05-19)

When I told my mother in 2003 that I was going to apply to join the NYPD, she had three reactions: relief, shock, and fear. Relief because my father had recently died, I had zero job prospects of any kind

https://lithub.com/on-copaganda-pinkwashing-and-the-time-i-almost-became-an-nypd-cop/

pgBackRest will continue

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-21)

In April, David Steele, maintainer of the popular pgBackRest backup and restore project for PostgreSQL, announced that he had archived
the project and it would no longer be maintained due to lack of sponsorship. On May 18, he announced that a number of sponsors have stepped forward to ensure its continued development:

Over the last few weeks, a coalition of sponsors has come together to fund ongoing development. Their support means the project is no longer reliant on a single sponsor, giving pgBackRest the stability it needs for the long term.

[...] I'm looking forward to getting back to work. There are features and optimizations in the pipeline that I'm excited to share in upcoming releases. Thank you to our sponsors for making this possible, and thank you to the community for your patience and support during this transition.

Thanks to Paul Wise for the tip.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073470/

The New Realities of EM Lyfe

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-25)

A fascinating thing is happening. EMs are saying it’s better to be an IC. ICs think being an EM is where it’s at. This is part of the AI shift. The industry seems to be in chaos, and wherever you are, somewhere else seems better. But below that, it’s not just the job that’s changing. […]

https://cate.blog/2026/05/19/the-new-realities-of-em-lyfe/

Mekhi Phifer Among Cast Set For Action Thriller ‘Marx’ — Cannes

(date: 2026-05-19)

EXCLUSIVE: Mekhi Phifer will star alongside Bren Foster in the action thriller Marx, which Odyssey International is selling at the Cannes Market. The film follows two brothers navigating a violent criminal world. The film will be produced by Al Bravo, Michael Pizzimenti, and Marc Clebanoff. The official synopsis reads: “Axel Marx is a fearless fighter […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/mekhi-phifer-marx-odyssey-international-1236915483/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Opus 4.6 is much smarter than the other one. It feels like I'm working with someone from Bronx Science. I had been using Sonnet 4.6, which I switched to after reading somewhere that it costs less and it's usually every bit as good as newer models. I would never work with Sonnet on anything again, it's like working with a partner who is both stupid and difficult. Opus 4.6 makes me smarter, by doing the work while I dream up new features, and communicating with intelligence, like a helpful flight assistant. And I see there's an Opus 4.7 available. I have to try it. One interesting fact, until February when Opus 4.6 came out, you could not have done the kind of software I'm doing. There must be a tsunami of interesting stuff on the way. I don't think any of the pundits expect this. My goal is to build the next social system for use in the AI generation is built out of replaceable web components buit around interop and prior art. Let's commoditize the AI layer and build entirely open systems on top of it. For people who weren't around at the birth of the personal computer or the web this is going to be a unique multiple mindbomb moment.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/19.html#a114943

Announcing our new podcast network

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

We might have got a little carried away.

https://fixthenews.com/p/we-got-a-little-carried-away

Romanian Filmmaker Constantin Popescu To Direct First Two Features In New Supernatural Franchise ‘Birds Of The Soul’

(date: 2026-05-19)

EXCLUSIVE: Romanian filmmaker Constantin Popescu, whose films have launched at Cannes, Berlin and San Sebastian, has signed on to direct the first two features in a new supernatural franchise that Just Entertainment and AiMation are launching, titled Birds of the Soul. The franchise synopsis reads: “Set in the Carpathian Mountains in 1917, the first film […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/constantin-popescu-birds-of-the-soul-1236915449/

Nicolas Winding Refn Cries During ‘Her Private Hell’ Cannes Press Conference, Reflects On Near Death Experience: “I’m The Bionic Man”

(date: 2026-05-19)

“Dying is very interesting,” began Nicolas Winding Refn when asked about his mic drop moment at last night’s Cannes world premiere for his latest feature Her Private Hell. Refn told the entire Grand Theatre Lumiere audience, who gave him a 12-minute standing ovation, that he was dead for 20-plus minutes during heart surgery. Coming away […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-nicolas-winding-refn-her-private-hell-1236915409/

Ken Loach Talks Challenges & Resonance Of ‘Land And Freedom’ As Spanish Civil War Drama Returns To Cannes & Mystery Of 1995 Prize U-Turn

(date: 2026-05-19)

EXCLUSIVE: Bafta and Palme d’Or-winning director Ken Loach and producer Rebecca O’Brien are in Cannes for this evening’s Cinéma de Plage screening of a remastered 4K version of Spanish Civil War drama Land and Freedom which originally premiered at the festival in competition in 1995. The screening falls just two months shy of the 90th […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/ken-loach-land-and-freedom-spanish-civil-war-returns-cannes-1236915416/

‘Married At First Sight UK’ Rape Allegations “Very Serious,” Says Ex-Channel 4 CEO

(date: 2026-05-19)

The former CEO of Channel 4 has expressed concern about the rape allegations made by two women who participated in Married at First Sight UK (MAFS). Alex Mahon was in charge of Channel 4 during the period when the MAFS allegations originated. She said the matter was “very serious and concerning,” adding that it was right that […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/married-at-first-sight-uk-rape-claims-alex-mahon-channel-4-1236915411/

Independents and 2024 non-voters have swung back left

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

The big story in the new NYT/Siena poll isn't Trump's 37% approval (although that's very bad) — it's a 24-point swing among persuadable voters

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-19-indies-nonvoters-turned-on-trump

Billionaire’s Superyacht Carrying Clarence and Ginni Thomas Struck by Hantavirus

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

The couples's latest luxury cruise aboard a Republican megadonor’s boat hit an unfortunate snag.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/billionaires-superyacht-carrying

Laurie Anderson Is Quoting Me

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-21)

Not by name, but Laurie Anderson quotes me in one of the tracks of her new album:

My favorite quote is from a cryptologist who said “If you think technology will solve your problems, you don’t understand technology and you don’t understand your problems.”

Also in interviews:

“Of course, it’s ridiculous, outrageous, blah, blah, blah,” Anderson says about the ad. ‘But, I mean, my favorite quote on this is from a cryptologist who said, ‘If you think technology will solve your problems, you don’t understand technology Â and you don’t understand your problems.’ And I think I’m completely on board with that.”...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/laurie-anderson-is-quoting-me.html

The Shakedown

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-26)

The overt gangsterfication of US foreign policy, formalized through the so-called "Board of Peace," marks the culmination of a dangerous transformation in the nature of American hegemony.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-shakedown/

James Graham Says He Is “Repaying” British State For Backing His Early Work By Landing American Investment On Projects Like Rupert Murdoch Movie ‘Ink’

(date: 2026-05-19)

Prolific British scribe James Graham is beginning to get some serious American recognition for his body of work, and he isn’t biting the hand that feeds. Graham’s Rupert Murdoch play Ink is being made into a Studiocanal, Media Res and House Productions movie starring Guy Pearce while a different production, Punch, recently transferred to Broadway. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/james-graham-rupert-murdoch-pic-ink-bbc-american-investment-1236915397/

The Looting of America

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

MAGA corruption reaches the point of no return

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-looting-of-america

Lit Hub Daily: May 19, 2026

(date: 2026-05-19)

“I never imagined reading books and turning them into movies was a job.” It is, and if you can read a book every two days (and write a book report about it), it could be yours… | Lit Hub “It

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-19-2026/

No one is coming to bail Trump out of his disastrous war

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

He's the only one who can end this.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-iran-war-deal

Sebastian Stan Bashes Donald Trump Two Years After ‘Apprentice’ At Cannes: “We’re In A Really, Really Bad Place”

(date: 2026-05-19)

Sebastian Stan was here this morning to talk about his latest movie Fjord at Cannes, however, that’s hard when the last time he was here at the fest, he was playing Donald Trump. The Avengers actor was asked how Trump has evolve since the premiere of The Apprentice two years ago. That pic world premiered […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sebastian-stan-donald-trump-cannes-1236915362/

How Anxious Should You Be About AI? (w/ Katie Drummond and Timnit Gebru)

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-21)

The post How Anxious Should You Be About AI? (w/ Katie Drummond and Timnit Gebru) appeared first on Crooked Media.

https://crooked.com/podcast/how-anxious-should-you-be-about-ai-w-katie-drummond-and-timnit-gebru/

On the Run and Underground: When Your Mom’s on the FBI’s Most Wanted List

(date: 2026-05-19)

One cold night in December, when I was not yet four years old, my mother woke me while it was still dark, pressing her face against my cheek and whispering, “We have to leave. Right away.” I rolled off my

https://lithub.com/on-the-run-and-underground-when-your-moms-on-the-fbis-most-wanted-list/

Ayelet Waldman on What Quilting Taught Her About the Creative Process

(date: 2026-05-19)

In a previous life, I was an attorney with too much student debt. I figured if I sacrificed my feminist principles and allowed the men I dated to buy my meals, and otherwise subsisted on packaged noodles, I could in

https://lithub.com/ayelet-waldman-on-what-quilting-taught-her-about-the-creative-process/

The Man Who Reads Books For a Living (One Every Two Days)

(date: 2026-05-19)

When Clarke Speicher (spike-er) asked how I liked the screen adaptation of Train Dreams, Denis Johnson’s novella following the solitary logger Robert Granier in the early 20th-century American West, he was actually asking whether it measured up to its source

https://lithub.com/the-man-who-reads-books-for-a-living-one-every-two-days/

Heather Eng Recommends Six Books About the American Dream and Immigrant Striving

(date: 2026-05-19)

When I was a kid, I believed in the American Dream. In elementary school classrooms and on the streets of working-class Queens, New York, in the 1980s and ‘90s, the American Dream was our north star. “Upward mobility,” my teachers

https://lithub.com/heather-eng-recommends-six-books-about-the-american-dream-and-immigrant-striving/

Canon

(date: 2026-05-19)

The world beyond San Voyager? Well, it was dark. In the daytime, Yara would’ve been able to see the stunted oaks, the spruces, the fat and full rosemary bushes. They’d know what kind of creature was skittering through the shrubbery.

https://lithub.com/canon/

How Just a Few Taps on a Bunch of Buttons Can Curate Meaning

(date: 2026-05-19)

My new job consists of pressing buttons in the right order. Before me sits a panel with eighty-two buttons, whose arrangement I know so well I don’t even look down anymore—like a pilot, perhaps, who sends her hands rapidly around

https://lithub.com/how-just-a-few-taps-on-a-bunch-of-buttons-can-curate-meaning/

What It Means to Go From School Drop Out to Writing Tutor

(date: 2026-05-19)

When I was seventeen I dropped out of school. I was about six months out from my Leaving Cert, which in Ireland is the final set of exams that determine whether or not you’ll get to go to study the

https://lithub.com/what-it-means-to-go-from-school-drop-out-to-writing-tutor/

On Authenticity, Acquisition, and the Secret Lives of Objects

(date: 2026-05-19)

As a sculptor, I love an archive, especially when it is filled with objects that refuse to be silenced. Each piece carries the sediment of its own story. They have witnessed creation, love, use, violence, change, transition, oblivion, aggression, and

https://lithub.com/on-authenticity-acquisition-and-the-secret-lives-of-objects/

How your donations help the LibreOffice project and community

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

LibreOffice is free thanks to your donations. Here’s how your support helps us to improve the software and grow the community that makes it 😊 (Note: this video is also available on PeerTube.) Please confirm that you want to play a YouTube video. By accepting, you will be accessing content from

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/19/how-your-donations-help-the-libreoffice-project-and-community/

Farewell and Thank You, Stephen Colbert

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Trump critic and satirist has also been one of the most thoughtful, funny, and genuinely decent people on television

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/farewell-and-thank-you-stephen-colbert

Pluralistic: There's no such thing as "age verification" (19 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links There's no such thing as "age verification": The foreseeable and foreseen consequences of "something must be done"/"there, I've done something." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Apple Stores exist; Responsible spam; Australia loves Hollywood('s copyright); TCP over Syrian donkey; Icelandic Pirate get funded; Algorithmic cruelty; Trump loves data brokers; Douglas Adams, vindicated; Blog history; Sex names; Flickr's Gamma; "Fuzzy Nation"; The Intercept publishes Snowden docs; Software version of CIA sabotage manual; Who owns covid vaccines? Anal clenching v depression; Web is 10; Danish birds x ringtones; Office-supply X-wing; Nintendo 3DS license sucks is unbelievably bad; Public Interest Internet. Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, Kansas City, LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. There's no such thing as "age verification" (permalink) "Object permanence" is the ability to understand that even if you can't see something, it still exists. Most toddlers acquire a thorough sense of object permanence by the age of two. But when it comes to technopolitics, object permanence eludes even full-grown lawmakers. These motherfuckers would lose a game of peek-a-boo. Over and over again, politicians are warned about the ways that their pet policies will a) produce enormous collateral damage, and; b) be easily evaded by the people they're seeking to control, giving rise to a cascade of ever-more extreme measures. And yet, they swallow a spider to catch a fly and then act baffled and hurt when we tell them it's their own damn fault that they now have to swallow a bird to catch the spider: https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/13/wanting-it-badly/#is-not-enough The foreseeable and foreseen consequences of bad technopolicy are all around us, but in the eternal now of a politics utterly devoid of object permanence, no one is allowed to remember what happened the last time we did something stupid, especially not when we're on the verge of doing that same stupid thing again, only worse: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea Technopolitics are defined by Bruce Schneier's "security syllogism," which goes, "Something must be done! There, I've done something." "Something" doesn't have to fix the problem, and "something" doesn't have to anticipate what will happen next. So long as "something" is done, the issue is resolved and the politician can chalk up a win. This gives rise to some genuinely bizarre consensus hallucinations, in which we pretend that the reality decreed by policy matches up with actual reality. Take "streaming." There is no such thing as "streaming." A "stream" is just "a download that is transmitted to an application that doesn't have a 'Save As…' button": https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/01/fulu/#i-am-altering-the-deal Once you decree that there is such a thing as a stream, you must bend heaven and earth to ensure that no "Save As…" buttons are added to the "streaming" program. You have to pass laws that make it illegal to inspect code. To modify code. To report on defects in code. To index information about defects in code. To index information about mods. To link to indices that compile defects and mods. You have to swallow the fly, the spider, the bird, the cat, the dog, and the whole damned horse: https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/ Then there's that perennial fave, "bans on working cryptography." To ban working cryptography, you have to outlaw free/open source software. You have to inspect every device that comes into your country. You have to erect a Great Firewall that blocks every site that might carry working cryptography. You make it impossible to reliably update the software in pacemakers, anti-lock brakes and nuclear power plants, and you make it easy for identity thieves, foreign powers and corporate spies to raid your government, your corporations, and your households – and it still won't work! https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/ The latest consensus hallucination to take over our political classes is "age verification," a thing that manifestly does not exist. You can't "verify the age" of an internet user – you can only attempt to attribute every byte that traverses the entire internet to affirmatively identified persons: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers This comes at enormous cost. It is a gift to every future dictator, every identity thief, and every would-be sexual exploiter of children, who will have access to the hacked, leaked, and badly secured troves of data that this doomed effort produces. Yes, doomed. Because even when it comes to kids, "age verification" is just a way of convincing young people to familiarize themselves with VPNs. This was entirely obvious from the very instant that "age verification" was mooted, and yet our policymakers pretended they couldn't hear the chorus of people who pointed it out to them. When cornered on the issue, they were affronted: "Can't you see that something must be done? How dare you attempt to stop me from doing something?" And now, every single one of these chucklefucks is proposing bans on VPNs, from Utah: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulating-vpns-goes-effect-next-week To the UK: https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/18/mozilla-warns-uk-breaking-vpns-will-not-magically-fix-britains-age-check-mess/5241770 They were warned that this would happen. We told them not to swallow that fly. Now we're telling them not to swallow whole bucketloads of spiders. I fully expect that next year, they'll be telling us that once they swallow this herd of horses, it will all be OK. (Image: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) November Reign https://theneedlenews.com/2026/05/november-reign/ The Filipino virtual assistants behind LinkedIn's "thought leadership" content mill https://restofworld.org/2026/virtual-assistant-linkedin-engagement/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feeds rip.so https://rip.so/ On the Media: American Emergency https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/american-emergency-movement-kill-fema DMA: The FSFE intervenes against Apple before European Court of Justice for the second time https://fsfe.org/news/2026/news-20260519-01.en.html The Ox That's Breaking Your Fantasy Map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIqpvpNS5pI Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago The Hubble Constant is 42 https://web.archive.org/web/20010607103335/http://www.best.com/~sirlou/42.html #25yrsago The history of weblogs http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html #25yrsago Head-shaver’s FAQ https://web.archive.org/web/20010616023912/http://www.geocities.com/shaverg/ #25yrsago "Sex" in your surname https://web.archive.org/web/20010830005021/http://bissex.net/paul/profanity.gif #25yrsago Apple announces retail stores https://web.archive.org/web/20010521193320/http://www.apple.com/retail/ #25yrsago ISOC standard for "responsible" spam https://web.archive.org/web/20030923030913/ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3098.txt #25yrsago Anal clenching v depression https://web.archive.org/web/20011201070537/http://members.aol.com/nishigaki3/index.htm?mtbrand=AOL_US #25yrsago The Web is 10 https://www.w3.org/Talks/C5_17_May_91.html #25yrsago Danish birds imitate ringtones https://web.archive.org/web/20010603204210/http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_288774.html?menu #20yrsago Wired News publishes damning docs from EFF vs AT&T https://web.archive.org/web/20060602044459/http://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70908-0.html #20yrsago Canadian privacy commissioners against DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060530122338/https://www.intellectualprivacy.ca/ #20yrsago How the RIAA’s suit against XM came from Napster, MP3.com and Grokster https://web.archive.org/web/20060524092537/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004679.php #20yrsago Gmail downgraded, no longer cracks PDFs https://web.archive.org/web/20060603055956/https://akira.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/andreas/blog/archives/2006/05/gmail-cripples-drmed-pdf-files-view-as-html-functionality.html #20yrsago Australia puts out for Hollywood with new copyright law https://web.archive.org/web/20060520192521/https://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//004567.html #20yrsago FeedRinse: filters for your RSS and a happier Internet https://web.archive.org/web/20060915062158/http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/003114.html #20yrsago Flickr goes Gamma https://web.archive.org/web/20081219225627/http://blog.flickr.net/en/2006/05/16/alpha-beta-gamma/ #15yrsago UK copyright reforms sound sane, useful https://web.archive.org/web/20160724041821/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/may/17/copyright-law-overhaul-for-uk #15yrsago Life with Ubuntu and a ThinkPad https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/17/computing-opensource #15yrsago Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation: a masterful, likable reboot of one of the great sf classics https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/16/scalzis-fuzzy-nation-a-masterful-likable-reboot-of-one-of-the-great-sf-classics/ #15yrsago Piracy sends “Go the Fuck to Sleep” to #1 on Amazon https://web.archive.org/web/20110516023258/http://www.baycitizen.org/books/story/go-f-sleep-case-viral-pdf/ #15yrsago Serendipity, the net and cities: are we living in bubbles? Do we have to? https://ethanzuckerman.com/2011/05/12/chi-keynote-desperately-seeking-serendipity/ #15yrsago Texas close to banning TSA searches, TSA invents desperate new constitutional interpretations https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/05/14/in-public-statement-tsa-lies-about-the-constitution/ #15yrsago Syrian dissidents use donkeys to smuggle videos to Jordan https://web.archive.org/web/20110518132126/http://www.dbune.com/news/world/6097-donkeys-take-over-from-dsl-as-syria-shuts-down-internet.html #15yrsago Walter Jon Williams uses pirate ebooks to rescue his backlist https://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2011/05/crowdsource-please/ #15yrsago Chicago water boss: if we took the sewage out of the Chicago River, people might swim and drown! https://web.archive.org/web/20110516121105/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-official-cleaning-chicago-river-a-waste-of-money-20110513,0,7553787.story #15yrsago HOWTO Make an office-supply X-Wing Fighter https://www.instructables.com/X-Wing-Fighter-from-Office-Supplies/ #15yrsago Yale opens up image library, starts with 250,000 free images https://web.archive.org/web/20110514111440/https://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=8544 #15yrsago Nintendo 3DS license: We’ll brick your device if we don’t like your software choices, you have no privacy, we own your photos https://web.archive.org/web/20110518014329/https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/227957/nintendo_3ds_targeted_in_antidrm_campaign.html #10yrsago Copyright trolls Rightscorp are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy https://web.archive.org/web/20160518103417/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/anti-piracy-firm-rightscorps-q1-financials-read-like-an-obituary/ #10yrsago Trump campaign cancels interview after overhearing reporter speaking in Spanish https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adriancarrasquillo/trump-campaign-canceled-a-reporters-interview-after-they-hea#.ul9L3rXy8 #10yrsago Phoenix airport threatens to kick out TSA, hire private (unaccountable) contractors https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2016/0514/Is-Phoenix-airport-opting-out-of-the-TSA #10yrsago US Gov’t survey: Half of Americans reluctant to shop online due to privacy & security fears https://www.ntia.gov/federal-register-notice/2016/request-comments-benefits-challenges-and-potential-roles-government-fostering-advancement-internet #10yrsago Iceland’s Pirate Party to receive millions in election funding https://web.archive.org/web/20160514102817/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/icelands-pirate-party-secures-more-election-funding-than-all-its-rivals-as-it-continues-to-top-polls-a7027606.html #10yrsago Nebula Award swept by record number of women writers https://gizmodo.com/women-swept-the-2015-the-nebula-awards-1776706665 #10yrsago Algorithmic cruelty: when Gmail adds your harasser to your speed-dial https://web.archive.org/web/20160515184025/https://blog.lizdenys.com/2016/05/14/inboxs-accidentally-abusive-algorithm/ #10yrsago Transport for London blames Tube delays on “wrong type of sun” https://web.archive.org/web/20160516133847/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/london-underground-blame-too-much-sunshine-for-tube-delays-a7031986.html #10yrsago The Intercept begins publishing Snowden docs https://web.archive.org/web/20160516172510/https://theintercept.com/snowden-sidtoday/ #10yrsago A software developer’s version of the CIA’s bureaucratic sabotage manual https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/05/updating-a-classic.html #5yrsago Who owns the covid vaccines? https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/16/entrepreneurial-state/#patient-zero-money #5yrsago Big Pharma's vicious battle against universal covid vaccination https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#roll-the-dice #5yrsago The S&L crisis perfected finance crime https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#crimogenics #5yrsago Newsom's California fiber dream https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#fiber-now #5yrsago The Public Interest Internet https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/17/disgracenote/#enclosure #5yrsago Paygo, false consciousness and the IRS https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/17/disgracenote/#false-consciousness #1yrago Trump's CFPB kills data broker rule https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/15/asshole-to-appetite/#ssn-for-sale Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10 https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow 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: TBA, Jun 23 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: TBA, Jun 25 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 Recent appearances (permalink) 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 The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/19/shes-dead-of-course/

May 18, 2026

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-25)

I have been traveling and tonight have hit the wall as I tried to write, so at this hour am opting for bed rather than trying to grind out today’s letter.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-18-2026

Analog's Beacon Approach to Screentime Earns Calm Tech Certification

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Analog is an app and a physical hub that restricts iPhone apps when a user enters a designated area or taps the device to the hub. The product was designed primarily for home use, allowing families to create phone-free zones around bedtimes, meals, or common areas without relying on anyone to manually put the phone down. Analog is a quiet physical device intended to set healthier digital boundaries in the spaces that matter most, allowing users to place it in a room to create shared...

https://www.calmtech.institute/post/analog-earns-calm-tech-certification

What will future population change look like?

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

A new tool that let's you imagine different futures of where we might be headed

https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/population-simulation-tool

What We Should Actually Be Demanding

(date: 2026-05-19, updated: 2026-05-27)

Companion piece to The Opening - Smart Ruminations

https://danismart.substack.com/p/what-we-should-actually-be-demanding

The Zombie Revival of Dead Confederates

(date: 2026-05-19)

The Confederacy is everywhere right now, including in the new season of Rebel Spirit, out today.

https://dansinker.com/posts/2026-05-19-rebel-spirit/

Waterfox 6.6.13 - Default ad blocker & search updates

(date: 2026-05-19)

Security fixes, the built-in ad blocker now enabled by default, a new temporary default search engine, and several web compatibility improvements.

https://www.waterfox.com/releases/6.6.13/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Did Bluesky get slashdotted?

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116598288831660703

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-21)

Justice Department announces something pretty pernicious.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-anti-weaponization-fund

Can the Andrew File Get Any Worse?

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

It’s thanks to Andrew Lownie’s paperback update of Entitled, his Prince Andrew defenestration, that we now know that Sarah Ferguson—aside from her toxic association with Jeffrey Epstein—reportedly had regular sex trysts with baby-oil extortionist P.

https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/can-the-andrew-file-get-any-worse

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-21)

BYD drives an EV 2,700+ miles to prove new battery and 5-min charging. Not available in the USA.

https://electrek.co/2026/05/18/byd-drives-ev-2700-miles-to-prove-new-battery-5-min-charging/

All The President’s Thefts

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump reinforces the fact that he is the most corrupt president in American history

https://steady.substack.com/p/all-the-presidents-thefts

Meet Jonathan Nez, Former President Of The Navajo Nation, Who Is Working Hard To Flip AZ-02

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Nez is the former President of the Navajo Nation, and the 12th candidate in our Winning The House series

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/meet-jonathan-nez-our-terrific-candidate

Something’s Rotten in the State of macOS Icon Design

(date: 2026-05-18)

This is an iconic observation:

If you put the Apple icons in reverse it looks like the portfolio of someone getting really really good at icon design

This isn’t, however, just the story of Apple’s Creator Studio icons. It’s the unfolding story of icon design across the entire macOS platform.

For example, take a look at some of Apple’s other apps like iMovie:

Or Remote Desktop:

Apple sets the standard (and the rules) for how icons look on the Mac. Wherever they go, so goes the ecosystem — and they’re taking the entire ecosystem along down with them.

It’s fast becoming the case that if you put any Mac app’s icons in reverse, it looks like the portfolio of someone getting really, really good at icon design.

Even Microsoft — not exactly a bastion of design — starts to look pretty decent with their icons the further back you go. For example, with OneNote, the app icon’s progression looks like it went something like this:

“I made this with AI”
“I tried to make the AI one, but by hand myself”
“I don’t need to be constrained by this squircle”
“Hey, I’m getting better at this”

Some 3rd-party apps continue to fight a good fight, even as Apple’s definition of what an icon should be — or what’s even possible — shrinks all around them.

Apps like Capo (remember, these are reverse chronological):

Or BBEdit:

Or Fantastical:

Or Cot Editor:

Everyone’s being put in a box squircle. The imposition is real.

I don’t blame any of the 3rd-party app makers. Their designs have to play by Apple’s rules (or end up in icon jail). World-class designers like Matthew Skiles or The Iconfactory are still out there striving for excellence, even as they’re hamstrung by the Mac’s latest rules.

When it comes to icon design on the Mac, the sky is no longer the limit: Apple’s icon design sensibilities are. They set the examples of what world-class icon design should look like, but what do you do when the examples are no longer exemplary?

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

Like Bruce Sterling always says:

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/rotten-macos-icon-design/

Calm Technology Principles in Practice - Denver Workshop at CEDIA Expo

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Thursday, September 3 Denver, Colorado 02:00-4:00 PM MDT Client satisfaction surveys consistently show a gap between what people imagine a smart home will feel like and what they actually experience after installation. In this session, we'll introduce Calm Technology®, a leading design framework based around human attention, showing how its principles translate directly into better installations, fewer support calls, and more referrals. We'll present a working overview of the eight...

https://www.calmtech.institute/post/calm-technology-principles-in-practice-denver-workshop-at-cedia-expo

The AI trial of the century ends with a whimper

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

and so there are some things we will never know

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-ai-trial-of-the-century-ends

Wed, May 20th, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Founding Members will gather this Friday at 1pm ET

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/wed-may-20th-7pm-et-our-weekly-hopium

Your Most Improbable Life

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be.

https://kevinkelly.substack.com/p/your-most-improbable-life

Apple Gift Card Scheme

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

Todd Bookman (via Roman Loyola): Then, according to Carter, the cards are carefully placed back in their original packaging, and are returned to the store’s shelves, where an unsuspecting customer will hopefully purchase them and add money to the card. […] The scale of the scheme is mind-boggling: Apple, working with police, determined that the […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/18/apple-gift-card-scheme/

Claude Desktop App

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

John Voorhees: Late yesterday, Anthropic announced messaging support for Claude Code, allowing users to connect to a Claude Code session running on a Mac from a mobile device using Telegram and Discord bots. I spent a few hours playing with it last night, and despite being released as a research preview, the messaging integration is […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/18/claude-desktop-app/

Memory Integrity Enforcement Exploit

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

Khanh: Early this week, we had a meeting at Apple Park in Cupertino. While there, we also shared with Apple our latest vulnerability research report: the first public macOS kernel memory corruption exploit on M5 silicon, surviving MIE. It was laser printed, in honor of our hacker friends. […] The exploit is a data-only kernel […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/18/memory-integrity-enforcement-exploit/

Hardening Firefox With Mythos

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

Bobby Holley: Since February, the Firefox team has been working around the clock using frontier AI models to find and fix latent security vulnerabilities in the browser. We wrote previously about our collaboration with Anthropic to scan Firefox with Opus 4.6, which led to fixes for 22 security-sensitive bugs in Firefox 148. As part of […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/18/hardening-firefox-with-mythos/

C’est pas le pied [en]

(date: 2026-05-18)

[en] Je voulais écrire hier. Hier, deux semaines après la mort d’Oscar. Le choc a passé. Je suis de retour au travail – avec difficulté la semaine dernière, on verra ce que raconte celle-ci. Il reste le manque. Il me manque. Je commence tout juste à entrer parfois dans mon appartement sans ressentir très fort la … Continue reading "C’est pas le pied [en]"

https://climbtothestars.org/archives/2026/05/18/cest-pas-le-pied/

Launching the Rogue Scholar Feed OPML file and Feed Reader

(date: 2026-05-18)

Today the Rogue Scholar science blog archive is launching an OPML file export of all active blogs. OPML is the standard export format for blog feeds and includes the blog category and feed URL – Rogue Scholar uses the OpenAlex subject area subfield as category.

https://blog.front-matter.de/posts/launching-the-rogue-scholar-feed-opml-file-and-feed-reader/

The Mind of Claude

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

I have taught Claude Code to write software the way I do.

It has abilities that I don't, for example, I give them 1000 lines of code, highly factored, with lots of thought into making it readable and maintainable, and always falling short (our languages today fight against readability imho), and get this -- it can read different parts of the same code in parallel, and in two or three seconds have a complete understanding of it.

I couldn't do it even if I had a week. I would totally depend on clues left there.

What's even more amazing is that when it writes code for me, it does it my way, mostly without any prompting from me. This was done over and over until I realized I had to tell it to save it and read it when a new session starts. That's how it accumulates knowledge. Anything that isn't in one of those files has to be relearned, and that's most of what it, as a code-writing system, has to work with. It has no "memory" of ever having seen this stuff before, but that isn't a problem because it can accumulate a few years of understanding in two or three seconds. It works very diffrently from the way we work. If I were to show you how to do something three times that would be it, not so with Claude.

When it doesn't know what to do, I take the time to explain how I would have done it, and next time it does it that way.

I kind of did the same thing in a human way -- when I first encountered Unix, I couldn't believe from reading the source code, how transparent it was. That was in the 70s. Since then I have been striving to write code that's as easy to work on. When it comes to realtime software, there isn't really a choice. Though history piles up in the code no matter how diligent you are. But you could give the source to say MySQL to Claude Code, and say "rewrite this as if Dave Winer wrote it" and it probably would do a decent job, though it might take a while before it ran every MySQL app.

If you're looking for good investments, I'd say look for programming problems that are very complicated. We are limited by what we can create by how much we can maintain. But we can have Claude explain for us any time what any of our code means. It can read my mind because I put the work of my mind in the memory of the computer. Which effectively is the Mind of Claude.

PS: Claude has a huge advantage over ChatGPT. Claude is one syllable and easy to remember. ChatGPT is four syllables, and has no discernable meaning. Claude is a person, and I think in general people named Claude are interesting.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/18/164538.html?title=theMindOfClaude

Netizen | Derek Sivers

(date: 2026-05-18)

1993 shaped how I think of the internet, and I’m keepin’ on in that original spirit.

Like picking up trash where you walk, even if the rest of the world is full of litter. You keep doing what you can to make things better.

adactio.com/links/22572

https://sive.rs/netizen

Oneday

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

Flaming excess Big fire on Santa Rosa Island. Largest fire ever there. Success story Susie James: Three chords, the truth, and a woman behind the signal is a nice piece about good local radio in Lebanon, Tennessee. It's in the Lebanon edition of Good News Exchange, which explains itself here.

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/18/oneday/

The value is in the difficulty - Annotations

(date: 2026-05-18)

We’ve seen this arc before, and music is the richest analogy.

Whatever happens to musicians happens to everybody.

adactio.com/links/22571

https://renderghost.leaflet.pub/3mlsbz7j5rc2z

He Was 18. Scientology Put Him in Charge.

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

A former Scientology executive in Scotland on recruitment, control, and getting out

https://stevenhassan.substack.com/p/he-was-18-scientology-put-him-in

Europe Versus America: A Wonkish Data Follow-up

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

More numbers, same story

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-versus-america-a-wonkish-data

Hoopings

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

I love basketball. I love watching it, and in my youth (columns A and B above, row 2), I loved playing it. I wasn’t good. My only skill was shooting the ball, which I did flat-footed from the nether regions of the court called “outside” or “downtown.” I hit about half of those shots if […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/18/hoopings/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Finding assets in Xogot’s filesystem browser was a pain, we baked in a always-on Asset Browser:

https://blog.xogot.com/introducing-the-asset-browser-finding-your-stuff-faster/

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116596329284716347

Geofence Warrants, Location Data, and the Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-21)

The Supreme Court’s consideration of geofence warrants represents one of the most technically and constitutionally significant privacy cases of the modern era. The core issue is whether bulk collection of location metadata—generated by consumer devices and cloud-based services—can coexist with the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches.

The post Geofence Warrants, Location Data, and the Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age appeared first on Purism.

https://puri.sm/posts/geofence-warrants-location-data-and-the-fourth-amendment-in-the-digital-age/

Bad Writers And Human Rights

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/bad-writers-and-human-rights/

NYT Has Generic Ballot D +11, Ukraine's Big Battlefield Win, Mortgage Rates And Brent Crude Rising - Trump's Failures Just Keep Mounting

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Two big jobs this week - win in Georgia tomorrow, make our calls for The Ukraine Support Act (HR 2913) every day!!!!!!!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/nyt-has-generic-ballot-11-d-ukraines

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

2024-era ChatGPT pictures, of which I created many are now like Comic Sans type was in 2010 or so, if you remember.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/18.html#a141818

Triumph At The Games: ‘’84: The Summer Of Gold’ Shows How U.S. Men’s Gymnastics Team Made Olympic History – Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-18)

EXCLUSIVE: The U.S. Men’s Gymnastics Team has only won gold once at the Olympics – in 1984. That moment of glory, coming after the U.S. boycott of the 1980 games in Moscow, is recaptured in the documentary ’84: The Summer of Gold. The film directed by 24-time Emmy-winner Nick Nanton is being presented at the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/84-summer-of-gold-cannes-market-1236914366/

‘Colony’ Director Yeon Sang-ho Talks AI Impact, Korean Cinema Revival & Working With Japan

(date: 2026-05-18)

Korean filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho has been busy over the past few years. In addition to directing zombie thriller Colony – which premiered in Midnight Screenings here in Cannes – he directed two other movies last year, The Ugly and Revelations, and was a showrunner on a Japanese series that will soon drop on Netflix. Colony, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/colony-cannes-yeon-sangho-showbox-ai-korea-box-office-japan-1236913577/

Bobby Darin Jukebox Musical ‘Just In Time’ Recoups $12.5M Broadway Capitalization

(date: 2026-05-18)

Just In Time, the Broadway musical about ‘Mack the Knife’ singer Bobby Darin currently starring Jeremy Jordan, has recouped its $12.5 million capitalization, producers announced today. The production becomes the first Broadway musical of the 2024-2025 season to recoup its investment, and just the fourth show to recoup this season (following the plays Every Brilliant […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/just-in-time-broadway-recoups-capitalization-1236906723/

Jafar Panahi Summoned For Court Hearing In Iran On May 20

(date: 2026-05-18)

Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been been summoned for a court hearing in Iran on May 20 as part of a retrial related to charges against him of “propaganda activity against the regime”, according to local media reports. The hearing will take place close to a year after Panahi was feted with the Cannes Palme […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/jafar-panahi-court-hearing-iran-may-20-1236914348/

[$] Swap tables, flash-friendly swap, swap_ops, and more

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-21)

The kernel's swap subsystem is charged with managing anonymous pages in secondary storage when those pages are (hopefully) not being used and the memory they occupy is needed elsewhere. This long-unloved subsystem has seen a resurgence of developer interest in recent times, so it is not surprising that it was the topic of three separate sessions in the memory-management track at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. Two of those sessions were concerned with improving the performance and maintainability of the swap code, while one (shared with the storage track) was about how swapping could be friendlier to solid-state storage devices.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072657/

Tracee Ellis Ross To Follow Mariska Hargitay In Broadway’s ‘Every Brilliant Thing’

(date: 2026-05-18)

Tracee Ellis Ross, of Blackish and Girlfriends, will take over the starring role of Broadway’s Every Brilliant Thing when Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU, My Mom Jayne) ends her own run on Sunday, July 5. Hargitay, as previously announced joins the production on Tuesday, May 26, after original star Daniel Radcliffe concludes his February […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tracee-ellis-ross-every-brilliant-thing-broadwsay-1236914325/

Oscar-Shortlisted Film ‘Extremist’, About Life Under Putin, Getting Feature With ‘Leviathan’ and ‘Butterfly Jam’ Producer — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-18)

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar shortlisted short film Extremist is getting the feature treatment, with the project boarded by arthouse stalwart Alexander Rodnyansky (Leviathan) and his production banner AR Content. Rodnyansky joins Alexander Molochnikov and Forma Pro films in producing The Extremists after the short premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival and won the Live Action Award […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/extremist-life-under-putin-feature-alexander-rodnyansky-1236914335/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-18:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 53 updated places.

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cate-blanchetts-displacement-film-fund-to-support-short-films-by-mo-amer-annemarie-jacir-rithy-panh-akuol-de-mabior-bao-nguyen-1236914277/

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

"main" branch:

464c68c1 - updated json

c874dfcf - updated rdf/ttl

4fc65b7d - updated gis package

a45a177e - updated data quality

4e91c843 - updated bibliography

a064d6a0 - updated indexes

c3767498 - updated sidebar

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

56d4c61f - updated geojson and names index

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

c1008230 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116595703249769784

The ‘Queen Of The Desert’ Actor Jay Abdo Reveals Why He Returned To Syria After Years In The U.S: “I Wasn’t Planning To Come Back”

(date: 2026-05-18)

Jay Abdo has a mission. “I want to show the world who Syrians really are; why they sometimes had to leave, and why they’re coming back,” says the Syrian American actor Jay Abdo in a Zoom call from Damascus in late March. Fifteen minutes in, the screen freezes. Abdo comes back on five minutes later […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/jay-abdo-syrian-film-business-1236882856/

Fay Weldon’s Supernatural Novel ‘Puffball’ Being Developed For TV 20 Years After Nicolas Roeg Movie Starring Kelly Reilly & Donald Sutherland

(date: 2026-05-18)

EXCLUSIVE: Nearly 20 years after the Nicolas Roeg movie starring Kelly Reilly and Donald Sutherland, a small screen version of Fay Weldon’s supernatural novel Puffball is in development. Deadline understands Firebird Pictures has optioned the 1980 novel, with Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, an Olivier Award-winning playwright who penned Netflix thriller Obsession, attached to write. Fay Weldon’s […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/fay-weldon-puffball-tv-series-firebird-movie-kelly-reilly-1236906341/

Security updates for Monday

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-21)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (freerdp, gimp:2.8, jq, kernel, and rsync), Debian (chromium, ffmpeg, firewalld, kernel, nginx, openjpeg2, openssh, php7.4, and redis), Fedora (apptainer, chromium, coturn, dnsmasq, firefox, kernel, libgit2_1.8, libmetal, nginx, nginx-mod-brotli, nginx-mod-fancyindex, nginx-mod-headers-more, nginx-mod-js-challenge, nginx-mod-modsecurity, nginx-mod-naxsi, nginx-mod-vts, open-amp, perl-Net-CIDR-Lite, pgbouncer, pypy, python-jupytext, python-uv-build, rsync, rust-astral-tokio-tar, uriparser, uv, valkey, and yelp), Mageia (dpkg, firefox, thunderbird, golang, haproxy, and samba), Slackware (dnsmasq and kernel), and SUSE (apache-commons-configuration2, apache2, apptainer, chromedriver, cups-filters, curl, dnsmasq, expat, ffmpeg-4, ffmpeg-7, firebird, firewalld, flux2-cli, glibc, go1.25, go1.26, gosec, grub2, ImageMagick, java-11-openj9, java-17-openj9, java-1_8_0-openj9, java-1_8_0-openjdk, java-21-openj9, java-25-openj9, kdenlive, kernel, kernel-devel, keylime-config, krb5, libIex-3_4-33, mozjs115, mozjs78, nginx, openssh, openvswitch, ovmf, PackageKit, perl-Crypt-URandom, perl-CryptX, perl-libwww-perl, perl-Net-CIDR-Lite, perl-Text-CSV_XS, podman, postgresql17, postgresql18, python-pyOpenSSL, python310, rsync, sed, tekton-cli, valkey, xen, and zypper-docker).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073356/

‘Garance’ Review: Adèle Exarchopolous Steals The Limelight In A Lightweight Story Of Alcohol Addiction – Cannes Film Festival

(date: 2026-05-18)

This year’s Cannes Film Festival has been good for actresses across the board, and if the percentage of female directors doesn’t seem to be moving very far forward, the types of female-fronted story reaching the Competition are definitely progressing. Jeanne Herry’s Garance — also known by the rather less alluring title Another Day — gets […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/garance-review-adele-exarchopolous-jeanne-herry-cannes-1236914252/

Cate Blanchett’s Displacement Film Fund To Support Short Films By Mo Amer, Annemarie Jacir, Rithy Panh, Akuol de Mabior & Bao Nguyen

(date: 2026-05-18)

Cate Blanchett has announced that her Displacement Film Fund (DFF) will be getting behind short films by Mo Amer, Annemarie Jacir, Akuol de Mabior, Rithy Panh and Bao Nguyen in a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival Palestinian American comedian-writer-director Amer, who is best known for his Mo Amer Netflix shows as well as […]

Owning the Machine Is Not Enough

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Sovereign Artificial Intelligence, semantic infrastructure, and the map beneath the model

https://semanticallyspeaking.substack.com/p/owning-the-machine-is-not-enough

Italian Market MIA Sets Out 2026 Agenda With Animation Track & European Financing Hub

(date: 2026-05-18)

Italy’s MIA will this year include tracks on animation series and an international financing hub. The Rome market and conference, held this year on October 19-23, unveiled its highlights today at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, where minister Lucia Borgonzoni was among those speaking to delegates and press. New for this year’s […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/italian-market-2026-agenda-animation-european-financing-1236914295/

Korean Director Na Hong-Jin Hopes For ‘Hope’ Sequel – Cannes

(date: 2026-05-18)

“I will make a sequel when possible,” said Korean director Na Hong-Jin at this afternoon’s Cannes press conference for the film. The sci-fi action movie made its world premiere last night at the fest to a seven-minute standing ovation. While the three protagonists are played by Korean actors, the family of extraterrestrial bad guys are […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-hope-sequel-1236914298/

Zero-Day Exploit Against Windows BitLocker

(date: 2026-05-18)

It’s nasty, but it requires physical access to the computer:

The exploit, named YellowKey, was published earlier this week by a researcher who goes by the alias Nightmare-Eclipse. It reliably bypasses default Windows 11 deployments of BitLocker, the full-volume encryption protection Microsoft provides to make disk contents off-limits to anyone without the decryption key, which is stored in a secured piece of hardware known as a trusted platform module (TPM). BitLocker is a mandatory protection for many organizations, including those that contract with governments...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/zero-day-exploit-against-windows-bitlocker.html

Xi and Putin Reach Agreement on Joint Ownership of Trump

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

According to sources familiar with the deal, the two leaders struck a timeshare arrangement.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/xi-and-putin-reach-agreement-on-joint

Something Old and Something New: International Law Under Trump 2.0

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-26)

The United States’ turn toward naked coercion and transactional deal-making represents both a genuine departure from its commitment to the liberal international legal order and the culmination of that order’s internal contradictions.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/something-old-and-something-new-international-law-under-trump-2-0/

Your Most Improbable Life

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-14)

Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your path, your character, your life, should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make. Improbable lives have fewer competitors, … Continue reading →

https://kk.org/thetechnium/your-most-improbable-life/

A Tale of Thucydides

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

China shouldn’t worry — Trump is too weak and unfocused to be a threat

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-thucydides

Lit Hub Daily: May 18, 2026

(date: 2026-05-18)

Here are 15 great gifts for the graduating English major in your life. | Lit Hub Katherine Kelaidis explains why you should be reading Russian dissident literature. | Lit Hub Criticism How ’70’s soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman made

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-18-2026/

Trump goes to China, without any cards

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

It's enough to make the Nixon era seem like the good old days.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-china-summit-failure

OVCS: Raspberry Pi–powered electric car

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

This Maker Monday, we've gone big with this Raspberry Pi–powered electric 'Frankencar' made up of different vendors' parts.

The post OVCS: Raspberry Pi–powered electric car appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/ovcs-raspberry-pi-powered-electric-car/

Web whetstones

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-20)

How do you stay sharp as a web developer and/or designer? I’ll share my advice below. I’m also looking for front-end folk to advise me too. What are your whetstones? That is to say: sources of news and knowledge to level up professionally. Does that metaphor work? […]

https://dbushell.com/2026/05/18/web-whetstone/

SHPILKES

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

BEING THE FIRST IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES CELEBRATING THE MUSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL APTNESS OF YIDDISH

https://jacobsonh.substack.com/p/shpilkes

15 Graduation Gifts for English Majors

(date: 2026-05-18)

It’s graduation season. If you happen to have a favorite English major about to burst forth into the hard-scrabble, AI-invested, job-scarce media apocalypse, we salute you. But mostly them. If you’d like to celebrate their accomplishments and give them a

https://lithub.com/15-graduation-gifts-for-english-majors/

Beyond Man U: One Man’s Journey Into the Depths of English Football’s Lower Divisions

(date: 2026-05-18)

I was baptized into the sport of soccer during the raucous days of the North American Soccer League (NASL) when my dad, Gary Smith, was the head athletic trainer of the Minnesota Kicks. In the late seventies, the NASL was

https://lithub.com/beyond-man-u-one-mans-journey-into-the-depths-of-english-footballs-lower-divisions/

Translator Beware: On the Myth of the Finicky English Reader

(date: 2026-05-18)

When I started my career as a professional literary translator, I began coming up against a mysterious “English reader” whom academics and editors kept referring to when they looked over my work, leaving comments like, “the English reader will find

https://lithub.com/translator-beware-on-the-myth-of-the-finicky-english-reader/

Writing in Exile: Why Russian Dissident Literature Demands Our Attention

(date: 2026-05-18)

Recently, in a small bookshop in Paris (it is, in fact, called La Petite Librairie), I found my way to what was a shockingly wide selection of foreign books in French translation. I browsed through the titles by Spanish and

https://lithub.com/writing-in-exile-why-russian-dissident-literature-demands-our-attention/

How Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Redefined Daytime Television

(date: 2026-05-18)

It was a breakdown unlike any the soaps had seen. A housewife named Mary Hartman had accepted an invitation to appear on The David Susskind Show, a decision that she likely did not anticipate would end in disaster. A resident

https://lithub.com/how-mary-hartman-mary-hartman-redefined-daytime-television/

This Week in Literary History: James Joyce and Marcel Proust Meet for the First (and Only) Time

(date: 2026-05-18)

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Literary History newsletter—sign up here. On May 18, 1922, the wealthy British art patrons Sydney and Violet Schiff hosted a dinner at the fashionable Hotel Majestic in Paris, ostensibly to celebrate Igor Stravinsky’s Renard, which had

https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-james-joyce-and-marcel-proust-meet-for-the-first-and-only-time/

What’s Next For Nation-States? On the Past, Present and Future of the World As We Know It

(date: 2026-05-18)

“[Revolutionary tracts tend] to become mere annals of complaints about existing conditions…I thought, on the contrary, that a revolutionary paper must be…a record of those symptoms which everywhere announce the coming of a new era, the germination of new forms

https://lithub.com/whats-next-for-nation-states-on-the-past-present-and-future-of-the-world-as-we-know-it/

Navigating the Coming-of-Illness Narrative

(date: 2026-05-18)

It can come on you suddenly or gradually: a tsunami or the slowly rising seas eating away at the shoreline till the topography is no longer recognizable. One day you simply wake up underwater, trying desperately not to drown. I

https://lithub.com/navigating-the-coming-of-illness-narrative/

Alice and Me: How My Struggle With Cancer Mirrored My Protagonist’s

(date: 2026-05-18)

I was supposed to have my mammogram months before. But I was writing a new novel—and so deeply steeped in it, gunning for my deadline, that I felt I couldn’t take the time for a routine screening. Then, in February,

https://lithub.com/alice-and-me-how-my-struggle-with-cancer-mirrored-my-protagonists/

Has Trump's Republican Party Become a Criminal Enterprise?

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump's purge of all political opponents, including Senator Bill Cassidy, leaves it with no purpose other than helping Trump achieve his lawless goals

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/is-trumps-republican-party-now-a

May 17, 2026

(date: 2026-05-18, updated: 2026-05-24)

Thousands of people gathered today on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to engage in an eight-hour taxpayer-funded evangelical worship event to “rededicate” the nation to Christianity.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-17-2026

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-18)

Yesterday, a new generation of civil rights activists marched from Selma to Montgomery to fight for voting rights. As states across the country try to make it harder for citizens to be heard, we need to learn the lessons of those who came before us and refuse to take our democracy for granted.https://alabamareflector.com/2026/05/16/thousands-attend-protests-in-selma-and-montgomery-for-voting-rights/

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mm3nykbbpk2h

UnderPOWERed

(date: 2026-05-18)

Well, the upgrade to Fedora 42 ppc64le failed on my Blackbird. So I'm in the situation why my system does not boot (at all). I will have to open it, enable internal VGA and see what I can do. In meantimee, I'm on my MNT notebooks (ARM/Linux). Not that bad unless my Debian update failed today, too. I will see,...

http://jirka.1-2-8.net/20260518-0241_UnderPOWERed

Playing with Tcl/Tk (warning: AI)

(date: 2026-05-18)

Do you remember the Tcl/Tk {sup}1{/sup}? It's a programming language (originally make as a LISP which does not look as a LISP so it shouldn't scare people) and of course an interpreter. It was very popular in late 1990 and early 2000s because it have included on only the "tclsh" (a Tcl shell) but also the "wish" (Windowin Shell) - a nice thing to make GUI in the Linux easily (in reality, it ahs been ported and used almost everywhere including Windows, classic and modern Macintoshes and so on). It also was the default GUI toolkit for the Python (I think it still is?).

http://jirka.1-2-8.net/20260518-0241_Playing_with_Tcl_Tk_warning_AI

Episode 182 - Spinning Memories

(date: 2026-05-18)

What connects IBM, the NSA, the Third Reich, and high fidelity recordings of symphonies? The answer is: magnetic drum memory. Join me as I lose all track of scope and plot to discovery just how and why magnetic drum memory was invented.

Like Advent of Computing? Then check out the after show! Adjunct of Computing is now LIVE: YouTube Spotify Apple Podcasts

https://adventofcomputing.libsyn.com/episode-182-spinning-memories

Chairing the Closing Keynote at IIPC 2026

(date: 2026-05-18)

I had the privilege of chairing the closing keynote of the 2026 IIPC Web Archiving Conference in Brussels, hosted at the grand KBR (Royal Library of Belgium).

The panel I convened brought a fresh angle to a community traditionally rooted in cultural heritage: using web archiving for open source investigations and accountability. It’s a perspective that doesn’t often share a stage with the librarians, curators, and archivists who form the backbone of IIPC — and that’s exactly what made the conversation valuable.

https://basilesimon.fr/blog/iipc-2026-closing-keynote?campaign=rss

On Graham Platner

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

I drove eight hours round trip today to Maine to introduce Graham Platner for about ninety seconds.

https://dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/on-graham-platner

Monday 18 May,2026

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-26)

Oi! Where’s our grub? We have a bird box in our garden which is used every year by Blue Tits. On Saturday I noticed that the fledglings were getting shirty about the Deliveroo service being provided by their (exhausted) parents. … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/monday-18-may2026/42099/

A Markdown-based test suite

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

The background behind a new test suite for a compiler and a VM where test scenarios are all written in Markdown for both human and AI consumption

https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/markdown-based-test-suite

Kernel prepatch 7.1-rc4

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-20)

The 7.1-rc4 kernel prepatch is out for testing.

Some of the documentation updates might be worth highlighting: the continued flood of AI reports has basically made the security list almost entirely unmanageable, with enormous duplication due to different people finding the same things with the same tools. People spend all their time just forwarding things to the right people or saying "that was already fixed a week/month ago" and pointing to the public discussion.

Which is all entirely pointless churn, and we're making it clear that AI detected bugs are pretty much by definition not secret, and treating them on some private list is a waste of time for everybody involved - and only makes that duplication worse because the reporters can't even see each other's reports.

(He is referring to this
pull request with patches from Willy Tarreau defining what constitutes a security
bug and responsible
ways to use AI to find bugs).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073193/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

Jon Stewart is usually pretty good, but I think he got it wrong when he says the AI companies are stealing journalists' knowledge. Imho they don't create knowledge, they report it. The knowledge isn't theirs to own, and that is for the times there is actually any new stuff. They stick to a few main stories, and still insist that the upcoming election is about the economy. They talk about the $1.7 billion slush fund, but aren't reporting every day in every story how much money we've given ICE. That big funding is going to the concentration camps they're building, the people the incarcerate we hear so little of. This is a government that shot two people in Minnesota, on camera, and shrugged it off. Imagine what horrors are going on out of site in the camps.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/17.html#a210705

Sunday caption contest: The Show

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

And last week's winner

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-caption-contest-the-show

RIP Peter G. Neumann

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-20)

We have received
word that Peter G. Neumann, who, among many other things, ran the RISKS Digest for decades, has passed away. He will be much missed.

Update: the New York Times has published an
obituary of Dr. Neumann.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073186/

Seeking God in Science part 8: Caring

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-18)

In the previous installment in this series I introduced the concept of information, which I defined as correlations between states. Commenter Samuel (whose profile says he is a Young Earth Creationist) pointed out that:Shannon entropy implicitly requires a mind to decide which distinct states will be recognized in order to assign a value to "n" (where n is the number of

https://blog.rongarret.info/2026/05/seeking-god-in-science-part-8-caring.html

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

Short documentary “The True Story of Israel's Creation: Debunking Israel's Foundational Lies from Their Leaders' Mouths”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk55AwbXDaw

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116591330328141690

Sunday session

(date: 2026-05-17)

Sunday session

https://adactio.com/notes/22570

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-21)

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Fails to Read Room on AI.

https://gizmodo.com/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-fails-to-read-room-on-ai-gets-booed-to-oblivion-2000759763

Some weekend stable kernel updates

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-20)

The 7.0.9,6.18.32,6.12.90, and6.6.140 stable kernels have been released. Each contains yet another set of important fixes.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073161/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-21)

Ukraine launches biggest attack on Moscow in a year.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f01767c70bfbbe51

SB Day

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-26)

Coasting I'm in Santa Barbara now, and it is typically perfect outside. Love living here, even though I mostly don't. Still strange Digging Blackhawk Slide is getting action lately. I wrote it 13 years ago. Talk about dumb Last Thursday's post, titled Person Networks, was occasioned by outreach by a friend who urged me by […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/17/sb-day/

Our Wins Of The Week

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

Democratic leadership is delivering major wins.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-progressive-wins-may-17

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today Claude found a problem that would only be uncovered if you knew that assigning to location.href didn't happen immediately. If it decides to redirect and then do a bunch of other stuff including making network references, the whole thing could (and did) come crashing down. I would have found that problem, but the actual error message the browser emitted made me think the problem was on the server not the client. The most complicated code in an app is the stuff it runs at startup when it's constructing the world of all its different pieces creating the virtuality expected by the great mass of code. It's the part that once it's working you don't even want to look at it and if you decide to rewrite it you might as well start over, only slightly exaggerating.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/17.html#a161916

Trump Gets A Brutal New CBS Poll, WHO Declares Global Health Emergency, New Intvs W/Gov. Shapiro and Ohio's Amy Acton

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

Two big things to work on this week - flipping 2 GA Supreme Court seats and passing HR 2913, The Ukraine Support Act

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/who-declares-global-health-emergency

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

Timothy Snyder made an important point. Trump sees his cause as a religion and sees himself as god. So when someone who is unfairly punished by Trump says they're still glad they voted for him, because (I guess) if god is on the ballot, you have to vote for him.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/17.html#a141738

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

I envision a network of twitter-like systems built out of the components of the web and nothing more. Every part replaceable.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/17.html#a135922

Japan’s K2 Pictures Unveils $33M Fund & Slate Additions Including Takashi Miike’s Kabuki Documentary

(date: 2026-05-17)

Japanese production and finance house K2 Pictures has announced the closing of its first film fund, through which it has raised $33M (JPY5BN), as well as new additions to its slate including Takashi Miike’s first documentary. At a press event in Cannes today, the company also said it has raised $67M in debt financing for […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/japan-k2-pictures-takashi-miike-shunji-iwai-hiroya-oku-1236907901/

Today's Symposium

(date: 2026-05-17)

Wouldn’t you know it.

https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/todays-symposium

Triple Threat: Natasha Lyonne, Sean Lennon & Evan Ross Launch Ariadne; ‘Vitruvian Scumbag’ Transhumanism Docuseries Inaugural Offering From Indie Studio

(date: 2026-05-17)

EXCLUSIVE: A supergroup by any other name: Natasha Lyonne, Evan Ross and Sean Lennon have banded together to form indie studio Ariadne. Hitting the ground and the Croisette running, the first project from the new endeavor is transhumanism docuseries Vitruvian Scumbag, which started filming last month. With a moniker drawn from Greek mythology, the trio […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/natasha-lyonne-sean-lennon-evan-ross-ariadne-launch-1236907576/

Oscar-Winner Javier Bardem Blasts Trump, Says Toxic Masculinity Is “Creating Thousands Of Dead People”

(date: 2026-05-17)

Javier Bardem is in Cannes for the debut of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beloved, a psychological drama about an Oscar-winning director named Esteban Martinez trying to reconnect with his actress daughter whom he hasn’t seen in 13 years. Oh, and he’s also a recovering alcoholic given to fits of rage. Asked about the theme running through […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/javier-bardem-blasts-trump-dead-people-1236907897/

Bobby Darin

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

A Reason To Smile

https://steady.substack.com/p/bobby-darin

History-Making ‘Paper Tiger’ Producer Marco Perego Creates Call To Action With Artists’ Haven Collective: “Cultural Expression Is The Most Important Thing To Protect” – Cannes

(date: 2026-05-17)

Saturday night saw the buzzy Cannes premiere of James Gray’s Paper Tiger — complete with a late-night afterparty — but the next morning, one of its producers, Marco Perego, is still fresh and raring to go. He didn’t go to the party because, as he explains, over coffee at the Majestic hotel on the Croisette, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/history-making-paper-tiger-producer-marco-perego-creates-call-to-action-with-artists-haven-collective-cultural-expression-is-the-most-important-thing-to-protect-cannes-1236907918/

Adam Driver On Lena Dunham Memoir Claims: “I’m Saving It All For My Book” – Cannes

(date: 2026-05-17)

Adam Driver got a question at the Cannes press conference for Paper Tiger about the acerbic claims made about him by Lena Dunham in her recent memoir Famesick and, well, he shut it down. “I have no comment on any of that. I’m saving it all for my book,” said the 2x Oscar nominee. (See […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/adam-driver-lena-dunham-claims-cannes-1236907875/

Math for Republicans

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

TBR Sunday Read

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/math-for-republicans

Challenging the Narrative of European Decline, Continued

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

I do not think that word “productivity” means what people think it means

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/challenging-the-narrative-of-european

Javier Bardem Talks Genocide, A Hollywood Blacklist & The Tide Turning Politically: “Those Who Are Drawing Up The So-Called Blacklist Will Actually Be Exposed, And They Are The Ones Who Will Be Suffering”

(date: 2026-05-17)

“There is no B plan, no alternative, and this entails consequences, which I’m fully ready to shoulder.” That’s Javier Bardem, in Cannes discussing his new film The Beloved, which was shot in the Western Sahara. Given the politics of that region and the controversy over Bardem’s recent statements about the conflict between Israel and the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/javier-bardem-genocide-hollywood-blacklist-1236907880/

Markiplier’s ‘Iron Lung’ Set For May 31 Debut On YouTube

(date: 2026-05-17)

Iron Lung, the breakout feature from filmmaker and content creator Markiplier, will debut on YouTube on May 31st. The filmmaker announced the film’s YouTube premiere date this morning during a panel in Cannes, which was moderated by Deadline. The film will be available for purchase on YouTube. The release will be a YouTube exclusive. Announcing […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/markiplier-iron-lung-youtube-cannes-1236907884/

Keanu Reeves To Lead Voice Cast Of Masashi Kawamura’s Edo Era-Set Animation ‘Hidari’

(date: 2026-05-17)

Keanu Reeves has signed up to lead the voice cast in Japanese animation director Masashi Kawamura’s long-awaited feature film extension of his viral stop-motion short Hidari. News of Reeve’s involvement in the project was announced at the Annecy Animation Showcase in Cannes on Sunday morning. The action-packed feature takes inspiration from accounts of the life of […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/keanu-reeves-masashi-kawamuras-animation-hidari-1236907812/

‘SNL UK’ Bows Out With Series Low Audience Up Against Eurovision Song Contest

(date: 2026-05-17)

SNL UK‘s first season came to a close on a bum note, ratings-wise. Up against stiff competition from the Eurovision Song Contest on BBC One, Sky’s adaptation of the iconic NBC comedy drew its lowest audience of the series. With Sex Education‘s Ncuti Gatwa guest presenting, Saturday Night Live UK was watched by 86,420 viewers […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/snl-uk-series-low-audience-eurovision-song-contest-1236907865/

Sunday thought: America's Madman-in-Chief

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

And the cowardice of the ruling class

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-flooding-trumps-zone

The illusion of Generative AI, the insanity of massive bets on hyperscaling, and the case for world models and neurosymbolic AI

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-27)

Three excellent new interviews

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-illusion-of-generative-ai-the

Lukas Dhont Returns To Cannes With Competition Title ‘Coward’ — Clip

(date: 2026-05-17)

We have a first look clip here from Coward, the first feature directed by Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont since his breakout 2022 film Close. Check out the clip above. Coward debuts on Thursday, May 21, in Competition at Cannes. The film stars Emmanuel Macchia in his debut film performance alongside Valentin Campagne (Colours of Time). […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/coward-lukas-dhont-cannes-clip-1236907088/

May 16, 2026

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-23)

Seventy-two years ago tomorrow, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously decided Brown v.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-16-2026

‘Saturday Night Live’ Wraps Season 51 With No Cast Goodbyes In Finale, Leaving Changes For Offseason

(date: 2026-05-17)

The host of the Saturday Night Live‘s Season 51 finale, Will Ferrell, exemplifies the typical trajectory of a successful SNL cast member: He spent seven seasons on the NBC late-night comedy program before embarking on a big Hollywood career. Things have changed over the past decade, with popular cast members staying longer than the standard […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/saturday-night-live-season-51-finale-leaving-52-cast-changes-1236907003/

Tarek Al Arian Hits Cannes With Project Inspired by High Society Killer Marguerite Alibert & Sons of Rizk Prequel

(date: 2026-05-17)

EXCLUSIVE: Tarek Al Arian, who is best known for Arabic-language The Ladder and The Snake and Sons of Rizk franchises, is developing a drama about infamous early 20th Century French courtesan Marguerite Alibert. Alibert gained notoriety for her affair with the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII and then Duke of Windsor, in 1917 […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tarek-al-arian-marguerite-alibert-sons-of-rizk-prequel-1236907789/

Weekly Bookmarks

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-24)

These are some things I’ve wandered across on the web this week.

🔖 abcde - ABetter CD Encoder

Ordinarily, the process of grabbing the data off a CD and encoding it, then tagging or commenting it, is very involved. abcde is designed to automate this. It will take an entire CD and convert it into a compressed audio format - Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG Audio Layer III, Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC), Ogg/Speex, MPP/MP+(Musepack), M4A (AAC) or Opus format(s).

🔖 The New York Good Times

An alternative home page for the NYT

🔖 Visualizing all books of the world in ISBN-Space

https://phiresky.github.io/blog/2025/visualizing-all-books-in-isbn-space/

🔖 DC Tabular Application Profiles (DC TAP) - Primer

This primer is the best starting point for understanding the Dublin Core Tabular Application Profiles (DCTAP) model. With just the primer you should be able to create your first DCTAP. DCTAP is the product of the DCMI Application Profiles Interest Group. This and other work products of the group can be found at the DC TAP github repository. Other documents in this project are:

🔖 feed-survey

A high-performance, distributed survey of RSS/Atom feed usage, autodiscovery, and quality in Common Crawl using AWS EMR.

🔖 Maintenance begins at creation, so why are we not creating better?

What digital substrate could we be using for the different categories of digital record out there? How can we take what we know about digital preservation and, instead of restricting ourselves to one format, embrace plurality to enable the creation of rich, flexible, preservable records?

🔖 Stuplimity: Shock and Boredom in Twentieth-Century Aesthetics

As “dispositions” which result in a fundamental displacement from secure critical positions, the shocking and the boring usefully prompt us to look for new strategies of engagement and to extend the circumstances under which engagement becomes possible. The phenomenon of the intersection of these affective dynamics, in innovative artistic and literary production, will thus be explored here as a way of expanding our notion of the aesthetic in general.

🔖 My BlogPrinciples

So over my (relatively) long blogging journey I’ve accumulated some crust of principles. Ensuring that what I’m doing is kind and useful to people. This led to some decisions. Including ones that make my own blog maintenance slightly harder. But I’m ready to suffer if this brings something good to others. Here are things I formulated that must be true for my blog…

🔖 Tyler State Park (Pennsylvania)

This is the park where John deployed his weather station.

🔖 Whole HealthVeterinary Care

Penny’s new vet!

https://inkdroid.org/2026/05/17/bookmarks/

None

(date: 2026-05-17, updated: 2026-05-24)

There is no wind

blowing here

on my face

cool from the faraway sea.

I don’t see that tree

green against blue

blue behind green.

Boarding a train

leaving a train

no train.

https://inkdroid.org/2026/05/17/no/

Ambient Associative Memory

(date: 2026-05-17)

Most agent memory waits to be queried. Ambient memory runs on every tool call — past lessons surface on their own, no rules list required.

https://timkellogg.me/blog/2026/05/17/ambient-memory

The braid

(date: 2026-05-17)

A burst of support; books about Apple. Read here.

https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/season-of-change/

i stopped looking for the weird problem

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

i'd wait till a fresh start tomorrow.

but then i realized claude has all the code, so i could just tell it my problem.

can you find it, i asked, realizing i had not given it info on what the problem is.

there's a very weird mistake in the code i wrote just now, and there was a lot of it, i said to claude.

can you find the problem.

had no idea what to expect.

no more than 3 seconds it said I got it!

it was a typo. where i meant to type x i had typed prefs.

juggling a lot of bits in my head, my brain skipped, i didn't notice.

i would have found it quickly in my next session. but now i can think of anything but that problem until then.

sometimes claude can be totally frustrating, but other times the power makes such a huge difference.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/16/223608.html?title=iStoppedLookingForTheWeirdProblem

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

Tilapia is the only food with a negative flavour contribution.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116586292592722129

named globs with curl

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-26)

One of the established power features of the curl command line tool is its support for “globbing”. It is a built-in way to specify ranges and sets in different ways and have curl iterate over them to simplify repeated transfers. For example, you can easily download three images from the same host without having to … Continue reading named globs with curl→

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2026/05/16/named-globs-with-curl/

★ AI Is Technology, Not a Product

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-18)

It’s not even a feature. It’s just technology.

https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/ai_is_technology_not_a_product

Women’s sun hats

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-26)

I am in the market to not get skin cancer but I loathe wearing sunscreen so I want to try becoming a big hat and long sleeve shirt* lady this summer. It has occurred to me that owning more than one (1) sun hat may make this more likely. (My other one got ruined.) *(For […]

https://tracydurnell.com/2026/05/16/womens-sun-hats/

A quarter of a century of open educational technology

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

Every day for 25 years, Stephen Downes has written about edtech, informing an entire industry.

https://werd.io/a-quarter-of-a-century-of-open-educational-technology/

Democracy and the midterms after the VRA

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

Two links for you this weekend

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/democracy-and-the-midterms-after

Trump Is A Fool, A Coward, And A Traitor

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump continues to bow to and appease global strongmen, doing enormous harm to America and freedom and democracy everywhere

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trump-is-a-fool-a-coward-and-a-traitor

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

I documented the optional source:inReplyTo element for RSS 2.0.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/16.html#a150155

Kubrick And Skating

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-26)

Today, enjoy our audio and video picks

https://thebrowser.com/free/kubrick-and-skating/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-21)

25 Foods You Should Skip After Age 50.

https://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/25-foods-to-avoid-after-50/?cmp=EMC-DSM-NLC-OTH-WBLTR-2239402-2312101-10224022-NA-05162026-Webletter-MS1-NA-BTN-NA-MembersOnly&encparam=w7FYjApvv3yEnaPCdM0pr/Sij36RUa0/14aOWsT9P6Y=

Michael Winterbottom’s Hemingway Adaptation ‘A Farewell To Arms’, Starring Tom Blyth, Heads To Cannes Market With Embankment & Tribune Pictures

(date: 2026-05-16)

EXCLUSIVE: It’s been a few years since we heard about writer-director Michael Winterbottom’s A Farewell to Arms adaptation, but it now has fresh impetus with producer-financier Tribune Pictures and UK sales firm Embankment Films, which is bringing it to the Cannes market. Fremantle is among the original partners who are no longer aboard the film, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tom-blyth-michael-winterbottom-hemingway-farewell-to-arms-1236907073/

Dragoncatcher: The big button

(date: 2026-05-16)

Marcin's battlestation. Read here.

https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/big-button/

Guillaume Canet & Marion Cotillard On The “Mutually Enriching” Experience Of Crafting Their Cannes Title ‘Karma’ Together

(date: 2026-05-16)

Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard happily reflected on what they described as the close and collaborative experience they underwent to develop their Cannes Competition title Karma this afternoon during a press conference. Canet directed the film from a screenplay he also wrote. But the veteran filmmaker told the press room that he began the project […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/guillaume-canet-marion-cotillard-karma-cannes-1236907075/

Aaron Eckhart Underway In Bulgaria On Action-Thriller ‘The Walk-In’; Wildbunch, Eagle, Vertical Among International Pre-Sales – Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-16)

EXCLUSIVE: The Dark Knight and Olympus Has Fallen star Aaron Eckhart has begun principal photography in Bulgaria on action-thriller The Walk-In, which Film Bridge International is launching at the Cannes market. Roel Reiné, who directed Eckhart in 2024 action film Classified with Tim Roth and Abigail Breslin, is directing the movie, which is shooting on […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/aaron-eckhart-action-thriller-the-walk-in-shooting-bulgaria-1236907069/

‘Michael’ Has Better Dance Moves Than ‘The Devil’ With $27M No. 1; ‘Obsession’ Lovely $14M & ‘A-‘ CinemaScore – Early Saturday AM Box Office Update

(date: 2026-05-16)

EARLY SATURDAY AM WRITETHRU after Friday Afternoon update: Lionsgate’s Michael is the hit that keeps on giving with an expected No. 1 in weekend four of $27M per industry estimates, -29%, after what’s looking like a $7M Friday at 3,560 theaters. Imax and PLF screens are giving the biopic some extra dance moves this weekend. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/box-office-obsession-michael-devil-wears-prada-2-1236906122/

G. Elliott Morris on Vibes and the Midterms

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

The political scene after redistricting

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/g-elliott-morris-on-vibes-and-the

Lit Hub Weekly: May 11 – 15, 2026

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-15)

“The waxing and waning fortunes of languages are inevitably historical and political questions, and these questions are likewise delirium-inducing if we sit with them honestly.” The benefits of being a polyglot (as a fiction writer). | Lit Hub Craft Dear

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-weekly-may-11-15-2026/

Josh Marshall on how US democracy can be saved

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

"You simply can’t do it with the filibuster and this Supreme Court in place."

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/josh-marshall-interview-2026

Ones to Watch: 10-Year-Old Rimu Kuwaki Proves To Be A Quick Study In Hirokazu Koreeda’s Cannes Competition Entry ‘Sheep In A Box’

(date: 2026-05-16)

Japanese newcomer Rimu Kuwaki makes his debut as a savvy robot child surrogate in auteur Hirokazu Koreeda‘s Sheep in the Box, premiering in Competition today at the Cannes Film Festival. Palme d’Or winner Koreeda is a regular in Cannes, largely returning to present films that deal with issues of life, death and parenting, both good […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/rimu-kuwaki-koreeda-interview-sheep-in-a-box-1236879972/

Pluralistic: Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire (16 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire: Don't mistake "powerful" for "durable." Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Copyrighted law; Viral videos v cops; Crooked banker v tiny bat; "Infested"; Can the means of computation be seized? Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, LA, Menlo Park, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. Making sense of Trump's unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire (permalink) For generations, the American empire was the most powerful force on earth, and so we tended to assume that it was the most durable force on earth – surely anything so powerful must also be eternal? But power and durability aren't the same thing, as Le Guin reminded us with her oft-quoted maxim that "We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings": https://www.ursulakleguin.com/nbf-medal Monarchs may be powerful, but that power is derived from a manifestly incorrect belief in special blood, a belief that requires monarchs to inbreed. At best, this produces heads of state who can't stop bleeding and also can't tell you if their blood is blue or red; at worst, it yields heads of state who can't speak intelligibly, much less produce another generation of royals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain Oligarchy also produces a sequence of progressively weirder and more terrible rulers who rely on a mix of lies, flattery, coercion and personal cult nonsense to hold their coalition together in the face of mounting evidence for the system's bankruptcy. Thus Reagan begat GW Bush, who begat Trump, whose potential successors are a kennel of the least-charismatic chud podcasters ever to curse an RSS feed. Trump's second term has resulted in a rapid, unscheduled, mid-air disassembly of the American empire. As Baldur Bjarnason writes, under Trump, America "first turned on their trading partners, then their allies in Europe, and then they delivered one of this century’s biggest economic and energy crises to their allies in Asia": https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2026/the-old-world-of-tech-is-dying/ The line comes from an excellent post entitled "The old world of tech is dying and the new cannot be born," about the impact of Trump's de-Americanization of the world on the US tech industry, and thus the world's relationship to tech more broadly. As Bjarnason writes, Trump's tech giants dominate the world because America dominates the world. It's not because the world likes American tech. As Bjarnason writes: They are, more often than not, about as popular and respected as tobacco or pharmaceutical companies – some of them and their products are polling in terms of public sentiment in ranges similar to child molesters or authoritarian immigration enforcement entities – and their CEOs are some of the more despised public figures in recent history. These very, very unpopular tech companies dominate because American trade policy insists that they must. They are allowed to violate local laws because stopping them from doing so would result in trade sanctions. It's true that US tech companies face fines abroad from time to time, but these are "the price list for inflicting societal suffering. Pick the one that suits your business model." US trading partners haven't really attempted to extinguish the unlawful conduct of US tech companies. All of that is up for grabs now, thanks to Trump's uncontrollable compulsion to repeatedly hormuz himself (and America) in the foot. But – as Bjarnason writes – this didn't start with Trump. As ever, Trump is as much an effect as a cause, and the most important cause of Trump is the conversion of America into a financial economy, which started under Reagan, but was only finalized by Obama, who let the Wall Street looters who destroyed the world economy walk away unscathed, even as they stole the homes of millions of Americans: https://web.archive.org/web/20170130083243/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/16/how-barack-obama-paved-way-donald-trump-racism Financial economies "suck the air out of the rest of the economy and make it less competitive." Keeping billionaires in megayachts comes at the expense of "research, education, infrastructure, and healthcare." Countries that financialize lag behind countries where the economy is based on making things, not extracting or financing things. Generations of both imperial looting and domestic investment made America the richest country on earth. That wealth cushioned America's transition to oligarchy: for a while, the country could both "finance and billionaire parasites sucking its blood" and continue to invest in itself. But while you can double the wealth of a billionaire at the expense of a town or two, doubling the wealth of a centibillionaire requires the destruction of whole regions. As America looted itself into irrelevance, China – a very different kind of autocracy – invested in domestic capacity and domestic consumption. China's hardly a well-run place: like any autocracy, it functions according to the whims of extremely fallible officials, which produces real-estate bubbles and other crises of production (to say nothing of the demographic crisis of the One Child policy) and necessitates steadily increasing oppression, from online surveillance to concentration camps in Xinjiang. Bjarnason writes about how this Chinese/US world presents a "double bind" for the EU. Siding with the US is increasingly untenable: the EU exists in large part to promote its domestic industries, but the US is no longer content to leave these alone. As Bjarnason says, US economic policy is now, "whatever our oligarchs want to steal this month, they get." US tech has extended so many tendrils into so many sectors that it's not possible to defend any industrial sector without impinging on the "technopoly," where "the only ideas and thoughts that have social and cultural legitimacy are those that support, are supported by, and are mediated through technology." This means that continuing to work within the American system means a steady transfer of economic and political control of every aspect of your life to the US, a decaying empire ruled over by a mad king. Nevertheless, there is a strong, vestigial reflex to protect American tech in the EU, which leaves European power-brokers scrambling to come up with reasons that the EU should confine its tech regulation to empty symbolic gestures, while avoiding meaningful action at all costs: https://cerre.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CERRE_Horizontal-Interoperability-of-Social-Networking-Services.pdf But the American tech sector relies on the other sources of American power – the ones that Trump is so bent on destroying. Trump's de-dollarization of the world economy is pushing the world away from using American tech for payment processing and networking. The American empire created the form of the US tech sector. As Bjarnason writes, "without the weight of the US political empire behind it – if Airbnb or Uber had been local startups – much fewer countries in the world would have loosened their regulations and consumer protections to accommodate them to the point where they prospered as they did." Trump isn't the first US leader to make a strategic blunder (the US has lost every war it's fought since WWII, after all). But Trump's blunders are different in that they "deliberately signal the end [the US] empire." Hormuz and tariffs have driven people away from the US dollar, and everyone knows who to blame for the senseless deaths in the Gulf and the global privation caused by oil rationing. That's bad news for a software industry that "shifted its entire value proposition from 'we make tools that help you make or save money' to using political clout and the dollar hegemony to capture, control, and loot entire sectors of the various economies of the world. That strategy only works when you’re in charge." DOGE wiped out the health systems of the global south, and now Trump's trade negotiators are demanding that these countries promise to keep their hands off of US tech in exchange for reinstating a small trickle of the aid they lost. These countries are rejecting those demands: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/zambia-says-us-health-deal-must-be-uncoupled-minerals-access-2026-05-04/ It's all up for grabs, in other words. The post-American internet is being born in a post-American world, and the shape of both is impossible to determine from this side of the veil. Bjarnason quotes Gramsci: "the old is dying and the new cannot be born." I hold out high hopes for a world of international digital public goods: free and open software that replaces America's extractive, defective black boxes with transparent, auditable, trustworthy alternatives that are under the control of the people who use them: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/16/pascals-wager/#doomer-challenge But – as Bjarnason says – even the intellectual property framework that the free/open source movement relies on to make its licenses enforceable is an artifact of the collapsing American empire. If the global copyright system collapses with America, there won't be any impediments to reverse-engineering and improving the tech around us – but there also won't be any way to enforce the free software licenses that keep that software open: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/02/limited-monopoly/#petardism The whole essay is very good and – like so many great essays – it raises more questions than it answers. It's also full of standout one-liners like this one: How do LLMs affect productivity and quality? (Much like leaded petrol. There’s some potential benefit for individual users with literally decades of expertise, provided nobody else uses LLMs. The results are catastrophic when everybody is using them.) Consider moving it to the top of your weekend reading. Hey look at this (permalink) Your Power Tools Got Worse On Purpose https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-power-tools-got-worse-on-purpose The privilege of bad writers https://coreyrobin.com/2026/05/15/the-privilege-of-bad-writers/ AI as the new avatar of American capitalism https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-as-the-new-avatar-of-american Cucked Internet Theory https://www.tikviewer.com/video/7639554103340698912 Bill to block publishers from killing online games advances in California https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/05/bill-to-keep-online-games-playable-clears-key-hurdle-in-california/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Is the law copyrighted? https://web.archive.org/web/20010519134232/http://www.uniontrib.com/news/uniontrib/sun/news/news_1n13own.html #15yrsago Canadian copyright collective wants a music tax on memory cards https://web.archive.org/web/20110517205114/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5798/125/ #10yrsago FBI Director: viral videos make cops afraid to do their jobs https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/us/comey-ferguson-effect-police-videos-fbi.html?_r=2 #10yrsago Banker implicated in one of history’s biggest frauds says boss beat him with a tiny baseball bat https://web.archive.org/web/20160516173952/http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/barclays-banker-accused-rigging-libor-rate-hit-assistant-baseball-bat-1559792 #10yrsago Infested: an itchy, fascinating natural history of the bed bug https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/14/infested-an-itchy-fascinating-natural-history-of-the-bed-bug/ #5yrsago A weapon of mass financial destruction https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals #1yrago Are the means of computation even seizable? https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/14/pregnable/#checkm8 Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/16/technopoly/

Bullsh*t in the China Shop | The Coffee Klatch for Saturday, May 16, 2026

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-26)

With Heather Lofthouse and yours truly, Robert Reich

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/bullsht-in-the-china-shop-the-coffee

The Beatles In Cannes: All The Times John, Paul, George And Ringo Had A Groovy Time At The Festival, But Never As The Fab Four…

(date: 2026-05-16)

Picture yourself in a boat on the Riviera… Most rock superstars have been seduced by the glamor of the Cannes Film Festival at some point in their career. The Rolling Stones went twice, first with Gimme Shelter in 1971 and then with Stones in Exile in 2010. The Who closed the festival in 1975 with […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/the-beatles-in-cannes-john-paul-george-and-ringo-1236879627/

‘Once Upon A Time In Gaza’ Scoops Top Prize At 10th Critics’ Awards For Arab Films

(date: 2026-05-16)

Palestinian directors Tarzan and Arab Nasser’s Once Upon A Time In Gaza has scooped Best Film at the 10th Critics’ Awards For Arab Films. Set in Gaza in 2007, and following the misadventures of a student (Nader Abd Alhay) and restaurant owner and petty criminal (Majd Eid), the picture premiered in Un Certain Regard last […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/once-upon-gaza-scoops-top-prize-critics-awards-arab-films-1236907046/

Tim Roth & Timothy Spall Set For New York Crime-Thriller ‘Murdering Michael Malloy’ – Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-16)

EXCLUSIVE: Archstone Entertainment is launching world sales in Cannes on the crime-thriller Murdering Michael Malloy starring Oscar nominee Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction) and BAFTA and Cannes Best Actor winner Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner). From director Raymond De Felitta (City Island), the film is aiming to shoot third quarter 2026. Based on a true story, Roth […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tim-roth-timothy-spall-film-murdering-michael-malloy-1236906094/

Sophie Okonedo Says Taking ‘Clarissa’ From Nigeria To Cannes Made Her Cry Tears Of Joy; Directors Arie and Chuko Esiri Are “Very Singular With Their Vision”

(date: 2026-05-16)

Oscar nominated for Hotel Rwanda, Sophie Okonedo comes to Directors’ Fortnight with Clarissa, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway directed by Nigerian siblings Arie and Chuko Esiri. Okonedo stars as the title character — Clarissa is the heroine’s Christian name — and the story follows a day in the life of this society woman […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sophie-okoneno-interview-directors-fortnight-1236879477/

Arnaud Desplechin Talks Starry English-Language Ensemble Drama ‘The Thing That Hurts’ About Clients Of Beloved Dead Psychoanalyst: “I Was Born To Make This Film” – Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-16)

EXCLUSIVE: Cannes habitué Arnaud Desplechin is not at the festival this year but his upcoming English-language production The Thing That Hurts is making a big splash at the market with Gravel Lake Entertainment. Featuring Alfre Woodard, J.K. Simmons, Jason Schwartzman, André Holland, Noémie Merlant, Golshifteh Farahani, Teddie Allen, and Felicity Jones in the cast, the picture is Desplechin’s starriest yet. It […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/arnaud-desplechin-ensemble-drama-thing-that-hurts-cannes-1236906590/

Paolo Sorrentino Making Documentary About Legendary Soccer Coach Carlo Ancelotti

(date: 2026-05-16)

Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino is developing an intimate portrait of legendary Italian soccer coach Carlo Ancelotti, going behind the scenes of his five-decade career and culminating in the 2026 World Cup this summer as he coaches Brazil’s national team. Rumors around the untitled documentary have been circulating on Italian sports blogs for weeks but the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/paolo-sorrentino-carlo-ancelotti-documentary-1236887872/

May 15, 2026

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-22)

President Donald J.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-15-2026

‘Obsession’ Writer/Director Curry Barker On “Really Tragic Story” Within The Horror Film

(date: 2026-05-16)

As Curry Barker makes his directorial breakout with Obsession, he’s discussing the movie’s layered themes of consent and communication. The writer and director of the horror film recently discussed how the character of Nikki (Inde Naverrette) is depicted as both a villain and a victim after her best friend Bear (Michael Johnston) makes a wish […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/obsession-curry-barker-tragic-story-horror-film-1236907022/

Weeknotes: May 9-15, 2026

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-26)

Win of the week: took my bike off its stand and tuned it up, then biked to my doctor’s appointment — wowee biking is good exercise 🥵 also dropped off a return at the mall next door Looking forward to: picked myself up a cookie from the fancy grocery store that I’ve been jonesing for for […]

https://tracydurnell.com/2026/05/15/weeknotes-may-9-15-2026/

Notable links: May 15, 2026

(date: 2026-05-16, updated: 2026-05-27)

What happens after the feed? And how can publishers remain independent?

https://werd.io/notable-links-may-15-2026/

AI: AI Systems Are No Longer Just Models, and Runtime Verification Is Becoming the New Security Boundary

(date: 2026-05-16)

AI systems are increasingly being discussed as if the model were the system. That was never entirely true, but it is becoming dangerously misleading. Moreover, modern AI applications are not simply prompts sent to a model and responses returned to a user. They are pipelines, wrappers, agents, tools, APIs, third-party services, memory layers, orchestration logic, […]

https://paolozaino.wordpress.com/2026/05/16/ai-ai-systems-are-no-longer-just-models-and-runtime-verification-is-becoming-the-new-security-boundary/

Friday Squid Blogging: Bigfin Squid

(date: 2026-05-16)

Article about the bigfin squid.

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.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/friday-squid-blogging-bigfin-squid.html

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-21)

The Protein Shortage Is Coming.

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/05/protein-powder-shortage/687193/?link_source=ta_thread_link&taid=6a07a96de11eb80001a463fe&utm_campaign=WigwamQuan&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=threads

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-21)

A podcast says don’t listen to podcasts.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000010906723/you-should-sit-with-boredom.html

447: ‘A Sociopathic Father’, With Adam Lisagor

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-16)

Adam Lisagor returns to the show to talk about Hovercraft, his new virtual presentation camera app for Mac, and how he's developing it with AI coding tools. Also, delicious Japanese spite sandwich cookies.

https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/05/15/ep-447

Take My Classroom Home

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

Watch THE LAST CLASS film whenever you want

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/take-my-classroom-to-your-home

Flooded Zones Part 1

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

Tom Cowap

CC-BY-SA 4.0 Three years ago in Flooding The Zone With Shit, my first post on the AI bubble, I wrote:

My immediate reaction to the news of ChatGPT was to tell friends "at last, we have solved the Fermi Paradox". It wasn't that I feared being told "This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it", but rather that I assumed that civilizations across the galaxy evolved to be able to implement ChatGPT-like systems, which proceeded to irretrievably pollute their information environment, preventing any further progress.

The post title was a notorious quote from Steve Bannon. Below the fold, I look into scholarly publication, the first of three areas whose zones are currently being flooded with AI output in what can be considered DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service attacks:

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers.

A subsequent post will examine two more flood zones, political discourse and software security.

Bacground

Spam DDoS attacks work when it is cheaper for the attacker to consume the victim's resources than it is for the victim to supply them[1]. Everyone is familiar with this situation, their mail server has to use a machine-learning system to filter the small amount of ham from the vast flood of spam. This has been going on for more than three decades[2], in a continuous arms-race between the spammers and the filters.

Scholarly Publication

The record of scholarship has been under attack for a long time; my " flooding" post included this example:

Open access with "author processing charges" out-competed the subscription model. Because the Web eliminated the article rate limit imposed by page counts and printing schedules, it enabled the predatory open access journal business model. So now it is hard for people "doing their own research" to tell whether something that looks like a journal and claims to be "peer-reviewed" is real, or a pay-for-play shit-flooder. The result, as Bannon explains in his context, is disorientation, confusion, and an increased space for bad actors to exploit.

Now AI makes it very cheap to consume resources in the system, as Elizabeth Gibney reports in How AI slop is causing a crisis in computer science:

Fifty-four seconds. That’s how long it took Raphael Wimmer to write up an experiment that he did not actually perform, using a new artificial-intelligence tool called Prism, released by OpenAI last month. “Writing a paper has never been easier. Clogging the scientific publishing pipeline has never been easier,” wrote Wimmer, a researcher in human–computer action at the University of Regensburg in Germany, on Bluesky.

Large language models (LLMs) can suggest hypotheses, write code and draft papers, and AI agents are automating parts of the research process. Although this can accelerate science, it also makes it easy to create fake or low-quality papers, known as AI slop.

It is expensive to run the filters to separate the scholarly hame from the AI spam:

AI slop is hard to spot by conventional means, says Paul Ginsparg, a physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and a co-founder of the arXiv. Volunteer moderators can no longer use how well a paper engages with the relevant literature and methods to gauge its merit. “AI slop frequently can’t be discriminated just by looking at abstract, or even by just skimming full text,” he says. This makes it an “existential threat” to the system, he says.

How bad is the problem? In How much of the scientific literature is generated by AI?, Miryam Naddaf asks:

How much of the scientific literature is generated by AI? The first studies of the size of the AI footprint in scientific journals, preprint repositories and peer-review reports give a spread of answers — and indicate a rapidly evolving situation that it is difficult to get a handle on.

The fear of many in the research community is that poor-quality or entirely fabricated research produced by large language models (LLMs) could overwhelm the ability of current quality-control systems to detect it, thereby polluting the scientific canon.

Source The fear is justified. Can AI tools help reduce the cost of weeding out the AI slop? For example, Pangram is a service that detects AI generated text. In Pangram Predicts 21% of ICLR Reviews are AI-Generated, Bradley Emi asks:

Are authors using LLMs to write AI research papers? Are peer reviewers outsourcing the writing of their reviews of these papers to generative AI tools? In order to find out, we analyzed all 19,000 papers and 70,000 reviews from the International Conference on Learning Representations, one of the most important and prestigious AI research publication venues. Thanks to OpenReview and ICLR's public review process, all of the papers and their reviews were made publicly available online, and this open review process enabled this analysis.

Pangram found that a significant proportion of the reviews were AI slop:

We found 21%, or 15,899 reviews, were fully AI-generated. We found over half of the reviews had some form of AI involvement, either AI editing, assistance, or full AI-generation.

Source There was less AI slop in the papers, but still significant AI use:

Paper submissions, on the other hand, are still mostly human-written (61% were mostly human-written). However, we did find several hundred fully AI-generated papers, though they seem to be outliers, and 9% of submissions had over 50% AI content.

Of course, just because Pangram flags a review or a paper as AI-generated doesn't mean it is wrong, just as that a paper is human-written doesn't mean it is right. A decade ago, long before AI arrived, science was suffering a reproducibility crisis caused by Bad incentives in peer-reviewed science. Eleven years ago Arthur Caplan of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU's Langone Medical Center predicted it would lead to a total loss of science's credibility:

The time for a serious, sustained international effort to halt publication pollution is now. Otherwise scientists and physicians will not have to argue about any issue—no one will believe them anyway.

No-one did anything effective, so Caplan's "otherwise" was what happened. Science has had a quality problem for a long time. The bad incentives have also caused a quantity problem, spawning pay-to-play predatory journals publishing garbage under the "peer-reviewed" brand.

Gartenberg Fig. 2 An even more comprehensive analysis for the journal Organization Science also using Pangram was reported in More Versus Better: Artificial Intelligence, Incentives, and the Emerging Crisis in Peer Review by Claudine Gartenberg et al They find that AI's reduction in the cost of pumping up a researcher's publication count has caused a massive spike in submissions to an already overloaded system:

While there could be many reasons for the rise in submissions, including reduced backlogs, increased scholar productivity, or journal reputation, Figure 2 suggests that the disproportionate increase in submission volume is driven by AI use. Post-ChatGPT, we see a marked decline in submissions flagged at 0%–15% AI (little to no AI use) and a corresponding rise in all other categories that make up the difference between the decline in human-only submissions and the 42% increase in total submissions.

Gartenberg Fig. 3 The additional submissions were marked by heavy AI use:

Prior to the launch of ChatGPT, relative shares were flat. Nearly all submissions were classified as human (with some idiosyncratic noise). Immediately after the launch of the first commercial LLM chatbots, a precipitous decline in human-only submissions began. At the same time, we observe a steady rise in all categories of AI-supported or generated submissions. What is most striking is that by February 2026, the majority of submissions submitted to Organization Science use AI in their writing to some degree. The most striking trend is the rise of the 70%+ AI category, where text is mostly or entirely generated by AI.

Gartenberg Fig. 6 So much for quantity. There are no good automated tools to assess the quality of the research but there is a wide range of automated tools to assess the quality of the writing. Applying them, the authors found a sighnificant correlation between AI use and degraded readability:

We do not find much evidence that the writing quality of those manuscripts changed meaningfully between 2013 and November 2022, when ChatGPT was launched. In contrast, post-ChatGPT, we see a precipitous decline in the average manuscript’s Reading Ease score. Indeed, AI scores and Flesch Reading Ease are negatively correlated

...

We find strong evidence that AI use is associated with lower-quality writing across most of these traditional measures. This result is counterintuitive. Authors often assume that using AI will improve their writing. However, this is not the case, at least when authors substantially offload their writing to it.

...

AI prose is more difficult to read on several dimensions. Beyond substantially lower Flesch Reading Ease scores, the grade level required to understand the text is higher (more multisyllabic words); the FOG and SMOG indices increase, suggesting more complex text; and the use of jargon increases. We also find increased use of nominalizations (e.g., “conceptualization”, “operationalization”, or “contextualization”).

Whatever the quality of AI generated papers, they are massively aggravating the quantity problem. Samantha Cole reports on one approach to reducing the flow in ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop:

Late Thursday evening, Thomas Dietterich, chair of the computer science section of ArXiv, wrote on X: “If generative AI tools generate inappropriate language, plagiarized content, biased content, errors, mistakes, incorrect references, or misleading content, and that output is included in scientific works, it is the responsibility of the author(s). We have recently clarified our penalties for this. If a submission contains incontrovertible evidence that the authors did not check the results of LLM generation, this means we can't trust anything in the paper.”

Examples of incontrovertible evidence, he wrote, include “hallucinated references, meta-comments from the LLM (‘here is a 200 word summary; would you like me to make any changes?’; ‘the data in this table is illustrative, fill it in with the real numbers from your experiments’.”

“The penalty is a 1-year ban from arXiv followed by the requirement that subsequent arXiv submissions must first be accepted at a reputable peer-reviewed venue,” Dietterich wrote.

I have two suggestions:

Journals should make authors take responsibility for their words and provide them tools to do so. They should check all incoming papers and reviews with Pangram or a similar tool and automatically reject anything above a set AI score. But they should provide the same tool to the authors so they can know before submission whether it will pass the filter.
Too many papers will still pass the filter and have to be reviewed. Journals should train their own, proprietary, domain-specific reviewers on their own and related content. Using them as a first pass filter would ensure that the limited human reviewer bandwidth was defended from flooding[3]. The quality of the training data would ensure that the better journals had better first pass filters, preserving their quality advantage.

Footnotes

This was a problem we addressed in the design of the LOCKSS protocol:

Effort Balancing. If the effort needed by a requester to procure a service from a supplier is less than the effort needed by the supplier to furnish the requested service, then the system can be vulnerable to an attrition attack that consists simply of large numbers of ostensibly valid service requests. We can use provable effort mechanisms such as Memory-Bound Functions to inflate the cost of relatively “cheap” protocol operations by an adjustable amount of provably performed but otherwise useless effort. By requiring that at each stage of a multi-step protocol exchange the requester has invested more effort in the exchange than the supplier, we raise the cost of an attrition strategy that defects part-way through the exchange. This effort balancing is applicable not only to consumed resources such as computations performed, memory bandwidth used or storage occupied, but also to resource commitments. For example, if an adversary peer issues a cheap request for service and then defects, he can cause the supplier to commit resources that are not actually used and are only released after a timeout (e.g., SYN floods). The size of the provable effort required in a resource reservation request should reflect the amount of effort that could be performed by the supplier with the resources reserved for the request.
I described the history in "Nobody cared about security":

The first spam e-mail was sent in 1978 and evoked this reaction:

ON 2 MAY 78 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION (DEC) SENT OUT AN ARPANET MESSAGE ADVERTISING THEIR NEW COMPUTER SYSTEMS. THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.

Which pretty much fixed the problem for the next 16 years. But in 1994 lawyers Canter & Siegel spammed the Usenet with an advertisement for their "green card" services, and that December the first commercial e-mail spam was recorded.
Credit for this idea goes to Vicky Reich.

https://blog.dshr.org/2026/05/flooded-zones-part-1.html

Apple Developer App 11.0

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

Zac Hall (MacRumors): The update also adds these changes: Refreshed look with Liquid Glass. List filtering by Unwatched, Bookmarked, and Downloaded, and preferred topics. Improved reliability of image capture during enrollment. Bug fixes and various other enhancements. Steve Troughton-Smith: [It] has been ported from Catalyst-based to AppKit-based (it is a SwiftUI app in either case). […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/15/apple-developer-app-11-0/

OmniFocus 4.8.10

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

OmniFocus 4.8: OmniFocus 4.8 introduces a visually refreshed interface, adopting beautiful Liquid Glass design elements and a modernized look and feel when run on macOS Tahoe 26, iOS 26, or iPadOS 26. This release also includes support for a range of new OS features - support for consulting Apple’s new on-device Foundation Models via Omni […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/15/omnifocus-4-8-10/

Trump's weakness tour comes to China

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump cowered before Xi — and threatened to sell out our allies.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trumps-weakness-tour-comes-to-china

Trump and Xi meet in China. Trump doesn't think about Americans' "financial situation." SCOTUS maintains access to abortion drug.

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Donald Trump Goes To China

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/may-15-weekly-news-roundup

A Love Letter to AI Startups Afraid of Formal Ontology

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

I have a lot of sympathy for artificial intelligence startups that are skeptical of formal ontology.

https://semanticallyspeaking.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-ai-startups-afraid

The Weirdness of Jay Powell's Legacy

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Plus my favorite video of him, and the tattoo I got in response to the soft landing.

https://newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/the-weirdness-of-jay-powells-legacy

Ubuntu 26.04 Review

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-22)

Introduction I reviewed Ubuntu 25.10 late last year on my M1 Apple MacBook Air using UTM virtualization software. Ubuntu 26.04 was released last month which is an LTS version, that’s Long Term Support version which means it will be supported for five years, so I thought I’d have a look at it. This version is also notable in that […]

https://smist08.wordpress.com/2026/05/15/ubuntu-26-04-review/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Xogot is moving soon to 4.6:

https://blog.xogot.com/xogot-is-moving-to-godot-4-6/

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116579717302568008

Artificial intelligence and future of capitalism from a Marxist, and a neoclassical, point of view

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

What would be the likely effects of massive introduction of artificial intelligence in the economy, from the Marxist point of view?

https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-and-future

AI in Everything, Everywhere

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-21)

After I published AI is the New Netflix, Surj Patel, a former colleague, intellectual sparring partner, and long-time reader, asked a sharp question. Given my argument that AI will drive the next wave of upstream traffic, are we headed toward more of a superscaled peer-to-peer model, away from the hub-and-spoke, client-server architecture that underlies the …

https://om.co/2026/05/15/ai-in-everything-everywhere/

Is breá leat é a fheiceáil.

(date: 2026-05-15)

Is breá leat é a fheiceáil.

https://adactio.com/notes/22569

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

BTW, here's the JSONL version of Scripting News. It has the same data as the RSS file, but in the format that AI apps are looking for, so I am told. I thought I'd try to kick this off by pushing an RSS flow through the pipe. It's like using the Grateful Dead to boot up podcasting. I needed something to put out on the wire and I had this feed handy.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/15.html#a161234

There Is A Soul, But Not A Transcendent One

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

The post There Is A Soul, But Not A Transcendent One appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/there-is-a-soul-but-not-a-transcendent-one

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Thinking about adding source:inReplyTo to the source namespace. Its value is a URL, by default, and has an optional isPermaLink attribute, a boolean, to indicate if it's not a permalink. Works just like the guid element in RSS 2.0. I will also add support for that in the FeedLand database, and flow it out through the socket interface. Actually that's pretty close to a full spec, at least in rss.land where we take simplicity seriously. ;-)

http://scripting.com/2026/05/15.html#a160244

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

I wish they had an outliner in Claude. I would use it. ;-)

http://scripting.com/2026/05/15.html#a160223

Dave's vibe coding amusement park

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

I reached a point in my Claude work where now I can do vibe coding, in a world that I used to just be a programmer in. This means if I want to do a heavy lift, I can tell Claude what I want and it can do really big corner turns, which is something I am (as a human) terrible at, and thus resist. Today I redesigned the basic user interface of the app, and didn't read any code, I was just giving orders, and it was doing what I asked, even if every little thing it did would have been a full day's work. It's remarkable how it can do very complex things in a few seconds.

And the web framework i'm working on can do almost all the things I want to do for now, but I want to suck everything into it, and turn the whole thing into a vibe coding amusement park. So many projects I want to do, and so many I want to do with you.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/15/154439.html?title=davesVibeCodingAmusementPark

Flinks

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-25)

The first version of this post became Snucked and sucked, but never mind that. I'm also packing to fly early tomorrow, so for now I'm just blabbing an annoted link pile during what's left of today. In other words, sort of like the usual but without subheads. I didn't know we were in an Axial Age […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/15/flinks/

Tito as Gaeilge

(date: 2026-05-15)

Last year Jeremy Keith blogged about completing Duolingo Irish, and I’ve added that as a goal for myself. I found myself in London with him in February at State of the Browser. It’s probably the last place you’d expect to hear Irish spoken, yet we had an earnest conversation over lunch, using as much as we could.

Having a proper conversation as Gaeilge with Paul was an absolute highlight for me!

adactio.com/links/22568

https://blog.tito.io/posts/tito-as-gaeilge

There is no digital sovereignty without ODF

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Any other choice is a choice of dependence on a single vendor Digital sovereignty begins with the document format. Everything else – server location, hosting jurisdiction, procurement clauses – is downstream of this single decision. If the format is standard and open, the user controls the document. If the format

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/15/no-digital-sovereignty-without-odf/

Sleep And Clauses

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/sleep-and-clauses/

Surveys will continue until diversity improves

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-20)

The web and tech industry is a veritable sausage party. We don’t need surveys to prove it but we have surveys to prove it. State of surveys have been running for a decade now. Let’s look at the 2025 survey demographics: Yes I think “sausage party” is accurate. Weißwurstfest even. […]

https://dbushell.com/2026/05/15/surveys-will-continue-until-diversity-improves/

The closing talks at UX London 2026

(date: 2026-05-15)

When I told you about the schedule for UX London 2026, I said:

After your afternoon workshop there’ll be one final closing talk at the end of each day before we head to the bar.

These closing talks are a way of bringing everyone back into the same space after spending the afternoon in different workshops. It feels right to start the day and end the day with a shared experience.

On day one, discovery day, the closing talk will be delivered by Michael Kibedi. It’s called Whose English gets to be default?

Ben Sauer will be giving the closing talk on day two, design day. His talk is called Story before screens.

Finally, on day three, delivery day, the closing talk will be from Lou Downe. It’s called Bad services, which also happens to be the title of their brand new book!

As you can see, each day at UX London is crafted to be a distinct one-day event, but all three days also flow together nicely.

If you haven’t got a ticket yet, grab one now before the standard pricing ends at midnight. And don’t forget that you can use the discount code JOIN_JEREMY to get a tasty 20% off.

https://adactio.com/journal/22567

[$] Controlling memory management with BPF

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-19)

Roman Gushchin began his session in the memory-management track of the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit by saying that the community has seen a lot of proposals adding BPF-based interfaces for memory management. None of them have made their way into the mainline, though. He wanted to explore the ways in which BPF might be helpful and the obstacles that have kept BPF-based solutions out so far. This session was followed by a discussion led by Shakeel Butt on what the requirements for a new, BPF-based interface for memory control groups might look like.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072538/

Trump Is Hell Bent On Weakening America And Making Russia And China Great Again

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

With Trump once again appeasing our adversaries we must pass The Ukraine Support Act, HR 2913. Let's make it clear the American people stand with Ukraine, Europe, and freedom!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trump-is-hell-bent-on-weakening-america

US AI policy is a clumsy mess. Here’s what to do about it.

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

1200 bills, state and federal, and no framework

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/us-ai-policy-is-a-clumsy-mess-heres

Your Friendly Neighborhood Hookworms

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-22)

For most of human history, people went about their daily lives with a worm or two (or fifty) in their guts. Only in the past century, with pharmaceuticals and sanitation practices, have we made significant strides towards deworming the whole of humanity. And that’s typically been thought of as a good thing, because having too many worms in your body can–quite literally–suck the life out of you.

But is it possible to have… too few worms? Science wonders if deworming ourselves has actually led to an increase in certain chronic diseases. On this episode, we dive into Necator americanus, a.k.a. the American Hookworm, and its mysterious relationship with each of us.

We trace the hookworm’s 118-year journey from a demonized economic depressant, to its use as a desperate D.I.Y. immunosuppressant, to its potential as a medical treatment for a number of chronic diseases, everything from asthma to MS.

We’re bringing back two stories from our 2009 episode Parasites plus new research on hookworms and autoimmune diseases, reported by Molly Webster

Special thanks to Ethan Hein for the use of his remix of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21. Plus, Doris Pierce, and Dan and Alice Hadley.

EPISODE CREDITS:

Reported by - Pat Walters and Molly Webster

with help from - {{wREPORTERS}}

Produced by - Matt Kielty

with help from - Rebecca Rand

Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly

and Edited by - Arianne Wack

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Articles -

Effect of experimental hookworm infection on insulin resistance in people at risk of type 2 diabetes ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37495576/) by Giacomin PR et al. Nat Commun. 2023 Jul 26

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https://radiolab.org/podcast/your-friendly-neighborhood-hookworms

My Experience Driving Electric in Massachusetts

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-21)

I’m a renter and I love my electric vehicle – here’s why.

The post My Experience Driving Electric in Massachusetts appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

https://www.clf.org/blog/my-experience-driving-electric-in-massachusetts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-experience-driving-electric-in-massachusetts

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-21)

A working example of a server-based feed reader implementation of rssCloud.

https://github.com/scripting/reallysimple/tree/main/demos/clouddemo

Snucked and sucked, but never mind that

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-23)

When you read a gruesome story on a polite service, and it sources a story on another polite service that still doesn’t give you the information you want—the gory stuff—you continue digging. The story in question here is a FlightAware one titled Frontier plane kills fence-jumping pedestrian during Denver takeoff. Its source is a story on […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/15/snucked-and-sucked-but-never-mind-that/

Who Are You Stacey Levine? What Happens When a “Deeply Weird,” (Very) Small Press Novel is a Pulitzer Finalist

(date: 2026-05-15)

It was like any Monday morning at Seattle Central College, the community college where Stacey Levine has taught creative writing for fifteen years. Arriving at work, she sat down at her office desk—a bulletin board with lightly crumpled world maps

https://lithub.com/who-are-you-stacey-levine-what-happens-when-a-deeply-weird-very-small-press-novel-is-a-pulitzer-finalist/

Brenton Thwaites, Grace Van Dien, Emile Hirsch & Ron Perlman Set For ‘Beg The Devil’ — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-15)

EXCLUSIVE: Brenton Thwaites (We Bury the Dead), Grace Van Dien (Stranger Things), Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild), and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) are to star in Beg the Devil, which Film Mode Entertainment is repping at the Cannes Market. Co-written and directed by Alex Turner (Dead Birds), the film is said to be based on the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/beg-the-devil-cannes-brenton-thwaites-film-mode-1236906074/

Seven new stable kernels with patches for CVE-2026-46333

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-19)

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the 7.0.8, 6.18.31, 6.12.89, 6.6.139, 6.1.173, 5.15.207, and 5.10.256 stable kernels. These kernels contain a patch for CVE-2026-46333 a vulnerability reported
by the Qualys Security Advisory team, though Jann Horn proposed
a patch in 2020. The vulnerability has a proof-of-concept
exploit published already. Some of the kernels have additional patches for other bugs; as always, users are advised to upgrade.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073060/

‘Outlander’ Wraps Up Series With Shocking Ending That Leaves Room For Future Continuation

(date: 2026-05-15)

The following reveals major plot points from Starz’s Outlander series finale. The series finale of Starz’s Outlander is finally available to view, and I doubt anyone is ready to see this romance of the ages come to a final conclusion. But ready or not, here it is. The first half of Outlander, “And the World […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/outlander-series-finale-recap-1236905617/

‘Boorman And The Devil,’ Documentary About John Boorman’s Legendarily Ill-Fated ‘Exorcist’ Sequel, Acquired By Yellow Veil Pictures

(date: 2026-05-15)

EXCLUSIVE: Yellow Veil Pictures has acquired North American rights to Boorman and the Devil, a documentary about the troubled production of John Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic.” The 1977 follow up to the original Exorcist was a commercial and critical failure but has gone on to earn cult status. Yellow Veil Pictures plans to open […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/boorman-and-the-devil-yellow-veil-pictures-acquisition-1236905668/

[$] HugeTLB preservation over live update

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-19)

Recent times have seen a lot of effort put into the implementation of the kexec handover and live update orchestrator features in the Linux kernel. But that work is not yet complete. At the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Pratyush Yadav led a memory-management-track session on adding the ability to preserve hugetlbfs-provided memory during the live-update process.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072531/

Security updates for Friday

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-19)

Security updates have been issued by Debian (ffmpeg, gsasl, nodejs, postgresql-15, postgresql-17, python3.9, and thunderbird), Fedora (expat, firefox, freerdp, GitPython, kernel, php, rust-podman-sequoia, rust-rpm-sequoia, rust-sequoia-chameleon-gnupg, rust-sequoia-git, rust-sequoia-keystore-server, rust-sequoia-octopus-librnp, rust-sequoia-openpgp, rust-sequoia-sop, rust-sequoia-sq, and rust-sequoia-sqv), Mageia (awstats, libreoffice, perl-HTTP-Tiny, and tomcat), Oracle (corosync, freerdp, gimp, git-lfs, glib2, jq, kernel, krb5, libsoup3, libtiff, openexr, thunderbird, uek-kernel, and yggdrasil), Red Hat (podman and skopeo), SUSE (amazon-ssm-agent, avahi, c-ares, cairo, containerd, cpp-httplib, dnsmasq, dovecot24, ffmpeg-4, firefox, helm, ImageMagick, iproute2, kernel, krb5, libtpms, ongres-scram, ongres-stringprep, plexus-testing, maven, maven-doxia, mojo-parent, sisu, openCryptoki, openssh, perl-Text-CSV_XS, php8, python-lxml, python-Twisted-doc, python311-click, python311-GitPython, rclone, regclient, and syncthing), and Ubuntu (avahi).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1073059/

Mariska Hargitay Extends Run In Broadway’s ‘Every Brilliant Thing’

(date: 2026-05-15)

Mariska Hargitay has extended her starring run in Broadway’s Every Brilliant Thing by a week, and will now play in the essentially-solo show at the Hudson Theatre from Tuesday, May 26, through Sunday, July 5. Producers Second Half Productions, Seaview, and Gavin Kalin Productions announced the extension today. As previously announced, the play’s current star, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/mariska-hargitay-broadway-every-brilliant-thing-2-1236906064/

Work is What a Body's Obliged to Do

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-17)

Or: How I spent the best week of my life scraping the stains off my kitchen floor

https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/work-is-what-a-bodys-obliged-to-do

‘Species’ Review: There Will Definitely Be Blood In Marion Le Corroller’s Visceral But Imaginatively Fleshed Out Body Horror – Cannes Film Festival

(date: 2026-05-15)

Blood is only the beginning in Marion Le Corroller’s Species, which follows firmly in the trail pioneered by Julia DuCorneau but brings its own thoughts to the woman-in-a-man’s-world body-horror genre. Built around a fantastic scream-queen performance from Mara Taquin, who literally comes out of her shell in ways that will not be revealed here, Le […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/species-review-marion-le-corroller-body-horror-cannes-1236906041/

Pluralistic: No one wants a permanent gerontocracy (15 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links No one wants a permanent gerontocracy: The one policy everyone agrees on. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Wolfengitmo; Facebook condemns Google privacy invasion; Michael Moore on bin Laden; TSA v babies; Tendril perversion; "Buy now"; Uber Ch(eats); Who Broke the Internet (II)? Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. No one wants a permanent gerontocracy (permalink) Perhaps the most demoralizing part of Trumpismo is the fear that the people around you are so cruel and senseless that they approve of the violence, the racism, the pig-ignorant lies and rampant theft: https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/08/who-goes-maga/ One of the things keeping me going in these dark days is the pollster G Elliot Morris, whose "Strength in Numbers" newsletter is a reliable, robust and nuanced source of information about the way other people – including Trump's base – feel about him from moment to moment. Reading items like "A reminder: Very few people support Donald Trump's presidency" make it easier to get through the day: https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/a-reminder-very-few-people-support It's a very good piece, breaking down the collapse in support for Trumpismo and confidence in Trump's mental health, even among the people who have historically stood by him, even though – incredibly! – about a third of Americans still support him and believe in his fitness to rule. But the most interesting part of this post is the eye-popping poll result on a question that is only incidentally about Trump: the extremely broad, bipartisan support for both age limits and term limits for the House, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. How broad and bipartisan are these results? 80% of Americans want age limits in the House and Senate (D78%, R83%; I79%); Most Americans want age limits for the presidency (R73%, I61%) (the most popular age limit is 79); Most Americans (65%) want an 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices; Most Americans (79%) want age limits for Supreme Court justices. As Morris writes, this represents "a level of cross-partisan agreement that’s almost unheard of on a high-salience issue." There are different ways to parse this out. The past decade has shown that, in the absence of a hard rule to the contrary, incumbents will stay in office long after it's obvious they should step down. That was true of Biden, who continued to campaign for a presidential term long after it was obvious that he was no longer physically and mentally capable of doing the job. It was true of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, whose commitment to the symbolic value of having her successor appointed by the first woman president allowed Trump to appoint the monstrous Amy Coney Barrett to a lifetime on the Supreme Court, which could well last another 30 years. It was true of Antonin Scalia, who would have handed a Supreme Court pick to the Obama administration if it wasn't for Mitch McConnell's willingness to steal a seat for Neal Gorsuch. It's true of Kay Granger, a sitting congresswoman whose staff hid the fact that her dementia had progressed to the point that she had to be moved to an assisted living facility – while still holding office: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/14/kay-granger-dementia-dc-media-00210317 It was true of Gerry Connolly, who insisted that he – not AOC – should be the head of the Oversight Committee, despite the fact that he was dying of cancer: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/rep-gerry-connolly-announces-return-of-cancer-steps-down-as-top-oversight-democrat It was true of Dianne Feinstein, who continued to serve in the Senate despite having advanced dementia: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/04/sen-dianne-feinsteins-saga-is-a-very-public-example-of-a-national-crisis/ These politicians are wed to a system of seniority and patronage that insists that everyone who "pays their dues" should get a turn. It's a system that relies on politicians banking favors from their peers and then paying them back by anointing successors, thus requiring politicians to serve until they are ready to choose that successor. We have created a system in which no one dares to hand over power, because to do so is to unilaterally disarm, while the other side keeps their permanent gerontocrats in positions of authority. Not only does this system starve the pipeline of young politicians who can progress to fill those new roles, it also exposes each party to significant risk. If your majority rests on a handful of seats and your caucus includes a dozen people who are actuarially certain to die soon, then the whole system could be upended by a couple of highly likely blood-clots: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/01/designated-survivors/ It's not that every politician over the age of 70 (or 80, or 85) is incapable of doing the job: it's that a system that runs on a mix of incumbency advantage, seniority, patronage and hubris is a bad system and the only fix for it is to put hard limits on terms – both based on how many years you hold office, and how many years you walk the earth. The system where everyone who pays their dues gets a turn was never going to work, and that should have been especially obvious to the system's longest-tenured participants, who've had decades to notice how long-lived their colleagues are, and to compare those lifespans to the number of committee chairs, senate seats and other treasures there are to be had in the halls of power. There are lots of good ideas – like abolishing the Electoral College or limiting political spending – that are popular with a majority of Americans, but these ideas are often very unpopular with conservatives: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want But this is a realm in which – as Morris says – there is "almost unheard-of…cross-partisan agreement." It's the one idea that all Americans – including older Americans (at least the ones who aren't in the House, Senate or Oval Office; or on the Supreme Court) agree on: rule by permanent gerontocracy is bad, and should end. In not so many months, both parties are going to have to pick their next presidential candidates (in the case of Republicans, it may be sooner, depending on Trump's cheeseburger intake). Those primary contests are going to implicitly raise the issue of whether we should be ruled according to the principle of "everyone who pays their dues gets a turn." But a shrewd politician could win a lot of favor among voters (and fury among their colleagues) by campaigning on age- and term-limits for high office. (Image: Pacamah, CC BY-SA 4.0, modified) Hey look at this (permalink) Internet of Shit: AI Poop Analysis App Offered to Sell Me Database of Its Users' Poops https://www.404media.co/ai-poop-analysis-app-offered-to-sell-me-access-to-its-users-poops/ How companies weaponize the terms of service against you https://www.theverge.com/podcast/930342/brendan-ballou-companies-courts-forced-arbitration-lawsuits-scalia UK begins antitrust inquiry into Microsoft's business software ecosystem https://www.theregister.com/oses/2026/05/14/uk-begins-antitrust-inquiry-into-microsofts-business-software-ecosystem/5240452 Meta’s New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale https://www.wired.com/story/meta-layoffs-bad-vibes-mark-zuckerberg-ai/ Verity MCP https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/verity-mcp/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago The life of a celeb PA https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/may/14/highereducation.comment #20yrsago DOJ moves in dark of night to quash EFF wiretapping lawsuit https://web.archive.org/web/20060524092447/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004659.php #20yrsago WolfenGitmo: Guantanamo Bay mod for Castle Wolfenstein https://web.archive.org/web/20060520203517/https://a.parsons.edu/~evan/school/?q=node/29 #20yrsago Where does booing come from? https://web.archive.org/web/20181215223044/https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/05/where-do-hecklers-come-from.html #15yrsago Steven Levy on Facebook’s ironic privacy charge against Google https://web.archive.org/web/20110514121727/https://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/facebook-privacy-problems/ #15yrsago Michael Moore’s “Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden” https://web.archive.org/web/20110513181408/https://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/some-final-thoughts-on-death-of-osama-bin-laden #15yrsago DHS’s “Secure Communities” program will deport battered woman for calling 9-1-1 on her abuser https://web.archive.org/web/20110514142235/https://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/05/isaura_garcia_battered_secure.php #15yrsago TSA: we’ll search your baby and it will make the country safer https://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/05/tsa-says-baby-frisking-justified.html #10yrsago Telcoms companies try to rescue TV by imposing Internet usage caps on cord-cutters https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/13/isps-are-now-forcing-cord-cutters-to-subscribe-to-tv-if-they-want-to-avoid-usage-caps/ #10yrsago The weird, humiliating nicknames George W Bush gave to everyone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_George_W._Bush #10yrsago “Tendril perversion”: when one loop of a coil goes the other way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendril_perversion #10yrsago Clicking “Buy now” doesn’t “buy” anything, but people think it does https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2778072 #5yrsago Uber (Ch)eats https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/13/uber-cheats/#50-companies #5yrsago The Democratic establishment https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/13/uber-cheats/#party-bosses #1yrago Who Broke the Internet? Part II https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/13/ctrl-ctrl-ctrl/#free-dmitry Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu) https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/15/not-ok-boomer/

‘Elizabeth’ Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur To Direct ‘Foreign Bodies’ About Vaccine Pioneer Waldemar Haffkine — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-15)

EXCLUSIVE: BAFTA-winning Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) is set to direct Foreign Bodies, a historical drama biopic about vaccine pioneer and bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine. Haffkine, little known to the general public, was the Ukrainian-Jewish scientist whose work on cholera and plague vaccines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries helped save millions of lives. The British Raj […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/shekhar-kapur-direct-film-vaccine-pioneer-waldemar-haffkine-1236905998/

International Insider: Cannes Gets Cracking; Deadline Goes Local To Global; Barry Keoghan Interview

(date: 2026-05-15)

Welcome to a refreshed International Insider, folks. We’ve updated the newsletter with some new sections that make your weekly read more dynamic and exciting. What better time to roll it out than Cannes Film Festival week one? Lots on that and the other major happenings in the TV and film world to follow. Jesse Whittock […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/international-insider-cannes-film-festival-week-one-1236905623/

Amy Jackson & Lauren Dark’s Unified Makes Production & Digital Hires

(date: 2026-05-15)

EXCLUSIVE: Amy Jackson and Lauren Dark’s UK production outfit Unified is hiring Claire Lamarra as Creative and Production Executive across film and TV, and bringing in Aidan Milburn who will work with the team on a consultancy basis across its digital expansion. As we revealed, Aftersun producer Jackson and former Film4 exec Dark launched Unified […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/amy-jackson-lauren-dark-unified-makes-production-hires-1236905911/

Bypassing On-Camera Age-Verification Checks

(date: 2026-05-15)

Some AI-based video age-verification checks can be fooled with a fake mustache.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/bypassing-on-camera-age-verification-checks.html

You can't gerrymander a bad approval rating

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump's net approval is historically weak for this point in a presidency — and his approval on handling prices and the economy is even worse than Joe Biden's low

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-12-you-cant-gerrymander-a-bad-approval-rating

Weekly Roundup: May 15

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-26)

Sabeel Rahman on legislative supremacy, Joe Soss and Joshua Page on criminal-legal predation, and Justin Deystone on the return of critical legal theory. Plus, new jobs with Rutgers' Housing Justice Clinic and NYU's federal Indian Law Clinic, a CFP for junior work law scholars (broadly construed), a report on the nordic-US childcare gap, and Steve Vladek on how Congress used to bully the Court.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/weekly-roundup-may-15/

Powering coexistence: how Raspberry Pi technology is helping WWF protect wildlife and communities in Pakistan

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Raspberry Pi 4–powered AI camera traps are helping WWF-Pakistan mitigate human–wildlife conflict in the Gilgit-Baltistan mountains.

The post Powering coexistence: how Raspberry Pi technology is helping WWF protect wildlife and communities in Pakistan appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/powering-coexistence-how-raspberry-pi-technology-is-helping-wwf-protect-wildlife-and-communities-in-pakistan/

Joe Begos & WTFilms Team On ‘They Call Him Zorro’ Revisiting Iconic Hero With A Violent & Brutal Twist

(date: 2026-05-15)

EXCLUSIVE: Production and sales outfit WTFilms is joining forces with Joe Begos, known for cult horror hits such as Bliss and Christmas Bloody Christmas, on They Call Him Zorro. The partners say the picture will draw on the original writings of Johnston McCulley, who first introduced Zorro in his 1919 novel The Curse of Capistrano, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/joe-begos-wtfilms-they-call-him-zorro-revisiting-cannes-1236905904/

My President Went to China, and All I Got Was Even More Expensive Gasoline

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Higher oil exports hurt most Americans

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/my-president-went-to-china-and-all

Lit Hub Daily: May 15, 2026

(date: 2026-05-15)

Max Pearl gets to know Stacey Levine, author of the “deeply weird” small press Pulitzer Prize finalist, Mice 1961. | Lit Hub Criticism Adrian McKinty reads Dan Simmons’s take on The Canterbury Tales, “a book for shy sci-fi nerds who

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-15-2026/

‘Karma’ Teaser: Guillaume Canet & Marion Cotillard Return To Cannes With Psychological Thriller

(date: 2026-05-15)

EXCLUSIVE: Cannes habitués Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet hit the red carpet at the festival this evening with psychological thriller Karma, which premieres as a Special Screening, and Deadline can reveal a first teaser. Cotillard stars as a woman with a troubled past whose new life is upended by a child’s disappearance in the drama […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/karma-teaser-guillaume-canet-marion-cotillard-cannes-1236905822/

Trump's lies disgrace everyone around him

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-27)

Including judges he nominated to lifetime roles.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-big-lie-judges

‘Fatherland’s Pawel Pawlikowski At Cannes: “I’m Lost Today…That’s Why I Make Movies That Take Place In The Past”

(date: 2026-05-15)

You can never go home again is how the saying goes, and Pawel Pawlikowski’s latest movie, Fatherland, illustrates that through the later life of Death in Venice author Thomas Mann. In the film Mann, now a Nobel laureate, returns to Germany, a place he’s fled, post-war in 1949. The director bills it as a five-day […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-pawel-pawlikowski-fatherland-1236905712/

As British Politics Is Plunged Into Chaos, Channel 4 Unveils Timely First Look at Steven Moffat’s ‘Number 10’

(date: 2026-05-15)

EXCLUSIVE: Look away now Keir Starmer. As the UK Prime Minister’s fragile Labour government is plunged into chaos, Channel 4 has chosen a good day to unveil first looks of Steven Moffat’s political drama Number 10. The Sherlock co-creator has always been clear that he is not basing the Downing Street series on any particular […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/channel-4-first-image-number-10-rafe-spall-steven-moffat-1236904701/

Lucy Ives Offers a Few Creative Prompts to Knock You Off Kilter

(date: 2026-05-15)

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I write prompts in the way someone else might write poems, micro-fictions, philosophical aphorisms, or other very small items of literature. Some of my prompts seem like paradoxical jokes: walk

https://lithub.com/lucy-ives-offers-a-few-creative-prompts-to-knock-you-off-kilter/

What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

(date: 2026-05-15)

Vanessa Hua’s Coyoteland, Isaac Fitzgerald’s American Rambler, and Christina Baker Kline’s The Foursome 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. Coyoteland by Vanessa Hua (Flatiron) 6 Rave Read an

https://lithub.com/what-should-you-read-next-here-are-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-5-15-2026/

Who to Blame For the Rise of the Yuppie? Investment Banks, Obviously

(date: 2026-05-15)

Phil Calian, editor-in-chief of the Brown Daily Herald, could have worked at nearly any newspaper in the nation after he graduated in 1985. He had never considered an investment banking job—that is, not until Wall Street recruiters began appearing on

https://lithub.com/who-to-blame-for-the-rise-of-the-yuppie-investment-banks-obviously/

On the Road to Canterbury Reading Dan Simmons Sci-Fi Adaptation of Chaucer’s Classic

(date: 2026-05-15)

The science fiction writer Dan Simmons passed away on Feb 21, 2026 at the age of 77. When I was living in Denver, working as a school teacher and attempting to break into novel writing, I got to know Dan

https://lithub.com/on-the-road-to-canterbury-reading-dan-simmons-sci-fi-adaptation-of-chaucers-classic/

Five Books For the Insomniac in Your Life

(date: 2026-05-15)

Shakespeare called sleep “nature’s soft nurse.” But who is caring for the insomniac who has forgotten how to sleep? Some kind of cruel night minder? How nice it must be to simply get into bed and wake up rested eight

https://lithub.com/five-books-for-the-insomniac-in-your-life/

Chet’la Sebree on How Chronic Illness Forever Altered Her Literary Life

(date: 2026-05-15)

“Your body is the first home you know.” –Dantiel W. Moniz * After four months of travel and writing to complete a book proposal for Turn (W)here: A Geography of Home, an essay collection on my relationship to home and

https://lithub.com/chetla-sebree-on-how-chronic-illness-forever-altered-her-literary-life/

When a Californian Moves to Montana and Gets Pushback From the Locals

(date: 2026-05-15)

“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of

https://lithub.com/when-a-californian-moves-to-montana-and-gets-pushback-from-the-locals/

“Lake Effect”

(date: 2026-05-15)

He cooked and we ate our entire dinner including dessert out of one cast-iron frying pan, scooping up the last of the chocolate ice cream embedded with bits of grilled onion and potato. Our spoons, the only dishes I needed

https://lithub.com/lake-effect-hillary-behrman/

Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible — No One’s Happy

(date: 2026-05-15)

The browser is the security boundary. Websites operate within it. Native apps bypass it.

Like I said last year:

But there’s still one thing that native apps do better than the web. If you want to be able to monitor and track users to an invasive degree, the web can’t compete with the capabilities of native apps. That’s why you’ll see so many websites on your mobile device that implore to install their app from the app store.

This piece goes into the details:

Most native apps collect far more data than their website equivalents ever could. They request permissions to hardware, sensors, and background processes that browsers deliberately restrict. The third-party software embedded in these apps frequently transmits your location, device identifiers, and behavioral data to third parties before you even see a consent prompt.

adactio.com/links/22566

https://nooneshappy.com/article/native-apps-should-be-avoided-whenever-possible/

How to Describe this Catastrophe?

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-25)

We must use words that accurately describe who Trump and his lackeys really are — and what they are actually doing to America

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/regime-change

May 14, 2026

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-21)

Vice President J.D.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-14-2026

Person Networks

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-22)

I’ve been invited by a friend to join Intelligence.com, which “helps you reach the right people, through those who know you best. It’s simple, thoughtful, and built on trust, just like the best introductions.” The inveterate among us will recall that this is what LinkedIn tried to do in the first place, before it turned into 1.2 billion […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/14/person-networks/

Politics Chat, May 14, 2026

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2026-05-21)

In which I try to answer your questions about modern politics....

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/politics-chat-may-14-2026-896

Converting testthat Tests to testit

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2017-01-31)

Back in 2013, I wrote about testing R packages when I first released testit. Thirteen years later, I still believe that unit testing should be nothing more than “tell me if something unexpected happened.” Recently I converted a large testthat test suite to testit, and I thought I’d share a practical guide for anyone considering the same move.

Migration guide

The file structure

testthat****testittests/testthat.R``tests/*.R (any name, e.g., testit.R)tests/testthat/test-*.R``tests/testit/test-*.R``tests/testthat/helper-*.R``tests/testit/helper*.R``tests/testthat/_snaps/*.md``tests/testit/test-*.md

R runs all .R scripts in tests/ during R CMD check. The filename does not matter— tests/testthat.R is merely a convention that testthat’s tooling creates. testit likewise does not require any specific filename. For example:

# tests/testit.R
library(testit)
test_pkg("pkgname")

You can also split tests into multiple runners, each calling test_pkg() with a different directory:

# tests to run unconditionally under the `core/` dir
library(testit)
test_pkg("pkgname", dir = "core")

# tests under `slow/`; only run when not on CRAN
if (identical(tolower(Sys.getenv("NOT_CRAN")), "true")) {
  test_pkg("pkgname", dir = "slow")
}

# tests under `ci/`; only run when on CI
if (identical(tolower(Sys.getenv("CI")), "true")) {
  test_pkg("pkgname", dir = "ci")
}

This provides a natural way to conditionally skip entire groups of tests (the testit equivalent of skip_*() like skip_on_cran())—simply guard the test_pkg() call with a condition.

The core pattern

testthat:

test_that("description", {
  expect_true(condition)
  expect_equal(a, b)
})

testit:

assert("description", {
  (condition)
  (a == b)
})

Any expression wrapped in () inside assert() is checked—if it evaluates to TRUE (or a vector of all TRUE s), it passes; anything else is a failure. The expression can be any R code: (x > 0), (is.data.frame(df)), (nrow(x) == 10), etc. For approximate numeric comparison, you may use (all.equal(a, b))—it returns TRUE on success or a descriptive string on failure, both of which testit handles correctly. In case of testing exact identity, you may use identical() or the %==% operator in testit (see later).

Assertion mappings

Here is a cheat sheet for translating expect_* calls:

testthat****testitexpect_true(x)``(x)``expect_false(x)``(!x)``expect_equal(a, b)``(all.equal(a, b))``expect_equal(a, b, tolerance = t)``(all.equal(a, b, tolerance = t))``expect_identical(a, b)``(identical(a, b))``expect_null(x)``(is.null(x))``expect_length(x, n)``(length(x) == n)``expect_s3_class(x, "cls")``(inherits(x, "cls"))``expect_gt(a, b)``(a > b)``expect_gte(a, b)``(a >= b)``expect_lt(a, b)``(a < b)``expect_lte(a, b)``(a <= b)``expect_named(x, nms)``(identical(names(x), nms))``expect_match(x, pat)``(grepl(pat, x))``expect_error(expr)``(has_error(expr))``expect_error(expr, "msg")``(has_error(expr, "msg"))``expect_warning(expr)``(has_warning(expr))``expect_warning(expr, "msg")``(has_warning(expr, "msg"))``expect_message(expr)``(has_message(expr))``expect_no_error(expr)``(!has_error(expr))``expect_no_warning(expr)``(!has_warning(expr))``expect_no_message(expr)``(!has_message(expr))``expect_type(x, "t")``(typeof(x) == "t")``expect_setequal(a, b)``(setequal(a, b))``expect_in(x, table)``(x %in% table)``expect_contains(x, expected)``(expected %in% x)``expect_output(expr, pat)``(grepl(pat, paste(capture.output(expr), collapse = "\n")))

Most of the translations boil down to “use the base R function directly.” That’s the point.

A note on expect_output(): The capture.output() translation above works, but is ugly to read and maintain. In practice, you may want to use testit’s snapshot tests instead—just put the code in an .md file alongside your test script and let testit compare the output for you. See the “Snapshot tests” section below.

A caveat on expect_equal() vs all.equal(): The mapping above is accurate for the most common case—comparing numeric values, data frames, and lists—where they behave the same with the same default tolerance ( sqrt(.Machine$double.eps)). However, there are subtle differences depending on which testthat edition you use:

In edition 2, expect_equal() wraps all.equal() but passes check.environment = FALSE by default. This means expect_equal(f, g) will pass for two functions with identical bodies but different enclosing environments, whereas a bare all.equal(f, g) would fail. If you are comparing functions or formulas, add check.environment = FALSE to your all.equal() call to match the old behavior.
In edition 3, expect_equal() switched from all.equal() to waldo::compare() under the hood. waldo also ignores function and formula environments by default, normalizes string encoding before comparison, and has more sophisticated handling of S4/R6 objects. For most numeric tests this makes no practical difference, but if your tests compare functions, formulas, or strings with mixed encodings, be aware that all.equal() may be slightly stricter.

In short: for data and numbers (the vast majority of test assertions), the mapping is a drop-in replacement. For functions and formulas, you may need check.environment = FALSE.

The `%==%` operator

testit provides %==% as an alias of identical(). The advantage over calling identical() directly is that when the assertion fails inside assert(), it prints str() for both sides, so you may be able to immediately spot the difference:

assert("example", {
  (1:3 %==% 1:3)
  (c("a", "b") %==% c("a", "b"))
})

If it fails, you’ll see something like:

x (LHS) ==>
 int [1:3] 1 2 3
----------
 int [1:3] 1 2 4
<== (RHS) y

Be cautious about the operator precedence: in R, infix operators like %==% bind tighter than common arithmetic and logical operators such as +, -, *, /, >, <, ==, &, and |, etc. When you use the latter operators in a %==% expression, you need () to guarantee precedence, e.g.,

(1 + 2 %==% 2 + 1)

is interpreted as

(1 + (2 %==% 2) + 1)
# => (1 + TRUE + 1) => (1 + 1 + 1) => (3) => FAIL

and you must group the LHS and RHS explicitly by ():

((1 + 2) %==% (2 + 1))

which may look ugly and confusing, so you may want to compute LHS and RHS before the () test, e.g.,

res = 1 + 2
expected = 2 + 1
(res %==% expected)

Snapshot tests

testthat stores snapshots in tests/testthat/_snaps/. testit uses a simpler approach: just Markdown files like tests/testit/test-name.md alongside the .R test scripts.

## `function_name()` description (optional)

Narratives (optional).

```r
code_to_run()
```

More narratives (optional).

```
expected output here
```

testit runs the R code block and compares its output to the following code block (without the language name r). If they differ, the test fails and shows a diff.

To initialize a snapshot test, you can omit the output block and only include the R source code. When you run the tests (execute the command Rscript tests/*.R, instead of running R CMD check), testit will automatically fill in the output—no need to copy and paste results manually. If you use RStudio, you can click “Run Tests” in the Build pane to initialize and update snapshots (see the “RStudio setup” section below for configuration).

Conditional test execution

testthat has skip_on_cran(), skip_if_not_installed(), etc. testit offers three levels of conditional execution:

Skip an entire test directory—guard the test_pkg() call in a runner script, e.g.,

library(testit)
if (identical(Sys.getenv("NOT_CRAN"), "true")) {
  test_pkg("pkgname", dir = "extended")
}

Skip a single assertion—wrap assert() in a condition, e.g.,

if (requireNamespace("pkg", quietly = TRUE)) assert("uses pkg", {
  ...
})

Skip the rest of a test file—use an early return() in a test file, e.g.,

if (!requireNamespace("pkg", quietly = TRUE)) return()

Since testit files are sourced top-to-bottom, return() skips the rest of the file.

Setup and teardown

testthat’s setup() and teardown() are superseded; the current approach uses withr::defer(..., teardown_env()). With testit, just use normal R patterns:

old <- options(warn = -1)
on.exit(options(old), add = TRUE)

Or place shared setup in helper.R (sourced before test files).

For file cleanup, test_pkg() automatically removes any newly generated files under the test directory after testing completes (controlled by options(testit.cleanup = TRUE), which is the default). This means your tests/ directory stays clean without manual teardown. Have you ever been annoyed by the stray Rplots.pdf in your test folder? You won’t suffer from this problem with testit.

DESCRIPTION changes

- Suggests: testthat (>= 3.0.0)
+ Suggests: testit (>= 1.0)

Remove Config/testthat/edition: * if present.

RStudio setup

If you use RStudio, go to Tools > Project Options > Build Tools and uncheck “Use devtools package functions if available.” With this option unchecked, the “Run Tests” button in the Build pane will run the .R scripts under tests/ directly (i.e., Rscript tests/*.R), which is exactly what testit needs. If you leave devtools enabled, RStudio will try to run tests through devtools::test(), which only looks for tests/testthat/ and calls testthat::test_local()—it will not find or run testit tests at all (you’ll just see “No testing infrastructure found”).

Unfortunately, Positron does not have an equivalent setting—its test command is hardcoded to devtools::test(), so it suffers from the same problem. If you use Positron, you’ll need to run Rscript tests/*.R manually in the terminal.

Sometimes I hear people use popularity as an argument to justify the use of testthat. Personally I don’t find this convincing. I apologize for being a little snarky here, but flu is also “popular”. Part of testthat’s popularity may be self-reinforcing: IDEs like RStudio and Positron hardcode devtools::test() as the test command, which assumes testthat. New users see that their IDE “just works” with testthat and conclude it must be the right choice. Tutorials and templates naturally gravitate toward the same default. The popularity feeds the tooling, and the tooling feeds the popularity. That’s not a technical argument—it’s a network effect. I’m not saying testthat is a bad choice, but I do think it’s worth evaluating testing frameworks on their own merits rather than simply going with the default. There is no free lunch. You gain while you lose, and vice versa.

No matter which editor/IDE you use, R CMD check is always your faithful friend (it just runs tests/*.R) without assuming the testing framework, although it’s much more than running tests.

Why testit over testthat?

After going through the mechanical conversion, let me explain why I think it’s worth the effort.

Tests are just R. Every assertion in testit is a plain R expression. (x > 0) means exactly what it says. There is no DSL to learn and no expect_* vocabulary to memorize. If you know R, you know testit.
Radical simplicity. testit is about 700 lines of R code in total (including comments and blank lines), with zero dependencies. It has five core functions ( assert(), test_pkg(), has_error(), has_warning(), has_message()) and one operator ( %==%). Most of time, you are likely to only need assert() and %==%.

testthat is about 15,000 lines of R plus C code, and pulls in 22 non-base dependencies: brio, callr, cli, crayon, desc, diffobj, evaluate, fs, glue, jsonlite, lifecycle, magrittr, pkgbuild, pkgload, praise, processx, ps, R6, rlang, rprojroot, waldo, and withr.
No hidden tolerance semantics. testthat has gone through multiple editions with changing comparison behavior (edition 2 uses all.equal(), edition 3 uses waldo::compare()). The tolerance semantics differ between editions in subtle ways. With testit, you control your own fate, e.g., you may call all.equal() directly with explicit arguments—what you write is what you get.
Fast installation and CI. testthat pulls in a dependency tree, and testit has zero non-base dependencies. This means faster CI installs, fewer breakage vectors, and no transitive dependency conflicts.
Stable across R versions. testit relies on base R primitives that have been stable for decades: tryCatch(), withCallingHandlers(), eval(), parse(), deparse(), new.env(), on.exit(), capture.output(), grepl(), and the condition system ( stop(), message(), invokeRestart()). None of these are likely to change in incompatible ways.
Snapshot tests are self-contained. In testthat, snapshot tests are split across two places: expect_snapshot() calls in your .R file, and separate output files under tests/testthat/_snaps/. This means if you rename a test, you have to rename the corresponding output file (or delete the stale one manually). You also need to ensure unique test names within each file—if two clash, one overwrites the other. Reviewing changes requires snapshot_review() (a Shiny app) or snapshot_accept(). In testit, everything lives in a single .md file: code and expected output side by side. There’s no naming ceremony, no separate output directory, and no special tooling needed to review or accept changes—just read the diff (if your package is in a GIT repo, you will see the diff in GIT).

What about features testthat has that testit doesn’t?

Mocking. Mocking is not a testing framework concern. If you need to substitute function behavior, the cleanest approach is dependency injection—pass the function as an argument so tests can supply a fake. If you need to mock functions in a package namespace, mockr is a dedicated package for that. That said, unless the code is completely out of your control, the need for mocking often indicates a design problem—consider refactoring to make the code easier to test directly.
Reporters (progress bars, JUnit XML, etc.). Reporters are genuinely useful when you have large test suites—progress bars help during interactive development, JUnit XML lets CI systems display per-test results in their UI, and timing reports help identify slow tests. testit does not have these. For most packages, printing failures and relying on the exit code is sufficient, but if you run hundreds of tests that take minutes and can have miserably many failures, you may miss the richer feedback.
skip_on_cran() and friends. An if (...) assert() does the same thing with zero framework overhead.
withr integration. Base R’s on.exit() has done this job since R 1.0. old <- options(x = y); on.exit(options(old)) is one line (if cheating via ; is allowed, otherwise two lines), has no dependencies, and is immediately understandable.
Auto-generated test skeletons. A test file is a plain R script. Create it however you create R scripts.

testit v1.0

testit v1.0 has just been released to CRAN. The source code is on GitHub. I want to express my immense gratitude to John Blischak for his thoughtful feedback during the test migration mentioned in the beginning of this post—his suggestions on ergonomics (suppressing noisy error messages from has_error(), adding the filter argument to test_pkg(), requiring library(testit) to be documented clearly, and collecting all test failures instead of stopping at the first) directly shaped the v1.0 release. FWIW, I bumped the version from 13 years’ 0.x to 1.0 not because of breaking changes—there were none (excuse me, how can I break this package?), but just to mark the significantly enhanced usability of this package thanks to John’s suggestions.

In short, testit embodies a philosophy: a test framework should assert conditions and get out of the way. Everything else—mocking, parallelism, reporting, environment management—belongs in separate, purpose-built tools or in base R itself. The result is a testing system that is easy to understand, impossible to misconfigure, and aims to be stable indefinitely.

https://yihui.org/en/2026/05/testthat-to-testit/

Bye, Stack Overflow

(date: 2026-05-15, updated: 2017-01-31)

After being a member of Stack Overflow for more than 15 years, I have finally decided to leave it behind. I’ve complained about it in once in 2017 and again in 2018. The similar frustration still occurred earlier this month, which became the last straw to me. I’m not going to tolerate this site anymore.

For the record, one gatekeeper who closed the question asked:

What’s the point of reopening this question? Will the bug get more fixed that way?

to which left my final reply on this site:

What’s the point? Let me tell you the point. The point is a user is looking for help, and a maintainer is willing to help and knows a solution. They are all real humans. You guys are hurting them by closing and deleting the question. It hurts even more when we see a question is deleted by people who have zero experience on the specific topic (R exams package in this case) but act as judges nonetheless who essentially said “goodwill is pointless”. The point is humanity. If you believe the rules and your interpretation of the rules are more important, that’s fine, and I’m leaving.

To be fair, I do believe there are many nice, helpful, and humble volunteers who have helped maintain the quality of Stack Overflow over the years. I just no longer have the bandwidth to deal with gatekeepers who don’t know what they are doing. Again, to be fair, I don’t believe these gatekeepers are evil or bad. I think they want to make the site better. All they need before they can truly appreciate empathy and humanity is one thing: have one of their own posts closed and deleted by another group of gatekeepers.

The story below was written by Gemini after several rounds of revisions per my request. Please feel free to ignore the “AI slop”. I was just curious if the above story could be told better via metaphors. BTW, I learned several new words from this writing, too.

The Ledger and the Light

The wind howled across the frozen plains, carrying a biting snow that blurred the world into a haze of grey. I stood on the porch of the Manor—a place that called itself a “Sanctuary for Seekers”—as I had many times over the last decade. I knew the weight of the stone and the chill of the air all too well.

I watched as a lone traveler struggled through the drifts, clutching a dying brass lantern. He reached the massive gates and knocked with trembling hands. Inside, I saw the Host—a scholar with a kind, tired face—recognize the lamp immediately. “I know that flicker,” the Host called out, reaching for his tools. “I designed that lamp. I have the fix right here!”

But before the traveler could cross the threshold, the Gatekeepers emerged from the shadows. They didn’t look at the traveler’s freezing hands; they looked only at their ledgers. “The request is improperly phrased,” they hissed. “He hasn’t documented the wind’s direction to the tenth degree.”

With a mechanical coldness, they shoved the traveler back and hammered the iron bolt home. CLANG.

I didn’t hesitate. I signaled to my friends in the storm. Together, we rushed the porch and jammed our heavy timber staves into the doorframe. I put my shoulder to the oak, prying at the wood until the hinges shrieked in protest. Through sheer, collective will, we forced the door back just wide enough for the Host to reach through and hand the traveler a new, shimmering lens. The traveler’s lantern flared into a brilliant white light. The man was saved.

But as soon as we stepped back, the Gatekeepers swarmed again.

“The lamp is lit now,” one sneered. “There is no longer a reason for this door to be open. What is the point of a record that isn’t perfect?”

They kicked our staves aside and threw their weight against the door. CLANG. The bolt hammered home. They began to scrub the traveler’s name from the stone, as if the struggle had never happened.

I stood my ground. I looked at the Gatekeeper who had spoken—the one with the cleanest robes and the heaviest ledger.

“You ask for the point?” I said, my voice steady against the roar of the gale. “The point is that a living man was looking for help, and a master stood ready with a solution. They are flesh and blood, yet you treat them like errors in a script. You hurt them to protect the vanity of your archives.”

The Gatekeeper didn’t look up from his book.

“It is worse,” I continued, “to see you act as judges of a craft you do not practice. You have never felt the heat of the forge, yet you decide whose flame is worthy of the hearth. You have traded humanity for the comfort of your own interpretation of the rules. You have decided that goodwill is a flaw in the system.”

I looked at the massive, silent walls. “If this stone is more precious to you than the people it was built to shelter, then keep it. Enjoy your perfect, empty halls. I am finished.”

I didn’t wait for a reply. I turned my back on the Manor. I walked down the stone steps and out into the blizzard.

The wind was still cold, but as I moved away from those walls, I felt a strange, quiet warmth. It wasn’t the warmth of the Manor’s hearth; it was the warmth of the open road. I realized I no longer had to spend my strength holding a door for those who only wanted it shut. I was free to find a new place—or build one—where the light is kept for the sake of the traveler, not the ledger.

I disappeared into the white, leaving the fortress behind to guard its own silence.

https://yihui.org/en/2026/05/bye-stack-overflow/

First, add no friction: How micropayments lost and subscriptions won

(date: 2026-05-15)

It's one article, Michael. What could it cost, 10¢?

https://buttondown.com/blog/why-micropayments-do-not-work

Xi Humiliates Trump by Reading Aloud From Epstein Files

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

A stony-faced Xi recited a series of damning allegations about Trump that the DOJ’s redaction team had somehow missed.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/xi-humiliates-trump-by-reading-aloud

Friday 15 May, 2026

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Word-processing, old-style Quote of the Day ”One of my greatest pleasures in my writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the realization that such people rarely read.” John … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/friday-15-may-2026/42089/

No Founding Members Meeting Tomorrow

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

My son Willie is graduating from GW this weekend, family is here, and tomorrow got a little nuts!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/no-founding-members-meeting-tomorrow

Bookshelves as mental constructs

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Remembering what you read by Richard Griffiths “I suspect the memory-aiding features of the bookshelf itself are qualitatively different from those of a plain list of the books in that bookshelf. The book shelves are a kind of ‘memory palace’ for the books themselves. In fact this realisation is quite important to me. It might […]

https://tracydurnell.com/2026/05/14/bookshelves-as-mental-constructs/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-20)

Cuba Says It Has Run Out of Oil.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/world/americas/cuba-oil-energy-crisis.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iVA.uolH.24NqXnjjcFZx&smid=nytcore-ios-share

His Monuments, Your Money

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

The president’s vanity projects trump everything else

https://steady.substack.com/p/his-monuments-your-money

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

I have Claude Code hooked up to Chrome. It's crawling around inside the DOM of the running system, like humans do in a debugger. It's a bit like Fantastic Voyage if you've ever seen it. I've been waiting for this moment. Now we can do some really nice UI work.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/14.html#a214251

Is Trump Just Full On Sabotaging The Republican Party Now?

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

All signs point to Trump subconsciously working to set his party up for failure in 2026 and beyond.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-subconscious-sabotage-republican-party

Calm Tech Institute's Booth Review at Hospitality Design Expo 2026

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

This year, Calm Tech Institute showed up with a question: which trade show booths actually made people feel good? Our favorite booths had key characteristics that aligned the science behind Calm Tech Certified™ for Spaces, our newest offering for hospitality and trade show builders.

https://www.calmtech.institute/post/calm-tech-institute-s-booth-review-at-hospitality-design-expo-2026

My Conversation With Governor Josh Shapiro

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-25)

"So they’re hurting us every single day, and I’m doing everything in my power to fight back"

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/my-conversation-with-governor-josh

A reminder: Very few people support Donald Trump's presidency

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

Plus, polls show voters are increasingly worried about his mental and physical fitness for office

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/a-reminder-very-few-people-support

Uncloud Image Pruning

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-21)

Currently uc doesn’t have a prune subcommand to prune images, and even if it had it would still be a manual operation. It would be better to automate this. This post shows how.

First create an image with this Dockerfile:

FROM --platform=$BUILDPLATFORM alpine:latest
RUN apk add curl

RUN <<EOF
echo \
'#/bin/bash

if ! [[ -S /var/run/docker.sock ]]; then
    echo "Docker socket /var/run/docker.sock not found" >&2
    exit 1
fi

curl -s -X POST --unix-socket /var/run/docker.sock http://localhost/images/prune

while true; do
    sleep 24h
    curl -s -X POST --unix-socket /var/run/docker.sock http://localhost/images/prune
done
' > /prune
EOF
RUN chmod +x /prune

WORKDIR /
CMD "/prune"

Build and push that image to a registry and then use this Uncloud compose.yaml to deploy:

https://miek.nl/2026/may/14/uncloud-image-pruning/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

After some delay, monthly #PleiadesGazetteer changelogs have now been posted through April 2026: https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/changelogs-for-december-2025-april-2026

They document the publication of 242 new and 4,031 updated place resources during that time period, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Joel Bellviure, Gabriel Bodard, Catherine Bouras, Anika Campbell, Ilaria Cristofaro, Matteo Di Domenica, Mattia D’Acri, Tom Elliott, Jordy Didier Orellana Figueroa, Sean Gillies, Maxime Guénette, Greta Hawes, José Antonio Artés Hernández, Leif Isaksen, Carolin Johansson, Noah Kaye, Brady Kiesling, Eleftheria Konstantinidou, Divya Kumar-Dumas, Chris de Lisle, Gabriel Mckee, John Muccigrosso, Maria Del Rocio Da Riva Muñoz, Gethin Rees, Charlotte Roueché, Rosemary Selth, R. Scott Smith, Nicolas Souchon, Richard Talbert, Scott Vanderbilt, Jaume Noguera Vila-Masana, Valeria Vitale and Enes Yılandiloğlu.

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116574697549442864

Changelogs for December 2025 - April 2026

(date: 2026-05-14)

Monthly changelogs have now been posted through April 2026. They document the publication of 242 new and 4,031 updated place resources during that time period, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Joel Bellviure, Gabriel Bodard, Catherine Bouras, Anika Campbell, Ilaria Cristofaro, Matteo Di Domenica, Mattia D’Acri, Tom Elliott, Jordy Didier Orellana Figueroa, Sean Gillies, Maxime Guénette, Greta Hawes, José Antonio Artés Hernández, Leif Isaksen, Carolin Johansson, Noah Kaye, Brady Kiesling, Eleftheria Konstantinidou, Divya Kumar-Dumas, Chris de Lisle, Gabriel Mckee, John Muccigrosso, Maria Del Rocio Da Riva Muñoz, Gethin Rees, Charlotte Roueché, Rosemary Selth, R. Scott Smith, Nicolas Souchon, Richard Talbert, Scott Vanderbilt, Jaume Noguera Vila-Masana, Valeria Vitale and Enes Yılandiloğlu.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/changelogs-for-december-2025-april-2026

What Is Food Sovereignty and Why Is It Important?

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-21)

The food sovereignty movement calls for a shift in who holds the power in our food system.

The post What Is Food Sovereignty and Why Is It Important? appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

https://www.clf.org/blog/what-is-food-sovereignty-and-why-is-it-important/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-is-food-sovereignty-and-why-is-it-important

[$] Policy groups for memory management

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-19)

The kernel's control-group
subsystem works well for resource management, Chris Li said at the beginning of his memory-management-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. Control groups work less well for other use cases, though. He was there to present his proposed enhancement, called "policy groups", that would address some of the shortcomings that he has encountered. A consensus on how this feature should look still seems distant, though.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072517/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-20)

Trump Is Pushing Forward His Plan for Voter Lists.

https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/white-house-meeting-doj-dhs-usps-voter-lists-election-security-integrity

SwiftUI: @State and the Attribute Graph

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Federico Zanetello: @State is one of the many SwiftUI’s pillars that, once understood, we take for granted and use pretty much everywhere without a second thought. But what is @State? What’s happening behind the scenes? Nikita Vasilev: The answer is that @State does not store its value in the struct. The struct holds only a […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/14/swiftui-state-and-the-attribute-graph/

APFS Folder Clones

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Anders Borum: After my experiments with APFS cloning, I made a Quick Action shortcut for Finder that’s much faster than Duplicate or “cp -c -R”, both of which clone files individually instead of the whole tree in one go. The regular file copying APIs also give you folders full of file clones rather than a […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/14/apfs-folder-clones/

Amazon Tokenmaxxing

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Rafe Rosner-Uddin (Hacker News): The Seattle-based group has started to widely deploy its in-house “MeshClaw” product in recent weeks, allowing employees to create AI agents that can connect to workplace software and carry out tasks on a user’s behalf, according to three people familiar with the matter. Some employees said colleagues were using the software […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/14/amazon-tokenmaxxing/

Chrome’s Huge weights.bin File

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Tim Hardwick: The file in question is called “weights.bin,” which powers Google’s on-device Gemini Nano AI model – the engine behind Chrome features like scam detection, autofill suggestions, and the “Help Me Write” tool. Local models tend to be pretty big storage-wise, and this one is no different. The problem is that Google hasn’t clearly […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/14/chromes-huge-weights-bin-file/

Thirstday

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-21)

The inhuman touch For the first time ever, a call to AppleCare got me an AI agent rather than a human being. The agent solved my problem, but made me feel sad, because AppleCare’s people provided a human connection, just we get from the people behind the Apple Stores’ Genius Bars. Are they the next […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/14/thirstday/

The Doomsday Organism

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

The post The Doomsday Organism appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/the-doomsday-organism

Why Did Trump Take Elon Musk to China?

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

Corruption pervades everything this administration does

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-did-trump-take-elon-musk-to-china

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

(date: 2026-05-14)

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:

I’m giving a virtual talk on “The Security of Trust in the Age of AI,” hosted by the Financial Women’s Association of New York, at 6:00 PM ET on May 21, 2026.
I’m speaking at the Potsdam Conference on National Cybersecurity at the Hasso Plattner Institut in Potsdam, Germany. The event runs June 24–25, 2026, and my talk will be the evening of June 24.
I’m speaking at the Digital Humanism Conference in Vienna, Austria, on Tuesday, June 26, 2026.
I’m speaking at the ...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/upcoming-speaking-engagements-56.html

Zero Day: el horror de una tragedia evitable

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

El pasado 20 de abril se cumplieron 27 años de la masacre en la secundaria Columbine. Desde entonces, los tiroteos escolares en Estados Unidos han sido tan frecuentes que resulta difícil rastrearlos todos; no obstante, la K-12 School Shooting Database registra cerca de 2,500 incidentes desde 1999, con un saldo de 796 fallecidos y más […]

La entrada Zero Day: el horror de una tragedia evitable se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/zero-day-el-horror-de-una-tragedia-evitable/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=zero-day-el-horror-de-una-tragedia-evitable

What Happens Behind the Lens of a White House Photographer

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

Pete Souza didn’t just photograph presidents (Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama)—he revealed them.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/what-happens-behind-the-lens-of-a

Ruth Lopez Spoke Up for Due Process. Now She’s Detained Without Charges.

(date: 2026-05-14)

Americans should demand the release of jailed Salvadoran lawyer Ruth Lopez — because it can happen here, too. Who of us has the right to live without fear? This is the question human rights lawyer Ruth Lopez has asked fearlessly in El Salvador — the country of my birth — for decades. It’s a question […]

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

https://ourfuture.org/20260514/ruth-lopez-spoke-up-for-due-process-now-shes-detained-without-charges

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Since Monday, the #PleiadesGazetteer editorial college published 15 new and 81 updated place resources, reflecting the work of 8 people. The usual Monday blog post will summarize a full week's worth of such work, but meantime here's a #SneakPeek at 11 place resources for bath/spa facilities, together with associated features like villas, pools, and springs: https://pleiades.stoa.org/search?getFeatureType%3Alist=bath&getFeatureType%3Alist=spring&getFeatureType%3Alist=swimming-pool&modified%3Alist%3Adate=2026%2F05%2F07&modified_usage=range%3Amin&portal_type%3Alist=Place&review_state%3Alist=published

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116573677525008148

Defendió el debido proceso, ahora está detenida sin cargos

(date: 2026-05-14)

Los estadounidenses deberían exigir la liberación inmediata de la abogada salvadoreña Ruth López, porque esto también puede ocurrir aquí. ¿Quién de nosotros tiene derecho a vivir sin miedo? Esta es la pregunta que la abogada de derechos humanos Ruth López ha planteado sin temor en El Salvador —mi país natal— durante décadas. Es una […]

https://www.clf.org/blog/case-by-case-clf-is-challenging-trump-in-court/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=case-by-case-clf-is-challenging-trump-in-court

https://ourfuture.org/20260514/defendio-el-debido-proceso-ahora-esta-detenida-sin-cargos

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-25)

For some reason every day feels like Saturday. I don't know why.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/14.html#a153641

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-25)

This is the first day since the NBA playoffs started that there is no scheduled game. I think that's why today feels so weird.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/14.html#a153507

Case by Case: CLF is Challenging Trump in Court

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-21)

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.

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Every social web needs avatars. In an RSS 2.0 feed look for the channel-level image element. It's how they do it in WordPress.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/14.html#a150919

Bookshops And Watchmen

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/bookshops-and-watchmen/

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #443

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-21)

For May 6-12, 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. Exciting news: This week we bought a toast-making robot for Humorous Readings Headquarters (HRHQ)! The robot lives in a little box with two horizontal slots on the top, and you put bread in the slots, then push down a little lever to let him know that the bread is there, and the robot makes the toast and tosses it back up out of the box when he’s done! This little guy is very shy—whenever we look into the slots to try to see him he goes and hides somewhere—but we really want to pay our compliments to the chef, so we’re thinking we’re going to try to scoop him out of those slots with some kind of metal utensil so we can personally thank him for doing such a great job with our toast.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Lines, Ranked by Luca Clark and Luke Herzog (McSweeney’s) This is such a fun idea for a list. The specificity of the premise—ranking words and phrases that end in “line”—gives the piece a deep sense of unity, allowing Luca and Luke to riff freely without the jokes feeling overly random. A really nice way to approach a joke bucket piece, which, as we’ve previously discussed, is a very challenging type of piece!

My Memory Palace Of Embarrassing Moments by Johanna Gohmann (Slackjaw) All the embarrassing moments are really funny and are filled with great details, and using a memory palace as a device to string those moments together is quite clever. There’s also a really nice runner involving (spoiler alert) nipples.

The Secret to That Great New York Pizza Is… by Dustin Mark (Points in Case) The chain of logic that drives this piece is really satisfying and well-calibrated. Each new beat follows from the previous one in a way that feels logical, but never logical in a way that makes the heightening feel predictable. We’re also suckers for pieces that not only have lots of New York City specifics (wait til you see the penultimate paragraph), but also poke fun at a certain type of New Yorker’s outsized self-regard.

-- AD --

Maeve Dunigan's 'Read This To Look Cool,' a humorous essay collection that Stylist magazine calls "a bible for overthinkers," is OUT NOW wherever books are sold! Both cringe-inducing and uproarious, 'Read This To Look Cool' is a deeply relatable meditation on the absurdity inherent in the constant performance of ourselves, offering a fresh perspective on self-love and the true meaning of cool. It’s a book that says “I see you” and also “Don’t look at me, though, my hair is doing something weird.” Order here or from your local bookstore!

(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form! )

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 #95 .

In The Locker Room at Halftime by Zhubin Parang( McSweeney's) Something fun to think about is how any professional sports team of today--even a bad one--could absolutely crush a team from the 1970s. There's just no question. Every player is so strong and so fast. BUT, and hear is out, what if there were robots involved? Zhubin Parang answers this question, and more germane to this newsletter, does so quite humorously. The jokes hit. The voice is clear. The whole piece is snappy. It's a joy/terror to read.

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

Next Wednesday May 20th, James is going to be on a panel for the Freelancers Union’s Freelance Isn't Free Day . The programming lasts all day and features panels, a workshop, and some networking. James will be on the 1:15 PM program called “Creative Workers, Real Power: Rights, Voice & the Future of Freelance” talking about creative labor and collective power. More info and tickets are here — hope to see you there!

Luke just announced his slate of short humor workshops starting in June ! It includes two single-session workshops that he’ll be running for the first time in a while: One is focused on how to give and get great feedback and the other is on how to find the right form or narrator for your short humor piece. If you can’t take a full four-week class, these two are great ways to practice your short humor skills in a shorter time frame.

https://buttondown.com/humorouswriting/archive/a-newsletter-of-humorous-writing-443/

Republicans Are Gerrymandering Because They Are Scared Of The American People, And Of Us - As They Should Be (New Video, Written Analysis)

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-24)

The right’s spasm of racist gerrymandering is a sign of weakness, desperation, and fear, not strength and confidence

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/republicans-are-gerrymandering-because

[$] Buffered atomic writes, writethrough, and more

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-19)

In back-to-back sessions at the start of the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit (which spilled over into a third slot), the atomic-buffered-writes
feature was discussed. In the first session, Pankaj Raghav and Andres Freund set the stage with an introduction to the problem, along with a use case for its solution: the PostgreSQL database system. In the second, Ojaswin Mujoo described a potential way forward for the feature using an approach based on writethrough, which effectively means that the kernel immediately writes the data to disk instead of waiting for writeback from the page cache to occur. As might be expected, there was quite a bit of discussion among the assembled filesystems and storage developers during the combined sessions for those tracks.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072019/

Caltech Weekly - May 14: Making Greener Epoxides; Universal Voting-by-Mail

(date: 2026-05-14)

Caltech Weekly - May 14: Making Greener Epoxides; Universal Voting-by-MailView this email in your browser

Thursday, May 14, 2026

A Greener Route to Making Epoxides

Karthish Manthiram, Bren Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, and his colleagues have developed a greener process for generating the common chemicals without a large carbon footprint or toxic byproducts that involves using a nonprecious metal catalyst.

Universal Voting-By-Mail Increases Voter Turnout for Both Major Parties

A recent study shows that sending ballots by mail to all registered voters boosted participation in the 2020 primary election in Los Angeles County for Democrats and Republicans.

Ganymede Might Still Be Forming Its Metal Core Today

Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. It is also the only moon with its own intrinsic magnetic field, produced by a churning central core of electrically conductive metal called a dynamo. But how Ganymede's unique dynamo works is still a mystery.

"What I like about turbulence is it's really complex but not hopelessly so. It's visually appealing, it's mentally stimulating, and it's everywhere. Turbulence holds the key to modern mysteries of Earth's atmosphere, ocean, and outer core. But it is also central to engineering efforts, from ships to pipes to golf balls, even. That combination of depth and breadth really appeals to me. It means there's always something new to learn."

Rahul Arun (BS '21, PhD '25) is a Foster and Coco Stanback Prize Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. He received his BS in mechanical engineering with an aerospace minor in 2021 and his PhD in aeronautics in 2025—all from Caltech.

This Week's Other Top Stories

Caltech Hosts Quantum Benchmarking Symposium

In Case You Missed It

View recent lectures and events on Caltech's YouTube channel.

Einstein: Beyond the Myth

This Techer Live event featured Diana Kormos-Buchwald, the Robert M. Abbey Professor of History and director and general editor of The Einstein Papers Project, in conversation with Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison. They discussed what the primary sources reveal about Albert Einstein's years in Pasadena, and how he navigated science and politics in the 1930s.

Did You Know?

The species P. orphanae—distantly related to earthworms—was named for Victoria Orphan, Caltech's James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science and Geobiology and director of the Center for Environmental Microbial Interactions. The species is one of several types of "Elvis worms," so named because they sport shiny multicolored scales that resemble the sequined jumpsuits worn by their namesake: rock 'n' roll icon Elvis Presley. On May 14, 2009, the European Space Agency launched the Planck space telescope to study ancient radiation from the big bang to better understand the origin of the universe and the formation of galaxies. The mission featured instruments made by JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA.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.

If you received this email from someone you know, you can subscribe here. You are receiving this email because you are a member of the Caltech community or have signed up for this newsletter.

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https://mailchi.mp/caltech/caltech-weekly-may-14-making-greener-epoxides-universal-voting-by-mail

Three stable kernels for Thursday

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-19)

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 7.0.7, 6.18.30, and 6.12.88 stable kernels. These kernels do not include a patch for the Fragnesia local-privilege-escalation exploit that came to light on May 13, but do include many other important fixes throughout the tree. Users are, as always, advised to upgrade.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072849/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-14:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

8 new and 28 updated places.

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/john-fetterman-iran-war-powers-resolution-deciding-vote-20260513.html?id=kfDjpNvmsKEFS&utm_source=social&utm_campaign=gift_link&utm_medium=referral

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

"main" branch:

3b24767c - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

3f295803 - updated gis package

38a5daf3 - updated data quality

487f3c8c - updated bibliography

f0eaa09f - updated indexes

d7128bb7 - updated sidebar

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

56813f44 - updated geojson and names index

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

5ba2f537 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116573294635111134

Cambodia’s Sastra Film Makes Cannes Debut With English & Khmer-Language Horror Slate

(date: 2026-05-14)

EXCLUSIVE: Cambodian production house Sastra Film International is attending Cannes for the first time with a library of horror titles, including its first push into English-language production with supernatural horror title Faceless. Directed by Jeremiah Kipp, the film stars Bella Mraz, James Preston, Holley Johnson and Ryan Bertorche, who travelled to Cambodia to shoot the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cambodia-sastra-film-english-khmer-language-horror-1236904487/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-20)

The men running for California governor keep yelling. Katie Porter is not allowed to.

https://sfstandard.com/2026/05/14/katie-porter-california-governor-2026/

Will Smith To Star As FBI Agent In Action-Thriller ‘Supermax’ With Filming Lined Up For Summer; Amazon Takes WW Rights From Miramax In Big Deal

(date: 2026-05-14)

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s a big one. Will Smith has just committed to star in David Gordon Green-directed action-thriller Supermax, about two FBI agents investigating a murder that’s taken place in the world’s most secure prison. In a deal pegged in the $70M range, Amazon MGM Studios has this week closed a pact for worldwide rights to […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/will-smith-supermax-movie-amazon-mgm-worldwide-rights-1236903753/

[$] Keeping COWs in context (a.k.a. anonymous reverse mapping)

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-18)

The kernel's reverse-mapping machinery is charged with locating the page-table entries that refer to a given page in memory. The reverse mapping of anonymous pages is handled differently than for file-backed pages. The kernel's implementation of reverse mapping for anonymous pages is, according to Lorenzo Stoakes in his proposal for a memory-management-track session at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, "a very broken abstraction", due to its complexity. It also has some performance problems. Stoakes was there to present, in raw form, a proposed replacement that he calls a "COW context".

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072378/

Security updates for Thursday

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-18)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (gimp, jq, and yggdrasil), Debian (nghttp2 and thunderbird), Fedora (chromium, firefox, freerdp, GitPython, kernel, kernel-headers, krb5, nano, nix, nodejs20, php, python-click, python-django5, SDL2_image, and xen), Mageia (dnsmasq, flatpak, kernel, kmod-virtualbox, kernel-linus, perl-Net-CIDR-Lite, perl-XML-LibXML, and redis), SUSE (dnsmasq, firefox, jupyter-jupyterlab, kernel, krb5, libvinylapi3, log4j, Mesa, mozjs60, NetworkManager, OpenImageIO, python-Mako, python-Pillow, and python39), and Ubuntu (dnsmasq and nginx).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072838/

BlackStar Film Festival Sets Rebrand Ahead Of Milestone 15th Edition

(date: 2026-05-14)

EXCLUSIVE: The BlackStar Film Festival returns in August, for its 15th edition, and it will do so with a new look. Maori Karmael Holmes, the festival’s founder, and her team have partnered with the blue-chip New York design firm Pacific to reimagine the event’s visual identity. The festival and its parent organization, BlackStar Projects, can […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/blackstar-film-festival-rebrand-2026-15th-edition-1236881305/

Latin Music Icon Residente Reveals How He Built His Directorial Debut ‘Porto Rico’ Starring Bad Bunny, Javier Bardem, Ed Norton & Viggo Mortensen

(date: 2026-05-14)

Puerto Rico’s native son, René Pérez Joglar, better known as Residente to his legions of fans, has dominated the music industry for decades — and now he’s looking to disrupt Hollywood. Residente, a four-time Grammy and 29-time Latin Grammy Award winner, is gearing up to make his feature film directorial debut with Porto Rico, an epic […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/residente-interview-porto-rico-bad-bunny-1236881518/

ReelShort Sets Release Date For ‘Bound By Love’, Latest Chapter In ‘Bound By…’ Franchise

(date: 2026-05-14)

EXCLUSIVE: ReelShort, the microdrama service based in L.A., has set a date on the next instalment of its popular Bound By… romantic drama-meets-mafia franchise. Bound By Love will debut in two weeks on May 28 on the ReelShort app, and we’ve got exclusive artwork above and a poster below. The vertical drama series is based […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/reelshort-bound-by-love-release-date-1236902293/

Central European Media Enterprises Joins ACE Anti-Piracy Coalition

(date: 2026-05-14)

Central European Media Enterprises has joined the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the coalition tasked with fighting piracy worldwide. CME is a media and entertainment company operating in Central and Eastern Europe. It operates television stations in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Moldova, Slovakia and Slovenia. The ACE coalition, launched in 2017, is […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/central-european-media-enterprises-ace-piracy-1236904465/

James Corden Reveals His Least Favorite Episode Of ‘Gavin & Stacey’

(date: 2026-05-14)

James Corden was in brutally honest mood this afternoon as he reflected on his least favorite Gavin & Stacey episode at the BBC Comedy Festival. “It’s a very very very bad half hour,” he said of Season 1 Episode 2 of his beloved BBC sitcom. “It’s an awful episode.” So why is Corden so damning? […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/james-corden-reveals-least-favorite-episode-gavin-stacey-1236902314/

52 actionable posts about building a culture of innovation

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

One year of consistent posts is nothing to sneeze at. But when each one is genuinely useful, actionable, and insightful, that's another level of achievement.

https://werd.io/52-actionable-posts-about-building-a-culture-of-innovation/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-19)

After my Twitter account was hijacked for a few months, I am seeing things that I missed. So much happened without me. And after adding real writing features, it has become a blogging system. Bluesky and Masto should pay attention and do this too.

https://x.com/AnatoliKopadze/status/2054568935274549597

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-19)

I don't know where this came from but in 2006 I couldn't stop watching it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktDd97y6wQQ

Documentary Feature About Ruben Östlund And His Quest For A Third Palme d’Or In The Works

(date: 2026-05-14)

Swedish filmmaker and author Sigge Eklund has directed Ruben, a feature documentary about Ruben Östlund and the making of his latest film, The Entertainment System Is Down. The Entertainment System Is Down was shot over the last few years and is currently in post-production. The film is expected to compete at next year’s Cannes Film […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/ruben-ostlund-documentary-sigge-eklund-cannes-1236902372/

Sony Pictures’ Sanford Panitch Talks Rise Of Japanese IP & Resilience Of Theatrical: “No Global IP Has Ever Been Created By A Streaming Service”

(date: 2026-05-14)

Sanford Panitch, President of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, talked about the power of Japanese IP – and how entertainment culture has become both more niche and more global – in a Cannes Marche keynote celebrating Japan as this year’s Country Of Honor. He also talked about the resilience of theatrical releasing, as well […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/demon-slayer-sony-pictures-sanford-panitch-japan-ip-cannes-1236903865/

Shirley Jones Named Entertainment Commissioning Head At ‘SNL UK’s Sky In Restructure; Barbara Lee To Exit

(date: 2026-05-14)

Comcast’s UK-owned pay-TV giant Sky is reshuffling its unscripted pack. Shirley Jones has been promoted to the newly created role of Head of Entertainment Commissioning at the SNL UK network, while Barbara Lee will leave her role as a commissioning editor in October after 14 years. Her exit follows that of Dwayne Easton in March. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sky-entertainment-restructure-snl-uk-1236904436/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-19)

John Fetterman casts deciding vote against limiting Trump’s war in Iran.

Pluralistic: Kickstarting "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" (14 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links Kickstarting "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI": How to be a better AI critic. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: RIP Douglas Adams; R2-trashcan; EFF v W3C; RIP shonky Disneyland; Stolen oligarch forks; Anal fisting site breached; "Reading With Pictures"; "Napier's Bones"; Trump v his base's welfare. Upcoming appearances: Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. Kickstarting "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" (permalink) My next book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, will be out in about a month – and (once again) Amazon's monopoly audiobook platform refuses to carry it, and so (once again) I'm pre-selling the audio, ebook and print edition in a Kickstarter campaign that proves that DRM-free isn't just the right way to reach an audience, it's also the best way to reach them: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai Reverse Centaur is a book about the realpolitik and the political economy of AI, written by a tech critic (me!) who is sick to the back teeth of hearing about AI. Central to the book's thesis: The AI bubble is exceptionally bad and dangerous: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/07/dump-the-pumpers/#alpo-eaters-anonymous The AI bubble is part of a lineage of pump-and-dump swindles created by monopolists who are desperate to convince investors that they can continue to grow even after they've saturated their markets: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american In service to that stock swindle, AI companies have cooked up all kinds of ways to "juke the stats" to paint a false picture of AI adoption: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/02/kpis-off/#principal-agentic-ai-problem AI is a normal technology, and in the absence of the bubble, we'd call this collection of technically interesting, sometimes useful tools "plug-ins": https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/19/now-we-are-six/#stock-buyback A chatbot can't do your job, but an AI salesman can absolutely convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a chatbot that can't do your job: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete Despite the fact that the AI can't do your job, there are many ways that AI can be used to erode your wages and working conditions: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/06/empiricism-washing/#veena-dubal The workers who say that their jobs are worse and the things they produce are much worse as a result of AI are correct; but the workers who say their work is much better thanks to AI are also correct. This only seems like a riddle until you understand that the most important fact about any technology (including AI) isn't what it does, but who it does it for and who it does it to: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/11/vulgar-thatcherism/#there-is-an-alternative When a boss fires a worker and gives their jobs to an AI, it usually means that they don't care if that job is done well, which is why customer service jobs are being handed over to AI: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/06/unmerchantable-substitute-goods/#customer-disservice Bosses also love firing coders and replacing them with AI – first, because bosses are really angry about the decades when tech workers were in short supply and bosses had to pretend to like them, and second, because if you're selling AI as a way to replace workers, what better way to convince a potential customer than to fire the workers your own company depends upon? (All that said, the coders who are excited about their new AI coding tools have a point – when a worker is in charge of their work and thus when and how they use a tool, we should defer to their own experience): https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/05/ex-princes-of-labor/#hyper-criti-hype Artists are also a favorite target of AI bosses, which is weird, because the wages of creative workers add up to a total that rounds to zero when compared with the unimaginably large sums AI companies will have to take in if they are to pay back the trillions they've spent to date (let alone the trillions more they're proposing to spend in the near term). All of this raises a foundational question: can AI "art" ever be good? (Spoiler: probably not): https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/25/communicative-intent/#diluted Media companies say they have the answer to the AI art question: they'll create (or assert) a copyright that lets them control AI training. This is an incredibly transparent ruse: media companies are artists' class enemies, and if we get a new right to control AI training, our bosses will demand that we sign it away to them as part of their non-negotiable, one-sided standard contracts: https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/18/rights-without-power/#careful-what-you-wish-for For creative workers, the answer to these new would-be tech bosses isn't asserting a new right that will be expropriated by the old media bosses who've been ripping us off forever. Our salvation lies in leaning into the US Copyright Office's interpretation that holds that AI-generated works can't be copyrighted, because copyright is only for human creations. That means that the only way our bosses can get a copyright over the things they want to sell is to pay us to make them: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/03/its-a-trap-2/#inheres-at-the-moment-of-fixation Many of the seemingly urgent AI questions that people won't shut up about are distractions, because they assume that AI will lastingly infiltrate every part of our society. In reality, the AI companies are losing unimaginable amounts and have no path to profitability: https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/30/accounting-gaffs/#artificial-income The only jobs that AI can do better than humans are jobs that shouldn't exist, like figuring out how to maximize undetectable wage-theft: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/#luigi-has-a-point AI is also really good at figuring out how to do individualized price-gouging, another thing that shouldn't exist: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/21/cod-marxism/#wannamaker-slain Despite AI's manifest unsuitability to do jobs that should exist, bosses keep firing people and replacing them with chatbots that do their jobs very badly. This allows bosses to indulge their solipsistic fantasy of a world without people, in which customers, workers and suppliers are statistical artifacts and bosses are unitary geniuses who simply imagine a product or service and then it is delivered, without any ego-shattering confrontations with people who know how to do things: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/05/fisher-price-steering-wheel/#billionaire-solipsism This is catastrophic, and not just for the parties involved today. The AI bubble will pop, and when it does, the chatbots that do these jobs (badly) will be switched off. Meanwhile, the workers those chatbots replaced will have retrained, retired, or become "discouraged." No one will be around to do those (necessary) jobs. AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our civilization and our descendants will be digging it out for generations: https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence The real existential AI threat isn't that we'll accidentally teach the word-guessing program so many words that it awakens and becomes a vengeful god. The real risk is that when the bubble bursts we'll indulge the ruling class's reflex to austerity, and that this will continue the decades of mass economic traumatization that makes people into easy marks for fascists: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/12/always-great/#our-nhs But when the AI bubble pops, that won't be the end of AI – it will be the end of the bubble. When the AI bubble pops, we'll have mountains of GPUs at fire-sale prices, skilled workers liberated from the imperative to help their bosses promote their stock swindle, and open source models that will yield tremendous dividends to anyone who sets out to optimize them: https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/16/post-ai-ai/#productive-residue As you can see from the links above, I developed The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI in the same way that I developed Enshittification: in public, through a series of essays, which I periodically synthesized into major, widely shared speeches: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington Making my working notes public is a hugely effective way of producing and refining critical work, and it's been my method for 25 years now: https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/ It's a method that's let me produce a string of international bestsellers, published by some of the largest publishers in the world. Nevertheless, Amazon refuses to carry my audiobooks: https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff That's because I have an iron-clad requirement that my work be sold in open formats, without the "digital rights management" that blocks you from moving the books you bought on Amazon to someone else's apps. Digital rights management (DRM) enjoys bizarre legal protections so that it's a felony for me to give you the tools you need to move the books I wrote out of an Amazon app and into a competitor's app: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/14/sole-and-despotic/#world-turned-upside-down What's more, these outrageous legal rights extend around the world, because the US Trade Representative spent decades bullying America's trading partners into passing laws that criminalize the act of fixing the defects in America's tech exports, which is why farmers can't fix their John Deere tractors, hospitals can't fix their Medtronic ventilators, and no one can sell you an app that stops Apple and Google from spying on your phone: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition Amazon's Audible controls 90% (!) of the audiobook market, and they will not sell any book unless they can permanently lock it to their platform. That means that every time a writer sells you an audiobook on Audible, they create a "switching cost" that stops you from leaving Audible for a competitor. Not only is this fundamentally unjust, it's also terrible for creators: if our audiences can't leave Amazon, then we can't leave Amazon either, which means Amazon can (and does!) steal millions of dollars from writers without losing our business: https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate Which is where these Kickstarter campaigns come in. Whenever I sell a new book to a publisher, I arrange to make my own independent audiobook for it, which I sell everywhere except the platforms that have mandatory DRM: Audible, Apple and Audiobooks.com. There are some very good DRM-free audiobook stores, notably Libro.fm and Downpour.com (Google Play also sells audiobooks without DRM). But most people have never heard of these, so it wasn't until I started pre-selling my audiobooks on Kickstarter that I was able to make my stubborn refusal to sell out to Audible into a paying proposition. My agent tells me that if I'd sold out to Audible, I'd have paid off my mortgage and I'd be able to give my kid a full ride through a fancy US college. I don't make that kind of money from these Kickstarters, but they do very well nevertheless, and they're a critical part of my family's finances. The Kickstarter is live for the next three weeks: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai You can pre-order print copies of Reverse Centaur, as well as DRM-free ebooks and audiobooks (narrated by me!) for Reverse Centaur and Enshittification. Normally, I offer custom-signed copies of the print books, but Enshittification was so successful that I haven't stopped touring it and I'm in a new city every couple of days, so there's no way I can reliably get into a warehouse to sign the latest batch of orders. Instead, I'll be posting the contact details for every bookstore that's hosting me on my tours (US in June, UK in September) and you can order signed copies from them, which I'll personalize after my events there so they can ship them to you. I've also decided to raise money for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), the nonprofit I've worked at for nearly 25 years. EFF is the oldest, best and most effective tech rights organization in the world, and its mission has only gotten more important over the years. EFF's outreach folks are offering a special membership package for backers of the Kickstarter, which includes an EFF hat and stickers, as well as an Enshittification pin and two Enshittification stickers: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/24/poop-emoji-plus-plus/#devin-washburn The audiobook is fully recorded and finalized and you can listen to the first hour of it here: https://archive.org/details/reverse-centaur-audio-sample It came out great (as always!), thanks to the terrific direction of Gabrielle De Cuir of Skyboat Media and editing from Wryneck Studios' John Taylor Williams. Gabrielle's directed all my audiobooks since 2017, and John's been mastering my podcasts since 2006 (!!), so we constitute a very well-oiled machine. Working out my ideas in public allows me to produce my Pluralistic newsletter, and with it, a large volume of free, high-quality work that's licensed under a generous Creative Commons license that lets anyone reproduce, translate, redistribute and even sell my articles. If you've enjoyed that work, I hope you'll consider backing the campaign! Selling books is how I pay the bills and keep the lights on, and as ever, this is the only way you can get a major publisher's ebooks and audiobooks with no DRM and no "terms of service." These are truly ebooks and audiobooks that you own. You can sell them, give them away, or lend them out – so long as you don't violate copyright law, we're all cool: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai Hey look at this (permalink) Pee To Melt ICE Free Urinal Stickers https://peetomeltice.com/ We Are Crashing Into the Future (Or It Is Crashing Into Us) https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/we-are-crashing-into-the-future/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago RIP, Douglas Adams http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1326657.stm #20yrsago Douglas Coupland models his life & books on net rumors about him https://web.archive.org/web/20060515220320/https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/posts.html?pg=6 #15yrsago Vindictive lumber baron’s far-flung heirs inherit, 91 years after his death https://abcnews.com/Business/lumber-barons-descendants-receive-inheritance-92-years-death/story?id=13569633 #15yrsago R2D2 trashcan https://web.archive.org/web/20171208014511/https://i.imgur.com/x3w0I.jpg #15yrsago Napier’s Bones: math and mysticism make for great international adventure https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/12/napiers-bones-math-and-mysticism-make-for-great-international-adventure/ #15yrsago China’s shonky Disneyland-a-like park closed https://web.archive.org/web/20110515073221/https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/05/13/fake-disney-theme-park-in-china-forced-to-close/ #10yrsago Open letter to from EFF to members of the W3C Advisory Committee https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/open-letter-members-w3c-advisory-committee #10yrsago Gallery show of forks stolen from rich people, sealed to preserve crumbs & saliva https://web.archive.org/web/20160505183026/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/apr/27/crumbs-and-all-prince-harry-hillary-clinton-and-julia-gillard-have-cutlery-swiped-for-exhibition #10yrsago German publishers owe writers €100M in misappropriated royalties https://uebermedien.de/4444/schoener-verlegen-mit-dem-geld-anderer-leute/ #10yrsago Chinese state-backed corporations beat US lawsuits with sovereign immunity https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-companies-lawsuits-idUSKCN0Y2131/ #10yrsago Anal fisting site breached: 100K passwords, usernames, email addresses and IPs extracted https://web.archive.org/web/20160511121337/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/rosebuttboard-ip-board #10yrsago Reading With Pictures: awesome, classroom-ready comics for math, social studies, science and language arts https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/12/reading-with-pictures-awesome-classroom-ready-comics-for-math-social-studies-science-and-language-arts/ #5yrsago Crooked Timber's Ministry for the Future Seminar https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/12/seminar-for-the-future/#imaginations #1yrago Trump can't do ANYTHING for his base https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/12/greased-slide/#greased-pole Upcoming appearances (permalink) Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/14/who-it-does-it-for/

How Dangerous Is Anthropic’s Mythos AI?

(date: 2026-05-14)

Last month, Anthropic made a remarkable announcement about its new model, Claude Mythos Preview: it was so good at finding security vulnerabilities in software that the company would not release it to the general public. Instead, it would only be available to a select group of companies to scan and fix their own software.

The announcement requires context—but it contained an essential truth.

While Anthropic’s model is really good at finding software vulnerabilities, so are other models. The UK’s AI Security Institute found that OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, already generally available, is comparable in capability. The company Aisle ...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/how-dangerous-is-anthropics-mythos-ai.html

Trump Tours Chinese Factory that Manufactures his Bibles

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

Visiting the Trump Bible factory in Shanghai was the main reason for his China trip, he said.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-tours-chinese-factory-that

Law & Political Economy, or Legal Theory & Capitalism?

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-26)

What is this thing called capitalism? What, if anything, is the use of legal theory in understanding capitalist society? Is anything gained, or anything lost, if we replace the phrase “Law and Political Economy” with “Legal Theory and Capitalism”? Answers to these questions (and more!) in a hot new double issue of Law & Contemporary Problems.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/law-political-economy-or-legal-theory-capitalism/

BBC Comedy Boss Pleased Breakout Hit ‘Small Prophets’ Failed To Land American Co-Producer: “They Would Have Insisted On Some Mad Name”

(date: 2026-05-14)

Reflecting on the breakout success of Mackenzie Crook’s Small Prophets, BBC comedy chief Jon Petrie is pleased that his team failed to land an American co-producer. With nearly eight million views after its first 28 days, Small Prophets is the BBC’s biggest scripted launch of 2026 and one of its biggest of the decade. Petrie […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/bbc-small-prophets-no-american-co-producer-pearce-quigley-1236902310/

There's An Opportunity Here

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

For most of American history, political campaigns were comparatively small operations.

https://dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/theres-an-opportunity-here

A Failing, Flailing President Supplicates Xi

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

Why China has contempt for Donald Trump

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-failing-flailing-president-supplicates

Lit Hub Daily: May 14, 2026

(date: 2026-05-14)

Lessons in living in the Anthropocene (from the world’s most pessimistic climate writer). | Lit Hub Criticism Dear Hollywood: please stop hot-washing your literary adaptations. | Lit Hub On Anthony the Turk and Grietje, the larger-than-life, 17th-century Manhattan couple who

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-14-2026/

The assault on higher ed goes deeper than you think

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

The regime is quietly working to create a permanent underclass.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/the-assault-on-higher-ed-goes-deeper

Britain’s Independent Bullying Complaints Body Is Up & Running: Whistleblowing Service For Film & TV Finally Set To Launch In September

(date: 2026-05-14)

Nearly five years after the Noel Clarke scandal, Britain’s independent bullying and harassment complaints body is finally about to launch its landmark whistleblowing service. The Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) will roll out its hotline in September and says those who report concerns to CIISA may be entitled to additional legal protections under UK […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/ciisa-launch-whistleblowing-bullying-service-september-1236901362/

The Strange Death of Labour and Tory Britain

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-17)

Checking in from London, Dan reports on the demise of the UK's traditional parties

https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/the-strange-death-of-labour-and-tory

The Turk and The Whore, America’s First Reality TV Couple (c. 1630)

(date: 2026-05-14)

Before there was a place called New York, there was Anthony the Turk. Thought to be a Muslim born in Morocco, he possessed more wealth and property than any other non-Native person in the vicinity of what is today New

https://lithub.com/the-turk-and-the-whore-americas-first-reality-tv-couple-c-1630/

Hollywood Needs to Stop Hot-Washing Literary Adaptations

(date: 2026-05-14)

I finally caught the latest film adaptation of Wuthering Heights last week and even though I knew it had been divisive I was still disappointed in a way I hadn’t imagined. I was prepared for the film to be tacky

https://lithub.com/hollywood-needs-to-stop-hot-washing-literary-adaptations/

5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

(date: 2026-05-14)

Our smorgasbord of sumptuous reviews this week includes Hermione Hoby on Harriet Clark’s The Hill, Avi Shlaim on Omer Bartov’s Israel: What Went Wrong, Parul Sehgal on Gisèle Pelicot’s A Hymn to Life, Nicolás Medina Mora on Álvaro Enrigue’s Now I Surrender, Sophie Gilbert

https://lithub.com/5-book-reviews-you-need-to-read-this-week-5-14-2026/

Lessons in Living in the Anthropocene (From the World’s Most Pessimistic Climate Writer)

(date: 2026-05-14)

I remember the thrill of transgression I felt the first time I pulled Roy Scranton’s Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization off a shelf. It was at City Lights Bookstore, in San Francisco.

https://lithub.com/lessons-in-living-in-the-anthropocene-from-the-worlds-most-pessimistic-climate-writer/

To Tell A Story: On Blending Family History and Lived Experience in Nonfiction

(date: 2026-05-14)

Once upon a time, you couldn’t tell a story straight. The problem might be that you began as a poet. That focus on a moment, an image, that impulse to seize a scene and squeeze it dry, or spend days

https://lithub.com/to-tell-a-story-on-blending-family-history-and-lived-experience-in-nonfiction/

Eight Memoirs About Medicine, Illness, and Healing

(date: 2026-05-14)

Nothing is more personal than illness and healing. So medical memoirs are not monolithic, and are written by doctors, patients, the loved ones of the sufferers, and others. The eight memorable memoirs here, from the past to the present, the

https://lithub.com/eight-memoirs-about-medicine-illness-and-healing/

From My Hometown to Vietnam, Searching For My Biological Father

(date: 2026-05-14)

Marge loved to talk on the phone. I hated it. But I indulged her, calling almost every day for forty years. This phone call was special. It was my adoptive mother’s birthday. Marge was turning ninety-one while in hospice care

https://lithub.com/from-my-hometown-to-vietnam-searching-for-my-biological-father/

The Annotated Nightstand: What Stine An is Reading Now, and Next

(date: 2026-05-14)

The poet Stine An, who is at the very least a finalist for best author/translator photo, is the translator of the recent poetry collection Winter Night Rabbit Worries by Yoo Heekyung. An received both NEA (rip) and PEN/Heim Translation Grants

https://lithub.com/the-annotated-nightstand-what-stine-an-is-reading-now-and-next/

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Nonfiction

(date: 2026-05-14)

Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for nonfiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. Compiled, designed, and distributed by The Independent Publishers Caucus. * 1. Braiding Sweetgrass:

https://lithub.com/the-independent-press-top-40-bestsellers-nonfiction-17/

The Most Important Thing You Should Know About the CEOs Traveling to China with Trump

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-24)

They all have something in common, and it's not the interest of America

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-most-important-thing-you-should

GOP Gerrymanders Are Burning Down the House

(date: 2026-05-14)

Redistricting battles are spreading like wildfire in both red and blue states, and increasingly the fate of America’s electoral system is at the mercy of the courts. This week, Alex speaks to Virginia Representative Suhas Subramanyam about how Democrats in the state are planning to fight fire with fire after a major setback for their efforts to redraw voting lines, and she hears from New York State Senator Mike Gianaris about the risks of diluting minority and progressive votes. Then Alex speaks to Stacey Abrams, host of Crooked Media’s Assembly Required, about the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act and why Democrats can’t abandon their values to pursue Congressional seats.

https://audioboom.com/posts/8903338

May 13, 2026

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-21)

Two weeks ago today, the U.S.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-13-2026

338. Ten thousand shades of green. M̶e̶a̶s̶l̶e̶s̶. Koala. Glioblastoma 🪄✨. Water from air.

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-27)

A fairytale comes true?

https://fixthenews.com/p/338-ten-thousand-shades-of-green

The Biz Reaper

(date: 2026-05-14)

If Byron Allen shows up at your door, you did something wrong with your media business. And BuzzFeed has a visitor. Also: I built a thing.

https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17340934/buzzfeed-byron-allen-analysis

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for May 14, 2026

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-18)

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Front: Fedora AI; Forgejo "carrot" disclosure; memory-management maintainership; huge THPs; mshare; 64KB base pages; DAMON; direct map.
Briefs: Dirty Frag; Fragnesia; Mythos and curl; killswitch; Debian reproducible builds; KDE investment; Quotes ...
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071535/

My interview with Justin Jones

(date: 2026-05-14, updated: 2026-05-24)

Why the Supreme Court majority's backlash against our multiracial democracy threatens us all

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/my-interview-with-justin-jones

How Wasm components enable pluggable tooling through interposition

(date: 2026-05-14)

And how the splicer framework makes it tractable at any interface edge.

https://bytecodealliance.org/articles/how-wasm-components-enable-pluggable-middleware

LinkedIn fanfiction

(date: 2026-05-14)

I was on the bus on my way to an important business meeting about the exponential growth of my MRR, when suddenly I noticed some troublemakers were hassling an old lady. Their caps were on backwards, their clothes were baggy, and probably thought the grindset was about skateboarding.

I had to act. I opened my macbook and showed Claude what was happening. “Claude, we gotta do something!”, I said. “You’re absolutely right!”, Claude affirmed in a calm and confident font, and thanks to --dangerously-skip-permissions, it had started coding before I had even thought about what to do. It was “cannoodling”, which I think is one of the good ones.

https://www.marginalia.nu/log/a_137_linkedin_fanfiction/

A pep talk in the face of despair (or: trying redux)

(date: 2026-05-14)

Everything sucks right now, but things can *always* get better, but it doesn't happen via inertia. It happens because a lot of people tried.

https://dansinker.com/posts/2026-05-14-trying-redux/

ORDER BY Has Come a Long Way

(date: 2026-05-14)

`Order by` Has Come a Long Way

The order by clause is surely one of the best-known SQL clauses. Yet there are a number of common misunderstandings that are worth clearing up. For that, I’ll walk you through the evolution of the order by clause in ISO/IEC 9075-2:2023—that is, the SQL standard.

The 1980s

In the beginning,0 the order by clause had several limitations that were lifted later: (1) it could only refer to columns produced by the corresponding select clause; (2) it did not allow expressions; (3) it did not provide a direct syntax to control ordering of null values and (4) it was only allowed as the very last clause of a query.

For example, the following query was invalid until ISO/IEC 9075-2:1999, because the order by clause refers to a non-selected column:

SELECT a
  FROM t
 ORDER BY b

You might wonder why the standard made it invalid to sort on something that is not selected. But that is a totally wrong perspective. Let me explain.

Three Orders: Syntax, Logical and Actual Evaluation

There are countless AI-generated infographics flooding the social networks these days. Many of them address the difference between the syntactic order of SQL clauses and the logical order of evaluation. While we can easily see the syntactic order in the statement itself, such as select, from, order by, the logical evaluation order is more subtle. Even though the logical evaluation order often follows the syntactic order, there are exceptions such as the select clause.

For the query above, the logical order of evaluation is from, select, order by. That means that the from clause first creates an imaginary result, consisting of the full contents of the table “ t”. This includes the column “ b”, if there is such a column. This imaginary result is then passed to the select clause, which produces another imaginary result consisting of the column “ a” only. That imaginary result is in turn passed to the order by clause, which cannot find the column “ b” in the input received from the select clause. Thus, the statement was not valid SQL. Not because the standard explicitly says so, but as a rather unfortunate consequence of how imaginary results are passed between clauses.

So far I’ve mentioned two orders of SQL: the syntactic order (order of clauses in the statement) and the logical order of evaluation. Both are defined in the standard. However, there is a third order, which the currently circulating infographics fail to highlight: the actual order of execution. Even though it might look like the standard defines the steps an engine must undertake to get the result, it actually does not! The SQL standard says:

A conforming SQL-implementation is not required to perform the exact sequence of actions defined in the General Rules, provided its effect [...] is identical to the effect of that sequence.

— ISO/IEC 9075-1:2023 §6.3.3.3

In other words: Everything in the standard just means: “The result has to be the same as though you would follow these steps”.

This relates to another set of infographics that spread the mantra to “filter early” in order to improve performance. While this mantra is correct when applied to the actual order of execution, it is pointless to apply it to the syntactical or logical order. Take this statement as an example:

SELECT *
  FROM t
 WHERE a = 42

The way the SQL standard defines the result of this statement is to get the full contents of the table “ t” first. That imaginary result is then passed on to the where clause which drops all but the matching rows, producing a smaller but still imaginary result. This is then processed by the select clause which finally produces the ultimate result of the query. If the standard would require the actual order of execution to follow these steps, indexing would not be possible at all.

In fact, engines will be happy to use an index on column “ a”, if available. That effectively merges the where clause into the from clause. This is also true if there is a join in the query. Whenever it is possible to apply filtering early (“ push down”) without changing the result, engines aim to do so. The suggestion to use a subquery or CTE to apply the filter early (e.g. before a join) is wasting your time. It is done by the engine, automatically. For decades.1 Trust the execution plan, not infographics. The execution plan tells you what the engine actually does.

Positional References

After this short digression, let’s get back to the order by clause. At that time, up to ISO/IEC 9075:1992, there was another way to specify which selected columns should be used for sorting: a positional reference. The literal “ 1” in the following example means to use the first column for sorting.

SELECT a
  FROM t
 ORDER BY 1

Note that this was removed from the standard in 1999,2 yet it is still widely supported—and often used.

Also via bind parameter: order by ? • Negative parameters (but not literals) reverse the direction
Also via bind parameter: order by ?

Non-Selected Columns

This was the formal functionality of the order by clause in the previous century. But then there was the “big bang” of modern SQL: A new edition of the SQL standard was published in December 1999. And that changed pretty much everything. From the boolean type to custom types, from CTEs to grouping sets. Countless new features pushed SQL far beyond its relational origins. But SQL:1999 was also not shy of improving old and simple functionality such as the order by clause.

In particular, SQL:1999 allowed non-selected columns in order by. As we have seen above, the order by clause just does not have access to non-selected columns. So the question is: How did SQL:1999 make it possible?

If an order by clause refers to columns not found in the imaginary result produced by select, the standard just adds those columns to the select clause.3 The standard text effectively rewrites the query for you. Such rewrites are known as syntactic transformations. Although they are very common, most of them stay within a syntactic unit, such as a clause. This particular syntactic transformation does not mind rewriting another clause.4

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Once added to the select clause, order by can use it like any selected column. To avoid returning those added columns to the final result, the order by clause itself drops them again.5 The separation of concerns is ruthlessly broken. The end justifies the means, I’d say. And keep in mind: the engines are still allowed to do whatever they want, as long as the result is the same as if they had followed these steps.

Note the order of precedence for this syntactic transformation: Only columns not found in the select clause are subject to the syntactic transformation. Consider this table and the query below:

CREATE TABLE t (
  a INTEGER,
  b INTEGER
)

SELECT b AS a
  FROM t
 ORDER BY a -- refers to t.b

The column name “ a” in order by a refers, unambiguously, to the column “ a” produced by the select clause. Only if there is no such column, the columns produced by from/ join clauses are considered. This ensures that the meaning of this query is the same for SQL-92 and SQL:1999.

Expressions

Another—equally annoying—limitation of the early order by clause was lifted in 1999: The order by keys were no longer limited to column references and integer values.

Since then, order by can contain arbitrary expressions (formulas)6 that contain at least one column name. Order by 1, as shown above, is explicitly not standard SQL anymore.7 27 years later, knowing that this syntax is still accepted everywhere, it might be worth reconsidering this for standardization.

However, a more relevant issues is that there are still engines that do not fully support expressions in the order by clause. They only allow expressions on columns originating from the from clause. Consider these examples. The first works in all tested systems, but the second fails in some of them.

SELECT a + b
  FROM t
 ORDER BY COALESCE(a + b, 0)

SELECT a + b AS x
  FROM t
 ORDER BY COALESCE(x, 0)

This limitation is mentioned in the documentation of some systems: PostgreSQL, SQL Server.

Null Ordering

The next notable extension of the order by clause came in 2003: The nulls first|last specification.

SELECT a
  FROM t
 ORDER BY b NULLS FIRST

Without that, the position of null values relative to non- null values is implementation defined ( ID133). The only provision the standard makes is that engines must treat all null values the same and either put them first or last. Whether they come first or last may depend on the asc/ desc specification so that they are effectively sorted as smallest (≪) or greatest (≫) possible value. Indeed most systems treat null as being either very small or very big.

Configurable: set default_null_order = [NULLS_FIRST | NULLS_LAST | NULLS_FIRST_ON_ASC_LAST_ON_DESC | NULLS_LAST_ON_ASC_FIRST_ON_DESC]

In Subqueries

As mentioned at the top of this article, order by was originally not allowed in subqueries. This lies, once more, in the history of SQL: As “SQL is based on, but is not a strict implementation of, the relational model”,8 it inherits many ideas from the relational model. One of them is that tables essentially implement sets—actually, multisets. However, the property of (multi)sets to imply no order on its members, applies to tables. This also affects the imaginary tables passed between clauses and from subqueries to their outer query. Consequently, there is no use for order by in subqueries.

Until ISO/IEC 9075-2:2008 was published. That edition introduced the fetch first clause. In case you don’t know: fetch first is just a more powerful version of limit or top. These clauses typically, but not necessarily, follow an order by clause that establishes a row order before truncating the result as specified by the fetch first clause.

Sidenote: No “Ordered Tables”

The imaginary tables passed between clauses may have meta-data associated with them. The group by clause, for example, produces a “ grouped table” so that having can see the table rows in a grouped fashion. Likewise, “ windowed tables” are used for window functions. But there is no such thing as an “ ordered table” in the SQL standard.

That raises a question: How does the fetch first clauses obtain the ordered table from the order by clause? The answer might be disappointing: Fetch first just explicitly refer to the order established by order by (if present). This cross-reference just spans a single page in the standard because all three clauses are covered in a single section of the standard.

It is probably just my personal preference, but I have a tendency to treat the standard text (and laws) as code, which should be organized into smaller units that only interact with each other by means of small and well-defined interfaces. Yes, I know, that’s naive. But why not aim for it anyway? From that perspective, the just mentioned cross reference is not a big deal. The way order by makes non-selected columns available is very different in this regard.

As the fetch first clause makes sense in subqueries, in particular in lateral joins, the need for order by in subqueries emerged. Therefore, the syntactic position of the order by clause was slightly moved from the <cursor specification>, which cannot be nested, to the <query expression>, which can be nested.

Since then, order by is allowed in subqueries so that fetch first can be meaningfully used there as well. Similarly, but technically different, order by also became valid in the legs of union, intersect and except, when put into parenthesis (see F855, “Nested ORDER BY in query expression” for details).

Some variants
Optimized away if meaningless
Some variants • Only in combination with fetch first or the like
Some variants

Note that the standard allows order by in subqueries even if there is no fetch first (or the later introduced offset) clause. One tested system takes the (reasonable) freedom to not accept such queries. Another system just ignores meaningless order by clauses, which breaks the principle of least astonishment, but complies with the requirements of the standard. The remaining systems seem to apply the subquery’s order by clause to preserve that order in the outer query.9 This is not required by the standard, but not astonishing either.

To conclude this not-very-brief history of SQL’s order by clause, let me just mention a few examples of other places where SQL uses order by nowadays: over(order by), match_recognize(order by), within group (order by), json_arrayagg(order by).

Of course, these topics are also addressed in my SQL Reloaded training course.

Articles
- We need tool support for keyset pagination
  
  The offset clause should not be used for pagination because it gives wrong results and poor performance. Wrong and slow, what else do you need?
- Select names in group by
  
  Some systems allow the group by clause to look forward into the select clause. This is not covered by the standard. Some systems implement this functionality in a way that breaks standard-conformance.
Standard Features
- Mandatory Features
  - E051, Basic query specification
    - E051-04, “GROUP BY can contain columns not in ”
  - E121-01, “DECLARE CURSOR”
    - E121-02, “ORDER BY columns need not be in select list”
    - E121-03, “Value expressions in ORDER BY clause”
- Optional Features

“ Order by Has Come a Long Way” by Markus Winand was originally published at Modern SQL.

https://modern-sql.com/blog/2026-05/order-by-history

🌻 notes on AI, labor, and China

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

An expansion pack for my NYT story on the "permanent underclass"

https://jasmi.news/p/party-in-the-permanent-underclass

Trump Lands in Beijing: What I'm Watching For.

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Chinese are ready. And the US???

https://fallows.substack.com/p/trump-lands-in-beijing-what-im-watching

Meet Dr. Amy Acton, Our Great Candidate Running For Governor Of Ohio

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-23)

"this midterm likely provides the best opportunity for Democrats to win statewide offices [in Ohio] in 20 years”

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/meet-dr-amy-acton-our-great-candidate

America Is “Under-Babied”? Let’s Talk About That.

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Trump administration says America isn't having enough babies. They're right about the problem and wrong about everything else.

https://danismart.substack.com/p/america-is-under-babied-lets-talk

Last Call - Tonight, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-22)

House bill supporting Ukraine, sanctioning Russia gets 218 signatures in discharge petition - it comes to the House floor in June!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/last-call-tonight-7pm-et-our-weekly-4bf

Deep Dive episode: Democracy 2.0, with Lee Drutman

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

Tired of partisan gerrymandering and a two-party system that is unresponsive to the needs of everyday Americans? Have we got an idea for you!

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/deep-dive-episode-democracy-20-with

The Single Biggest Question Hanging Over Kevin Warsh's Fed

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-23)

You'll have some clue as to the answer after June 17

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-single-biggest-question-hanging

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

Coming soon: deploying from Xogot for Mac to Vision:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116569159736621223

OmniOutliner 6.1

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-26)

Ken Case: Redesigning and rebuilding all of our toolbars, sidebars, and inspectors for Liquid Glass gave us a great opportunity to cross-pollinate features, making some familiar platform-exclusive features available across all platforms for the first time. And it was also easier than ever to build new features that work in consistent ways across those platforms. […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/13/omnioutliner-6-1/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-19)

Data centers are cutting power to homes, driving homeowners to solar and batteries.

https://electrek.co/2026/05/13/data-centers-grid-strain-driving-residential-solar-battery-demand/

Rogue Scholar Newsletter April 2026

(date: 2026-05-13)

This is the April 2026 issue of the monthly newsletter from the Rogue Scholar science blog archive. The newsletter reports on new blogs that have joined the platform, important technical updates in Rogue Scholar infrastructure, community updates, and other news relevant to Rogue Scholar users.

https://blog.front-matter.de/posts/rogue-scholar-newsletter-april-2026/

This Week In The Big Picture

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

Is Donald Trump secretly a Democratic operative?

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-big-picture-may-13

[$] Friction in Fedora over AI developer desktop initiative

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-17)

A push by Red Hat employees to create a Fedora "AI Developer Desktop" with support for out-of-tree kernel drivers and AI toolkits has been met with objections from some long-time members of the Fedora community. After more than a month of sometimes heated discussion, theFedora
Council had voted to approve the initiative; however, a last-minute change to vote against the proposal by council member Justin Wheeler has (at least temporarily) sent it back to the drawing board.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071949/

Pluralistic: Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm (13 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm: AGI works best in a K-hole. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Woz's remotes; Furbeowulf; Vinge on AR; Oligarch buys FSU; DNC x GOP megadonors; John Key v Panama Papers; Two elevators, one shaft; Save Firefox! "Cyclopedia Exotica"; Eat the brood. Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm (permalink) With great power comes great solipsism: the more power you wield over other people, the less real they become to you. To rule is to see people as aggregates, statistical artifacts, as a means to an end. It's how people seem when you're at the bottom of a k-hole. Per Granny Weatherwax, this is the root of all evil: "Sin is when you treat people like things": https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/granny-weatherwax-on-sin-favorite.html The problem (for powerful people) is that other people aren't things; they're people, with stubborn attachments to their own priorities and needs. This is a huge problem for social media bosses, since the force that keeps you stuck to their platforms is your love of your friends, which sucks (for social media bosses), because your friends refuse to organize their interactions with you to "maximize engagement." There is a group of platform users who are dedicated to maximizing your engagement: performers (which is why legacy social media platforms have reduced the quantum of your feed given over to your friends to a bare minimum and swapped in the amateur dramatics of theater kids). But even "influencers" demand treatment as people, not things (which is why legacy social media is squeezing out performers in favor of slop): https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/17/for-youze/#forever Running a social media service is especially solipsism-inducing, since the back-end of a social media service always reduces people to statistical artifacts to be steered, thwarted, or rewarded based on the degree to which they are "maximizing engagement." No wonder zuckermuskian social media bosses mythologize themselves as dopamine-hacking wizards who've built a mind-control ray. Skinnerism and solipsism fit together very neatly, seducing you into the belief that everyone else is a stimulus-responding automaton, programmed to think they have free will: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/07/rah-rah-rasputin/#credulous-dolts (Of course, the AI boss version of this is the belief that everyone else is a "stochastic parrot":) https://xcancel.com/sama/status/1599471830255177728 But in truth, any corporate boss is prone to solipsism. To maximize corporate profits, you must view other people – employees, suppliers and customers – as inconvenient problems to be solved, not true people with feelings and needs that are co-equal with your own. This is why AI is so attractive to the ruling class. For corporate leaders, the fantasy of your own worth is always dangerously close to collapsing, due to the haunting knowledge that if you don't show up for work, everything continues as per normal; while if your workers don't show up for work, the shop closes down and stays closed. Bosses really want to be in the driver's seat, but ultimately they know that they're strapped into the back seat, playing with a Fisher Price steering wheel. AI is a way to wire that toy steering wheel directly into the drive-train: it's the fantasy that a boss can have an idea and the corporation will execute it, without any messy human needs or demands getting in the way: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/05/fisher-price-steering-wheel/#billionaire-solipsism Solipsism is why bosses fetishize IP and ignore process knowledge. IP is the part of the job that the worker can explain (and that you can train an AI model on). Process knowledge is the part of the job that can't be abstracted, alienated or commodified. The very existence of process knowledge is the major impediment to de-skilling workers so they can be interchanged with other, more desperate, more timid workers (or with sycophantic AI): https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/08/process-knowledge/#dance-monkey-dance Of course, there's a whole group of powerful people outside of the political world who are gripped by solipsistic AI fantasies: politicians. Like social media bosses, politicians deal with people as statistical artifacts who respond to policy inputs with semi-predictable outputs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State And of course, politicians have their own detested class of workers whom they fantasize about replacing with chatbots: bureaucracies. When Trump et al bemoan the "deep state," they are engaged in the politicians' version of the corporate boss's solipsism: "I make policies, but to enact them, I have to convince civil servants to turn my agenda into action. This sucks. Can't we just have an all-powerful executive who decides on things and then those things just happen?" Writing for Columbia's Knight First Amendment Institute, political scientist Henry Farrell and statistician Cosma Rohilla Shalizi have produced the definitive account of how AI psychosis has infected our political classes: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-as-social-technology Farrell and Shalizi use this political AI psychosis to explain DOGE, framing DOGE as a project where politicians and their loyal vassals cut a deep wound in the administrative state on the basis that general AI was about to emerge. With godlike AI around the corner, these bureaucrats – who insist on having opinions based on long experience and ethical sensibilities – could be replaced with sycophantic chatbots who'd turn the will of the unitary executive into policy without any filtration through unreliable, squishy humans. This is a political version of my maxim that "the fact that an AI can't do your job doesn't stop an AI salesman from convincing your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job." Private sector bosses are easy marks for AI salesmen, and not just because they want to reduce their wage bills, but also because it will fulfill the solipsist's fantasy of a corporation that turns the singular genius of the boss into a product without any messy demands from workers (and, if you're Zuckerberg and convinced that you've created a mind-control ray, your product can be rolled out without any messy demands from your customers, either, since you've hypnotized them into doing as they're told). The public sector version of this is the fantasy that you can eliminate the civil service and use an army of chatbots to do the job – not merely as a way of slashing the federal budget, but also as a way of purifying the transfer of the leader's will to the people without any intervening loss of fidelity resulting from the need to have your policies interpreted (and willfuly misinterpreted) by bureaucrats. This is a very important framing, and it explains why fascists like Trump and dead-eyed technocrats like Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are hell-bent on gutting their countries' civil service and replacing it with chatbots: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2026/04/carney-ai-government-risks/ This is how Muskism and DOGE connect to Trumpism and AI: Musk doesn't believe other people are real. He calls them "NPCs" (non-player characters). He wants to put a microchip in your head so he can "replace your bad programming": https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/21/torment-nexusism/#marching-to-pretoria It's the fascist paradigm: the idea that people are incapable of self-rule, save for a very small number of singular geniuses who should be put in a position of absolute authority over all of us, to keep us safe from our own foolish impulses: https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/12/donella-meadows/#paradigmatic The Technocrats – a protofascist Italian movement that once captured the imagination of Musk's great-grandfather, and now are frequently quoted and alluded to by the likes of Mark Andreessen – were addicted to the quantitative fallacy that infects economics and other disciplines. That's the idea that every social process can be expressed as a mathematical model, which can then be optimized. The problem, of course, is that much of the real world is qualitative, and the act of quantizing those qualia is a very lossy process. To quantize a qualitative question is to incinerate all the qualitative aspects and then do mathematics on the dubious quantitative ash that is left behind: https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-qualia/ In their paper, Farrell and Shalizi cite Ben Recht's maxim that "you can’t optimize a trade-off": https://www.argmin.net/p/are-there-always-trade-offs But of course, we optimize trade-offs all the time. That's what being a boss means, and it's also at the very core of self-determination: the right to decide what trade-offs you want to make. What Recht means is "you can't optimize a trade-off for everyone else." Those stubborn not-quite-people – customers, workers, bureaucrats – insist that they want different trade-offs. In translating the will of a supreme leader to policy without any intervening need for buy-in by humans, fascist projects like DOGE seek to optimize trade-offs according to the preferences of the supreme leader. AI in government is grounded in the idea that a sufficiently deserving leader can be trusted to vibe-code the entire apparatus of state, checked only by his own sense of rightness: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5680714-trump-morality-international-law/ Farrell and Shalizi forcefully make the point that statecraft is not a set of discrete problems with provably correct answers that must be solved. Government is a matter of making choices between mutually exclusive policies that have benefits and costs, and those costs and benefits fall upon different groups differently. The idea that you can simply feed every fact about a society into a chatbot and order it to "solve" the nation reveals a profound ignorance about the nature of political contests. There's no empirical way of deciding whose priorities deserve to be realized and who must be disappointed. There isn't even an empirical way to compare the benefits that one group receives to the costs another group pays. What's more, any system that uses LLMs to make high-stakes tradeoffs between different societal priorities will be relentlessly targeted by the groups that stand to win or lose based on those decisions, and by bureaucrats whose careers depend on making the number go up. They will poison the LLMs' training data, and figure out how to trick it into deceiving their bosses about the situation on the ground. Back in 2018, Yuval Harari predicted that LLMs would supercharge dictatorships by overcoming "authoritarian blindness" – when the suppression of political opinion is so effective that the first sign that a dictator has of his waning support is a mob that burns the presidential palace down. This prediction failed, because people who live under dictators have switched all the energy they used to use to put on a good show for the secret police into putting a good show on for the chatbots: https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in Meanwhile, the "variability" introduced by bureaucrats who adapt political policies is a feature, not a bug. When a long-tenured public official receives a directive from on-high that they know will be a disaster if implemented unchanged, they can tweak the policy so that it is at least partially successful. Fire that bureaucrat and hand the policy to a rigidly loyal LLM that will not deviate from its strict instructions and you will end up with nothing (rather than a perfect policy implementation). Indeed, you may end up with less than nothing, as resentful local populations sabotage your agenda. Both Hayek and Marx agreed that people at the very periphery of the system have insights into local conditions that no boss/central planner can know (though they disagreed about what that fact implied). An LLM is the ultimate micro-manager, and government by Computer Says No would only work if the person writing the system prompt knew everything about everyone everywhere. As Farrell and Shalizi write, The frustrations of actually existing bureaucracy do not merely arise from inept or technically-inadequate solutions to the principal-agent problem. They emerge too from the collision of multiple incommensurable demands, each with its own problems and benefits, so that there are no optimal design solutions. Those who build or reform bureaucracies, like those who build other artifacts, need to satisfice across multiple intersecting needs and pathologies. Designs that neatly address one kind of problem may radically worsen others. Actually-existing AI has its own imperfections, some of which are endemic. Grafting AI systems onto existing bureaucracies will solve some problems but will worsen others and make altogether new ones. It will not eliminate the political difficulties of mediating across different, often non-commensurable, goals. Imagining replacing bureaucracy wholesale with AI is only plausible if one waves away the actual difficulties associated with real social technologies. Hey look at this (permalink) The Surveillance Economy Is Here. This Is How We Fight Back. https://jacobin.com/2026/05/surveillance-consumer-worker-protection-levine A Cyberdeck That Runs Linux…in An Altoids Tin https://hackaday.com/2026/05/12/a-cyberdeck-that-runs-linux-in-an-altoids-tin/ Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/05/canadas-bill-c-22-repackaged-version-last-years-surveillance-nightmare When It Comes to Data Privacy, Consumers Must Be in the Driver’s Seat: Attorney General Bonta, Partners Secure $12.75 Million General Motors Privacy Settlement https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/when-it-comes-data-privacy-consumers-must-be-driver’s-seat-attorney-general Britain pays Starlink millions despite Musk's calls to overthrow UK government https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/05/12/britain-pays-starlink-millions-despite-musks-calls-to-overthrow-uk-government/5238122 Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Woz's programmable remotes https://web.archive.org/web/20010603184833/http://www.celadon.com/Industrial/PIC200/pic200oem.html #25yrsago Furbeowulf http://www.trygve.com/furbeowulf.html #20yrsago Diebold voting machines can be 0wned in minutes https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2006/05/11/report-claims-very-serious-diebold-voting-machine-flaws/ #20yrsago British farmer supplies gallows to totalitarian governments http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/4754515.stm #20yrsago Proposed law requires schools to censor MySpace, LJ, blogs, Flickr https://web.archive.org/web/20060521054806/http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/learning.now/2006/05/new_federal_legislation_would_1.html #15yrsago Vernor Vinge on the promise, progress and threats of Augmented Reality https://www.ugotrade.com/2011/05/10/interview-with-vernor-vinge-smart-phones-and-the-empowering-aspects-of-social-networks-augmented-reality-are-still-massively-underhyped/ #15yrsago American oligarch buys the right to hire professors at Florida State U https://web.archive.org/web/20110511210435/https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/billionaires-role-in-hiring-decisions-at-florida-state-university-raises/1168680/ #15yrsago National Jukebox: public domain music archive from the Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/collections/national-jukebox/about-this-collection/ #15yrsago America’s net censorship bill is back and worse than ever https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/revised-net-censorship-bill-requires-search-engines-to-block-sites-too/ #10yrsago DNC Host Committee composed of GOP megadonors, Net Neutrality haters, fracking boosters and anti-Obamacare lobbyists https://web.archive.org/web/20160511160814/https://theintercept.com/2016/05/11/lobbyists-dnc-2016-convention/ #10yrsago Minnesota lawmakers propose bizarre, dangerous PRINCE law https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/minnesota-legislators-go-crazy-pushing-dangerous-prince-act #10yrsago NZ Prime Minister John Key ejected from Parliament over Panama Papers rant https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/prime-minister-john-key-thrown-out-of-debating-chamber-by-speaker/A5LQPMGB56QXTGE2ZFIK2MSRPE/?c_id=1&objectid=11637448 #10yrsago Putting two elevators in one shaft https://web.archive.org/web/20160512013856/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/thyssenkrup-twin-elevator/ #10yrsago Germany will end copyright liability for open wifi operators https://torrentfreak.com/germany-to-rescind-piracy-liability-for-open-wifi-operators-160511/ #10yrsago Save Firefox: The W3C’s plan for worldwide DRM would have killed Mozilla before it could start https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-firefox #5yrsago Let's eat all the cicadas https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/11/uniboob/#eat-the-brood#5yrsago #5yrsago Cyclopedia Exotica https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/11/uniboob/#one-eye-and-three-dot-dot-dot Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/13/vibe-governance/

AI is the New Netflix

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-20)

At my 2008 NewTeeVee conference, I asked Reed Hastings, then CEO of Netflix, whether streaming video would become the first killer app of broadband. It seemed obvious: video would consume capacity. And eventually it did. Streaming became the thing that made people care about downstream speed, drove the upgrade cycle, and reshaped how operators planned …

https://om.co/2026/05/13/ai-is-the-new-netflix/

Yet another Dirty Frag type vulnerability: Fragnesia

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-17)

Sam James has sent an announcement to the OSS Security mailing list about another local-privilege-escalation (LPE) exploit in the same class as Dirty Frag, called "Fragnesia". From the disclosure:

This is a separate bug in the ESP/XFRM from dirtyfrag which has received its own patch. However, it is in the same surface and the mitigation is the same as for dirtyfrag.

It abuses a logic bug in the Linux XFRM ESP-in-TCP subsystem to achieve arbitrary byte writes into the kernel page cache of read-only files, without requiring any race condition.

James noted that there is a patch in the works, but it has not yet been pulled into Linus Torvalds's tree nor into any of the stable kernels. A proof
of concept exploit is also available.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072647/

Morel Of The Story

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/morel-of-the-story/

Don’t Solve the Wrong Problem

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

Why misdiagnosis is more dangerous than slow execution.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/dont-solve-the-wrong-problem

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-25)

I appreciate that X gave me back access to my account that I was locked out of, but they were apparently charging me for Premium when I couldn't use the account, and had no way to turn it off. Okay they can keep the money. But now I want to turn off Premium for the account I was using when I didn't have access to my real account, and can't find the commands to do that. Asked ChatGPT and it either hallucinated or X removed the command. So near as I can tell I now have two accounts on X that I'm paying $8 a month for Premium on.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/13.html#a142427

[$] Managing pages outside of the direct map

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-17)

When Brendan Jackman proposed a session for the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, his topic was "a pagetable library for the kernel". During the actual memory-management-track session, though, he stated that the idea had "fizzled" and he was going to cover related topics instead. What resulted was a session on ways to efficiently manage pages that are not present in the kernel's direct map.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072367/

Trump Admits What Has Become Obvious - He Simply Doesn't Care About The American People Only Himself, His Ridiculous Ballroom, His Fellow Oligarchs

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-22)

Another gauge of inflation, PPI, came in much, much higher than expected......

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trump-admits-what-has-become-obvious

@IIIF Mastodon feed

(date: 2026-05-13)

RE: https://glammr.us/@IIIF/116556873578257892

Our #IIIF Ideas Box Community Call is happening TODAY.

Join us in just under 2 hours.

Zoom Link: iiif.io/community

https://glammr.us/@IIIF/116567668889897707

Why a digital document is a piece of software, and what that means for your freedom

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

Most people, including many competent software developers, think of a digital document the way they think of a sheet of paper: an inert object that holds words and pictures, indifferent to the tool used to open it. This intuition is wrong, and the consequences of getting it wrong shape everything

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/13/digital-document-a-piece-of-software/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-25)

I'm screwing around with the JSONL stuff again. I'm interested in know about any work people have done that process incoming JSONL data. I'd like to see if I'm even in the ballpark of something useful. Today I'm making it so that my app can be used in production to handle more than one stream. The key thing is it's hooked up to FeedLand via a very simple JSON interface delivered in realtime via websockets. For feeds that support rssCloud, the appearance of the new item in the JSONL feed happens a fraction of a second after it was published. That's how fast the web of 2026 is.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/13.html#a134512

‘Butterfly Jam’ Review: Barry Keoghan Plays An Upbeat But Reckless Dad In Kantemir Balagov’s Circassian Diaspora Drama

(date: 2026-05-13)

The machine has yet to be invented that can tie up all the loose ends in Kantemir Balagov’s third feature, a puzzling family drama set in the small, tight-knit community of Circassians in New Jersey. Such is the intimate nature of Balagov’s film that there’s no real indication of how large this diaspora is, or […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/butterfly-jam-review-barry-keoghan-kantemir-balagov-riley-keough-1236900876/

Virginie Efira, Star Of Cannes Competition Movies ‘All Of A Sudden’ & ‘Parallel Tales’, Signs With UTA

(date: 2026-05-13)

EXCLUSIVE: United Talent Agency (UTA) has signed celebrated Belgian and French actress Virginie Efira for representation. Efira will be at the Cannes Film Festival this week with leading roles in two films premiering in Competition: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Soudain (All of A Sudden) and Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales. Efira won the César Award for Best Actress for her performance in Alice Winocour’s […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/virginie-efira-signs-with-uta-actress-all-of-a-sudden-1236900746/

[$] Revisiting mshare

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-17)

Linux can share memory between processes, but each process (almost always) has its own set of page tables. In situations where vast numbers of processes are sharing a memory region, the combined size of the page tables can exceed that of the shared memory itself. There has, thus, long been an interest in enabling unrelated processes to share page tables referring to shared memory. Anthony Yznaga is the latest developer to try to push this idea (known as "mshare") forward; he described the status of that work in a memory-management-track discussion at the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit (LSFMM+BPF).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072333/

Security updates for Wednesday

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-17)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (corosync, freerdp, git-lfs, glib2, jq, kernel-rt, krb5, libpng, libtiff, openexr, and thunderbird), Debian (exim4), Mageia (apache, perl-Gazelle, php, and sed), Slackware (expat), SUSE (assimp-devel, go1.26, libQt6Svg6, python-jupyterlab, raylib, thunderbird, tor, and trivy), and Ubuntu (exim4).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072596/

Breaking Baz @ Cannes: James Franco Says He’s Living “A Positive Life” And Has First Studio Movie Role In A Decade; Fest Opener Hit By Tech Snafu

(date: 2026-05-13)

EXCLUSIVE: James Franco reveals that he has a role in a “big studio movie,” the first blockbuster, he tells Deadline, he’s appeared in for close to a decade. Franco says that the film’s already shot but “it won’t be ready for this summer, but my guess is it will be end of this year or […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/james-franco-first-studio-film-1236900507/

Broadway’s ‘Fallen Angels’ To Livestream June 5 Performance

(date: 2026-05-13)

The Roundabout Theatre Company’s staging of the Noël Coward play Fallen Angels will be livestreamed for one performance only next month via BroadwayHD, the theater-focused streaming service. Fallen Angels will stream live for subscribers of BroadwayHD during the 7 p.m./ET performance on Friday, June 5. Directed by Scott Ellis, the play (nominated for five Tonys, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/broadway-fallen-angels-livestream-1236900878/

Sovereign Tech Fund invests in KDE

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-15)

The KDE project has announced that it has been awarded over €1 million from the Sovereign Tech Fund to improve its desktop-environment software. "The investment will be used to strengthen the structural reliability and security of KDE's core infrastructure, including Plasma, KDE Linux, and the frameworks underlying its communication services."

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072565/

“We’re Never Going To Automate Taste And Imagination,” Says Disney Animation Exec Nick Cannon – Web Summit

(date: 2026-05-13)

Tech has transformed the world of VFX but there will never replace the human touch, Walt Disney Animation Studios SVP of Production & Technology Nick Cannon told delegates at Web Summit Vancouver. “Visual effects and animation have been through huge transformative changes. The way we work today, in some ways, is very different from 10 […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/were-never-going-to-automate-taste-says-disney-animation-exec-1236900404/

Iran In The Spotlight: Four Directors Reflect On The Past, Present And Future Of Their Country’s Cinema: “There Is A Misconception”

(date: 2026-05-13)

The Iranian revolution of 1979 saw the US-backed rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi collapse almost overnight, to be replaced with an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The impact of the regime change was felt immediately by the filmmaking community, with the obliteration of filmfarsi, the country’s cheap, commercial and heavily-Westernized industry. Nevertheless, Iranian […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/iran-spotlight-four-directors-reflect-cannes-film-festival-1236881451/

‘Margo’s Got Money Trouble’ Cast & Creators Unpack “Heartbreaking” [Spoiler] Scene In Penultimate Episode: “Pretty Tough Stuff At This Point”

(date: 2026-05-13)

SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils episode seven of Margo’s Got Money Troubles, titled “Lariat Takedown.” Careful stunt planning and choreography underlie the devastating discovery of an unconscious Jinx (Nick Offerman) in a running bathtub with a heroine needle sticking out of his arm in the seventh episode of Margo’s Got Money Troubles. In an episode […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/margos-got-money-trouble-relapse-jinx-nick-offerman-creator-1236898416/

CAA Signs ‘Career Ladder’ Creator Max Klymenko

(date: 2026-05-13)

EXCLUSIVE: CAA has signed The Career Ladder creator Max Klymenko to its creator division. The Ukrainian creator’s content is viewed more than 600 million times per month and has generated plus-3 billion views, according to his new agency, which said he has “built the world’s largest channel for jobs and opportunity.” Crowned Creator of the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/caa-signs-max-klymenko-the-career-ladder-creator-1236899154/

Eve Myles, Rory Kinnear, Eleanor Tomlinson and David Thewlis To Lead Channel 4 Comic Thriller ‘Wrong Move’ About Chaotic House-Buying Chain

(date: 2026-05-13)

Eve Myles (Gone), Rory Kinnear (The Diplomat), Eleanor Tomlinson (One Day) and David Thewlis (Fargo) have been set to lead Channel 4’s comic thriller Wrong Move. The Ben Edwards-created series has also cast David Bradley (Game of Thrones), Austin Haynes (Adolescence), Daisy Morgan (Giant), Gwyneth Keyworth (Death Valley), Ali Khan (Everyone Else Burns), Evia Kaisi, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/wrong-move-casting-david-thewlis-rory-kinnear-channel-4-1236900772/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-19)

Linkblogs in RSS.

https://this.how/linkblog/#1773928853000

The calibration tax: Why data teams can't just "move faster"

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

For all that AI speeds up, it doesn't solve risk calibration

https://ericdataproduct.substack.com/p/the-calibration-tax-why-data-teams

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-13:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 35 updated places.

https://www.clf.org/blog/do-offshore-wind-farms-kill-whales-evidence-says-no/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-offshore-wind-farms-kill-whales-evidence-says-no

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

"main" branch:

0f06fe55 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

da0d37fa - updated gis package

8e7f1072 - updated data quality

e1cd2113 - updated bibliography

a35eede7 - updated indexes

7ecca7d0 - updated sidebar

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

7b5589bd - updated geojson and names index

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

4db09f52 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116567318970879541

‘Wildwood’ Trailer: Laika Returns To Its Nature With Latest Stop-Motion Fantasy Adventure

(date: 2026-05-13)

Laika on Wednesday released the first trailer for Wildwood, the first stop-motion animated movie from the studio since 2019’s The Missing Link, the most recent in a string of five Oscar-nominated pics in a row dating back to 2009’s Coraline. The new pic, directed and produced by Laika boss Travis Knight, was adapted by Masters […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/wildwood-trailer-laika-movie-1236900381/

Casper Kjær Jensen To Lead Nikolaj Arcel’s Hans Christian Andersen Biopic

(date: 2026-05-13)

Casper Kjær Jensen has been cast as Hans Christian Andersen in Nikolaj Arcel’s upcoming feature My Fairytale Life. The announcement was made this afternoon during a presser at Cannes held by Zentropa. My Fairytale Life is described as an “epic feature film” about the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Arcel has reteamed with co-writer Anders […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/casper-kjaer-jensen-nikolaj-arcel-hans-christian-andersen-1236900782/

AI may be the new gatekeepers, but human connection is more needed than ever

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

"What comes next, after the algorithmic social feed that’s defined our digital social lives for the last decade?" I believe this very useful presentation will be referred back to for years to come.

https://werd.io/ai-may-be-the-new-gatekeepers-but-human-connection-is-more-needed-than-ever/

OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 is as Good as Mythos at Finding Security Vulnerabilities

(date: 2026-05-13)

The UK’s AI Security Institute evaluated GPT-5.5’s ability to find security vulnerabilities, and found that it is comparable to Claude Mythos. Note that the OpenAI model is generally available.

Here is the Institute’s evaluation of Mythos.

And here is an analysis of a smaller, cheaper model. It requires more scaffolding from the prompter, but it is also just as good.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/openais-gpt-5-5-is-as-good-as-mythos-at-finding-security-vulnerabilities.html

Legal Plunder: An Interview with Joe Soss and Joshua Page

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-26)

Amna Akbar interviews Joe Soss and Joshua Page about how the criminal legal system extracts resources from the nation’s most oppressed communities and converts them into public and private revenues.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/legal-plunder-an-interview-with-joe-soss-and-joshua-page/

Screenbound Boards ‘Amazing Grace’ Starring ‘Adolescence’ Actor Hannah Walters — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-13)

EXCLUSIVE: Screenbound International Pictures is at the Cannes Market with the feature film Amazing Grace, starring Hannah Walters (Adolescence), for which we can share a first look from above. Walters stars alongside writer and performer Daniel P. Lewis (Our Kid) as Walter, a man on the brink of suicide and deeply isolated who forms an […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/screenbound-amazing-grace-hannah-walters-cannes-market-1236900731/

The Apotheosis of Willful Ignorance

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

All of this was predictable and predicted

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-apotheosis-of-willful-ignorance

Lit Hub Daily: May 13, 2026

(date: 2026-05-13)

“Primo Levi didn’t know why he deserved to survive: why him, rather than someone else?” On Primo Levi’s translation of Kafka after Auschwitz. | Lit Hub Criticism Lucy Sante recommends books about memory by Frances A. Yates, Vladimir Nabokov, Donald

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-13-2026/

FCC's Brendan Carr picks a fight with The View ...

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

... and winds up in a battle with Mickey Mouse.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/fcc-brendan-carr-the-view

Lucy Sante Recommends Five Books About Her Most Important Tool as a Writer: Memory

(date: 2026-05-13)

Memory is my most important tool as a writer. I’m fascinated by how memory works, how it is organized, all the methods that have been developed to increase it and explore it and to summon images from the depths of

https://lithub.com/lucy-sante-recommends-five-books-about-her-most-important-tool-as-a-writer-memory/

A New Language: On Primo Levi’s Translation of Kafka

(date: 2026-05-13)

Not only did Kafka create a new language to describe the world, he also invented a new punctuation: he put question marks where there had never been any before. “Why” is the word that keeps emerging from Josef K’s mouth

https://lithub.com/a-new-language-on-primo-levis-translation-of-kafka/

When Biography Goes Delulu: Writing the Life of Superstar Astrologer Linda Goodman

(date: 2026-05-13)

It is February 2026. I am scrolling Reddit’s “isthisAI” forum, where users post photographs and videos and ask for help determining their validity. In one post, a photograph shows an iguana perched on a woman’s head as she peruses a

https://lithub.com/when-biography-goes-delulu-writing-the-life-of-superstar-astrologer-linda-goodman/

When the Librarians Fought the Archivists Over Who Gets the Declaration of Independence

(date: 2026-05-13)

In the summer of 1951, a month after the Declaration celebrated its 175th anniversary, an unmarked panel truck pulled into the basement of the Library of Congress. Once loaded, it drove to the Maryland campus of the National Bureau of

https://lithub.com/when-the-librarians-fought-the-archivists-over-who-gets-the-declaration-of-independence/

On the Early—and Unlikely Friendship—of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

(date: 2026-05-13)

John Adams liked to point out that Thomas Jefferson came late to the revolution. Before arriving in Philadelphia in the spring of 1775, the Virginian “knew more of the Eclipses of Jupiters Satelites than he did of what was passing in Boston.” That

https://lithub.com/on-the-early-and-unlikely-friendship-of-john-adams-and-thomas-jefferson/

A Complex Yet Crucial Chemical: Exposing Myths About Dopamine

(date: 2026-05-13)

Dopamine seems to be ubiquitous. It is invoked to explain a wide range of phenomena—by the media, on podcasts, and even by people in everyday conversations. It has been labelled the brain’s chemical of pleasure. We’re supposed to be experiencing

https://lithub.com/a-complex-yet-crucial-chemical-exposing-myths-about-dopamine/

What We Can—and Must—Learn From the Burning of Pacific Palisades

(date: 2026-05-13)

The mahogany-colored sandstone and shale cliffs that tower over the Pacific Ocean resemble a wall of massive tree trunks, chiseled by thousands of years of wind, rain, and surf. The optical illusion reminded early settlers of the blockades of wooden

https://lithub.com/what-we-can-and-must-learn-from-the-burning-of-pacific-palisades/

Is It Even Real? On the Conflation of Money and Things

(date: 2026-05-13)

Walk down any street and look around. The buildings you see will vary in their construction: one, two, or many stories; made of wood, brick, concrete, and steel; heated with oil or gas, cooled with fans and air conditioners; with

https://lithub.com/is-it-even-real-on-the-conflation-of-money-and-things/

Death of the Soccer God

(date: 2026-05-13)

Many years later, when Gilbert Chevalier faced a firing squad under a burning midday sun in the yard of Fort Dimanche, the worst place to be in Haiti, the volatile love of his life, and the captain shouted ready!, then

https://lithub.com/death-of-the-soccer-god/

Search our documentation by meaning, not keywords

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-27)

We're trialling two different chatbots to see how well they answer your technical questions using our written documentation.

The post Search our documentation by meaning, not keywords appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/search-our-documentation-by-meaning-not-keywords/

Office Hours: What Does Trump Do NEXT to Get Out of the Quagmire of Iran?

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-23)

Friends,

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-what-does-trump-do-next

Dragoncatcher: Laying it on thick

(date: 2026-05-13)

A new scourge. Read here.

https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/ai-promotion/

May 12, 2026

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-21)

The biggest story in the country, today and always, is that the president of the United States is mentally unwell.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-12-2026

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-19)

The ICE age is over: gas car sales drop 37% in world's biggest market, China.

https://electrek.co/2026/05/12/the-ice-age-is-over-gas-car-sales-drop-37-in-worlds-biggest-market/

@Robert's feed at BlueSky

(date: 2026-05-13)

Now that had resonances https://www.noemamag.com/we-may-be-entering-a-second-axial-age/

https://bsky.app/profile/rsdoiel.bsky.social/post/3mlpit5yd722n

★ Nextpad++

(date: 2026-05-13)

Nextpad++ feels like a fever dream. Like what Mac apps would be if the Nazis had won WWII.

https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/nextpad

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-17)

Position or Perish: The Narrative Blueprint.

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/position-or-perish-the-narrative-blueprint/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-13, updated: 2026-05-17)

Google Unveils Googlebook, a New AI Laptop Built Around Gemini.

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/12/google-unveils-googlebook/

@Andy Sylvester's River of News

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-24)

My News Archive app is available here – check it out!

https://andysylvester.com/2026/05/12/4281/

Wednesday 13 May, 2026

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

The Wedding Party Quote of the Day ”Having to read footnotes resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.” Noel Coward Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Handel | Waft her, … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/wednesday-13-may-2026/42060/

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-12)

It was great joining @jamestalarico.bsky.social and @ginafortexas.bsky.social today in Texas. They're working hard to make a difference in the lives of all Texans, and will be able to do even more as your next Senator and Governor.

Let’s get it done, Texas!

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mlox3rthrs23

AI News Archive Project – Report 2 (app now available)

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-24)

In Report 1, I mentioned how I was able to get an app working locally on my laptop within several hours. To recap, this is an app to collect news items exposed through feeds and create a searchable archive that can be used in research. In my next iteration of the app, I changed the […]

https://andysylvester.com/2026/05/12/ai-news-archive-project-report-2-app-now-available/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-23)

I have regained control of my Twitter account. I really missed it, truth be told. Thanks to Scoble for helping here. As he so often has.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/12.html#a220615

The South’s New Maps Are A Disgrace. But Also, Possibly, A Massive Self-Own.

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

The South is racing to disenfranchise Black voters in the wake of Callais. But overreaching could spell GOP electoral doom.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/callais-gerrymander-supreme-court-backfire

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-23)

This bit of code kept coming up, so I wanted to make it easier to find.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/12.html#a212849

Newsletter: From Captivity to Survival to Freedom of Mind

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

Reflecting on Two Major Life Milestones

https://stevenhassan.substack.com/p/newsletter-from-captivity-to-survival

Do Offshore Wind Farms Kill Whales? Evidence Says No.

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-21)

We can balance protecting whales and advancing renewable energy

The post Do Offshore Wind Farms Kill Whales? Evidence Says No. appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

Building Software Requires Digestion

(date: 2026-05-12)

Here’s Scott Jenson in his insightful piece “The Ma of a New Machine”:

the chatbot interface [makes us] feel like deep cognitive work is happening. But the interface is fundamentally reactive. It spits complex text at you, you skim it quickly, and you immediately type a reaction to keep the momentum going.

My hypothesis is that the very structure of the chatbot interface (type, read, type again) actively discourages reflection. When you are moving too fast, you get stuck in a groove. You literally need to take a break, step back, and basically step out of this groove so you can view the problem from a new angle. We’ve all walked away from a tough problem only to have the solution arrive unbidden into our thoughts later in the day.

In my decades+ experience designing and developing software, I can’t count the number of times I’ve stepped away from a problem at the computer only to return and find the problem magically resolved in my brain.

But the human-computer interaction of prompting doesn’t encourage the use of that skill in our subconscious.

In fact, I think it actively discourages it (our tools shape us).

Scott talks about this Japanese concept called “Ma” which is about deliberately creating pauses between things. He quotes Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki who says “if you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness.” Here’s Scott (emphasis mine):

Ma provides a framework for understanding that a pause is not a lack of work

As humans we need pauses. We need space to breathe. We need time to digest.

Pausing, breathing, synthesizing, digesting — these are all necessary work.

“Digestion” is an interesting word here.

Putting food in your body is merely the beginning of feeding yourself. Our bodies must digest that food, break it down, absorb it, and get rid of the waste.

But that’s all happening mostly without our attentive oversight, so I guess it’s not “real” work — right?

Wrong.

Building good, healthy software requires digestion.

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

https://awmc.unc.edu/maps-for-texts-series/#Hierokles

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/software-requires-digestion/

What I Just Heard About the Plot To Oust Trump

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-23)

Using the 25th Amendment

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-i-heard-about-the-plot-to-oust

Xcode 26.5

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

Apple (xip, downloads): Xcode 26.5 includes Swift 6.3 and SDKs for iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, macOS 26.5, and visionOS 26.5. Xcode 26.5 supports on-device debugging in iOS 15 and later, tvOS 15 and later, watchOS 8 and later, and visionOS. Xcode 26.5 requires a Mac running macOS Tahoe 26.2 or later. […] Messages […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/12/xcode-26-5/

macOS 15.7.7 and macOS 14.8.7

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

macOS 15.7.7 (security, full installer): This update provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users. macOS 14.8.7 (security, full installer): This update provides important security fixes and is recommended for all users. Howard Oakley. I don’t know what happened to 15.7.6 or 14.8.6, but they seem to have been skipped. Jesse Squires: I […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/12/macos-15-7-7-and-macos-14-8-7/

iOS 18.7.9 and iPadOS 18.7.9

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

Apple: This document describes the security content of iOS 18.7.9 and iPadOS 18.7.9. […] Available for: iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPad 7th generation After a brief reprieve, Apple seems to have gone back to the policy of iOS 18.7.3, where you can only get iOS 18.7.9 if your phone is not capable […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/12/ios-18-7-9-and-ipados-18-7-9/

Leftunders

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-21)

And it will probably be very bad A super El Niño is coming this year. Let’s get it in the OED I’ve been throwing away leftunders, a word I just made up and then found in the Urban Dictionary. Speaking of worse Axios says we’re scaling sin. They are correct, at least in the sense […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/12/leftunders/

Signing off in a world of what’s next

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-15)

Before turning in last night, I saw a video by Pete from Just a Few Acres Farm YouTube channel. I have followed him for a while. Reflecting on his goodbye, I felt a tinge of sadness every time one of my favorite creators signs off. I have zero interest in being a farmer. But I …

https://om.co/2026/05/12/signing-off-in-a-world-of-whats-next/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

The Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has refurbished and relaunched their digital map of places mentioned by Hierokles.

Over on BlueSky, AWMC Director Gabriel Moss announces:

> Exciting news for folks interested in #LateAntiquity and GIS. AWMC's map of Hierokles' Synekdemos (offline since 2023) has now been refurbished and relaunched. Special thanks to Grace Bell for *lots* of heavy lifting on this project.

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116562863695669763

Hierokles' Synekdemos Map (Back) Online

(date: 2026-05-12)

The Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has refurbished and relaunched their digital map of places mentioned by Hierokles.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/hierokles-synekdemos-map-back-online

[$] Using dma-bufs for read and write operations

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-14)

The kernel's dma-buf
subsystem provides a way for drivers to share memory buffers, usually in order to support efficient device-to-device I/O. At the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, Pavel Begunkov, assisted by Kanchan Joshi, led a joint session of the storage and memory-management tracks to explore ways to make the use of dma-bufs more efficient yet, and to make them available for read and write operations initiated by user space.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072317/

The Supreme Court Drops All Pretense of Fairness

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Supreme Court spent years telling us it couldn’t change the maps too close to an election. Then it tore them up in the middle of one.

https://plus.briantylercohen.com/p/the-fundamental-things-dont-apply

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-17)

I like that Knicks fans get to study the two teams playing for the right to meet the Knicks in the conference finals.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7272222/2026/05/12/pistons-weaknesses-donovan-mitchell-game-4-loss/?source=emp_shared_article&unlocked_article_code=1.h1A.COKf.29kF-ec-Cg3H

First Line of Defense for cq (Stack Overflow for Agents)

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

cq helps coding agents share resolution paths and learn from past failures. We partnered with Lauren Mushro to bring VIBE✓ into cq and help review knowledge units before they enter shared memory.

https://blog.mozilla.ai/first-line-of-defense-for-cq/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-23)

Expanding items on a FeedLand blogroll should be consistently fast now. Just switched to a different server on the backend.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/12.html#a162052

Hokum: la maldición de la bruja — la inestabilidad como estructura

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

Dirección: Damian McCarthy. Guion: Damian McCarthy. Elenco: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Michael Patric. País: Irlanda. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35672862/ En el cine de terror contemporáneo, algunas películas —como La bruja (Robert Eggers, 2015) y El legado del diablo (Ari Aster, 2018)— se han apartado del sobresalto inmediato para explorar zonas más inestables, donde lo inquietante […]

La entrada Hokum: la maldición de la bruja — la inestabilidad como estructura se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/resenas-hokum-la-maldicion-de-la-bruja/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resenas-hokum-la-maldicion-de-la-bruja

Japanese Whiskey and Ted Turner

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of Lasting Value

https://thebrowser.com/free/japanese-whiskey-and-ted-turner/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-23)

Masto, Twitter: I'd like to come up with a list of formats, protocols and products that have become defaults for AI work.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/12.html#a145339

Ugly Inflation Data, Tariffs Ruled Illegal (Again), Failed War, Soaring Unpopularity - Trump Heads To China In A Dangerously Weakened Position

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-21)

Inflation came in much hotter than expected........

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/ugly-inflation-data-tariffs-ruled

Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

Last year I said I'd probably never recommend another Bambu Lab printer again.

I still use my P1S, but after Bambu Lab started pushing their always-connected cloud solution as the new default:

I blocked the printer from the Internet via my OPNsense Firewall
I stopped updating the firmware
I locked the printer into Developer mode
I deleted Bambu Studio and started using OrcaSlicer

I had to do that to keep it under my control, instead of Bambu's.

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/bambu-lab-abusing-open-source-social-contract/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-12:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

6 new and 34 updated places.

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

"main" branch:

5af188af - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

67c6cc1a - updated gis package

59d8bba8 - updated data quality

8293d142 - updated bibliography

2371f6a7 - updated indexes

29f4225f - updated sidebar

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

f6333433 - updated geojson and names index

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

4d5acb9b - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116561960980693888

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-12:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

6 new and 34 updated places.

https://www.cocoawithlove.com/blog/matrix-multiplications-swift.html

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

"main" branch:

5af188af - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

67c6cc1a - updated gis package

59d8bba8 - updated data quality

8293d142 - updated bibliography

2371f6a7 - updated indexes

29f4225f - updated sidebar

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

f6333433 - updated geojson and names index

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

4d5acb9b - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116561955117428707

Toronto’s 9 Light Entertainment Opens Unscripted Unit With Reality Series ‘Lights, Camera… Kitchen!’

(date: 2026-05-12)

EXCLUSIVE: Canadian production house 9 Light Entertainment has opened an unscripted division with Lights, Camera… Kitchen! being its debut title. To date, Toronto-based 9 Lights has focused on scripted TV and film, but founder Pasha Patriki has opted to push into unscripted with the four-part reality show Lights, Camera… Kitchen!, which debuts on Bell Fibe’s […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/9-light-entertainment-lights-camera-kitchen-1236899155/

[$] Scaling transparent huge pages to 1GB

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-14)

As a general rule, when developers talk about huge pages, they are referring to PMD-level pages that are 1MB or 2MB in size, depending on the CPU architecture. Most CPUs can support other huge-page sizes, though. On x86 systems, PUD-level huge pages hold 1GB of data. Providing such large pages transparently to processes has generally not been considered as either feasible or desirable, but Usama Arif is trying to change that assessment. At the 2026 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, he led a session in the memory-management track on how to make transparent huge pages (THPs) truly huge.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071716/

Security updates for Tuesday

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-14)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (freerdp, glib2, libsoup3, and openexr), Debian (dnsmasq, p7zip, p7zip-rar, python-authlib, and rails), Fedora (chromium, firefox, httpd, and nss), SUSE (java-25-openj9, krb5, libmodsecurity3, and mcphost), and Ubuntu (imagemagick, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-fips, linux-aws-hwe, linux-azure-4.15, linux-fips, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-4.15, linux-gcp-fips, linux-hwe, linux-kvm, linux-oracle, linux-azure, linux-azure-fips, linux-oracle, linux-azure-5.15, linux-nvidia, linux-nvidia-6.8, linux-nvidia-lowlatency, and linux-raspi).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072498/

Demi Moore On Free Speech: “If We Start Censoring Ourselves Then I Think We Shut Down The Very Core Of Our Creativity” – Cannes Jury Press Conference

(date: 2026-05-12)

Cannes Film Festival jury member Demi Moore has spoken out about the importance of being able to express political opinions without pushback. Asked if she has concerns about political statements being detrimental to the films she’s talking about at the festival Moore said, “I would hope not. I think part of art is about expression, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/demi-moore-free-speech-cannes-jury-democracy-1236899039/

We May Be Entering A Second Axial Age

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-26)

The post We May Be Entering A Second Axial Age appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/we-may-be-entering-a-second-axial-age

The Rise of the Bullshittery

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-20)

A few thoughts on how the modern economy has stopped rewarding people who know what they are doing, and started rewarding people who know how to look like they do.

https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/the-rise-of-the-bullshittery/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-23)

Yesterday I learned about JSONL, and was of course intrigued. It's a really simple thing, even simpler than RSS, and does basically the same thing. And even better, it's the way the AI industry hooks streams together. So If we can get RSS to serve as a source of JSONL feeds, it's possible that the AI industry will find it useful. My goal is to get every standard of the web hooked up to AI, quickly, before the silos realize they're leaving out something important. Once they figure it out, they'll have no choice but to add real RSS support. So I put together a quick demo app that hooks into FeedLand and posts to a JSONL feed new items from one of a small set of feeds I chose basically at random. And here is the JSONL feed. If you're a developer in AI-land could you try reading this into your JSONL-ingesting app, and let me know if I got it right. Here's a place to comment. BTW, that URL is temporary just for this quick demo.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/12.html#a130150

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-23)

Good morning sports fans!

http://scripting.com/2026/05/12.html#a130030

David Lean Returns To Cannes In ‘Maverick’ Documentary, Exploring How Director Overcame Father’s Scorn To Become One Of Cinema’s Greatest

(date: 2026-05-12)

David Lean could shoot a landscape like no one else – in India, in Ceylon, in Jordan – filling the screen with stunning imagery. “I like spectacle,” he once told an interviewer. But he could also capture the landscape of the human face: Peter O’Toole’s crystal blue eyes against an azure sky; the dark eyes […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/maverick-the-epic-adventures-of-david-lean-interview-director-barnaby-thompson-1236898965/

‘Viva Carmen’ Clip: Cannes Directors’ Fortnight Animation Explores Georges Bizet’s Famous Opera

(date: 2026-05-12)

EXCLUSIVE: Sébastien Laudenbach’s Viva Carmen, an animated retelling of Georges Bizet’s famous opera Carmen, debuts in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight this week and Deadline reveal a first clip. In Seville in 1945, a pulsating town of sailors and small-time crooks, teenage Salvador, assistant to the gifted knife grinder Antonio, encounters a captivating young gypsy woman, Carmen. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/viva-carmen-clip-cannes-directors-fortnight-animation-1236899119/

VMI Worldwide Boards NOFX Documentary ‘40 Years Of Fuckin’ Up’ — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-12)

VMI Worldwide is bringing 40 Years of Fuckin’ Up, the documentary feature on the punk band NOFX, to the Cannes Market. Directed by James Buddy Day and produced by Fat Mike, 40 Years of Fuckin’ Up is described as “an unfiltered, high-energy chronicle of legendary punk band NOFX, capturing four decades of chaos, controversy, and […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/vmi-worldwide-nofx-40-years-of-fuckin-up-cannes-market-1236899139/

Market Buzz, Festival Notes, AI & Academy Rule Changes: The Talking Points At The Cannes Film Festival

(date: 2026-05-12)

The 79th Cannes Film Festival gets underway today with plenty of talking points in both the festival and market. Check out our talking points and notes to date below. Market Movers There’s no shortage of volume, that’s for sure. Among the bigger-budget items are a handful of intriguing packages. First up is Park-Chan Wook’s starry […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-film-festival-market-talking-points-buzz-list-1236897173/

Horror Feature ‘Experiment 11’ From ‘Scare Tactics’ & ‘The Blair Witch Project’ Creators Set For Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-12)

EXCLUSIVE: Experiment 11, a new horror title from the creators of Scare Tactics and The Blair Witch Project, is set to start production next month in Canada and will be on offer at this year’s Cannes Market with Prestige International Pictures. Scare Tactics creator Kevin Healey will direct the film from his original story and […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/experiment-11-scare-tactics-the-blair-witch-project-cannes-1236899124/

Analysis: BBC, Sky & Netflix Dominate YouTube UK Reach But Niche Channels Drum Up Loyalty

(date: 2026-05-12)

EXCLUSIVE: Traditional players like Sky, the BBC and Netflix reached by far the most YouTube users in the UK last year, according to new data. Sky News was the most-watched UK channel after being viewed by nearly nine million people, according to exclusive data shared with Deadline by Digital i, placing it around 500,000 ahead […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/youtube-uk-analysis-bbc-sky-most-watched-niche-channels-1236898958/

Other Angle Reunites With Action Director David Charhon On ‘Prison Fight’ With Tewfik Jallab, Nassim Lyes & Jean-Claude Van Damme – Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-12)

EXCLUSIVE: Other Angle is reuniting with French action director David Charhon on his upcoming Thai boxing drama Prison Fight for a Cannes sales launch. Inspired by true events, it follows three brothers who were destined for glory in the ring until their lives started to fall apart. Kaïs is in prison and Samy is dying […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/other-angle-action-director-david-charhon-prison-fight-1236899102/

Toothday

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-18)

Death to #2 Dentistry numbers your teeth. Number one is the top right back tooth. If you’ve got one, that’s a wisdom tooth, one of the four that erupted last through your gums. Your other top wisdom tooth is number sixteen. Below it, your bottom left wisdom tooth is number seventeen. The numbers continue around […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/12/toothday/

Force Multipliers

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-25)

It’s harder than ever to be an engineering manager. Fewer resources, higher expectations, and a public conversation actively questioning whether the role should exist at all. Less support than ever, in a job that already often felt hard and lonely. That’s why Jean and I built the Engineering Manager Survival Guide – and I’m so […]

https://cate.blog/2026/05/12/force-multipliers/

‘Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma’ Director Jane Schoenbrun On Horror, Body Image And Being Starstruck By Gillian Anderson: “I Was A Huge ‘X-Files’ Obsessive. It Was My Life”

(date: 2026-05-12)

Jane Schoenbrun made a splash at Sundance in 2021 with We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a creepy low-budget horror about a young girl drawn into a nihilistic and potentially deadly online game of dares. Next came I Saw the TV Glow, the trippy, neon-hued story of two young people who bond over the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/jane-schoenbrun-teenage-sex-death-cannes-interview-1236879913/

This year’s U.S. House elections will be least competitive on record

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

In 1976, 101 U.S. House seats were structurally competitive. Under the new 2026 maps, that number could fall to 33 — and just 15 are true toss-ups

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-12-uncompetitive-seats

What Happens When Americans Realize How Miserable We Are?

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

Life is about more than GDP

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-americans-realize

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 25.8.7

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

Berlin, 12 May 2026 – The Document Foundation announces the release of LibreOffice 25.8.7, the final maintenance release of the LibreOffice 25.8 family, available for download at www.libreoffice.org/download [1]. Users of LibreOffice 25.8.x should update to LibreOffice 26.2.x as LibreOffice 25.8’s end of life will be on June 12, and

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/12/tdf-announces-libreoffice-25-8-7/

Kristen Stewart & Wagner Moura Underway On A24 Vampire Thriller ‘Flesh Of The Gods’ With Esmé Creed-Miles, Roland Møller & Alba Baptista Joining The Cast — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-12)

EXCLUSIVE: The 80s-set vampire thriller Flesh Of The Gods, starring Kristen Stewart and Wagner Moura, has started production in the Canary Islands, Spain, with the second half of the shoot scheduled for Cologne, Germany. Esmé Creed-Miles (A Head Full of Ghosts), Roland Møller (Citadel) and Alba Baptista (Voltron) have newly joined the cast of Panos Cosmatos’ (Mandy) […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/kristen-stewart-wagner-moura-begin-a24-flesh-of-the-gods-1236899048/

Copy.Fail Linux Vulnerability

(date: 2026-05-12)

This is the worst Linux vulnerability in years.

TL;DR

copy.fail is a Linux kernel local privilege escalation, not a browser or clipboard attack. Disclosed by Theori on 29 April 2026 with a working PoC.

It abuses the kernel crypto API (AF_ALG sockets) plus splice() to write four bytes at a time straight into the page cache of a file the attacker does not own.

The exploit works unmodified across Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian, SUSE, Amazon Linux, Fedora and most others. No race condition, no per-distro offsets.

The file on disk is never modified. AIDE, Tripwire and checksum-based monitoring see nothing. ...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/copy-fail-linux-vulnerability.html

Trump Furious After JD Vance Covers him with Sheet

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

His eyes closed and head slumped forward, Trump had been unresponsive for over seven minutes of a Cabinet meeting before Vance gently shrouded him.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-furious-after-jd-vance-covers

WTFilms Posts First Sales & Chilling Clip For Marion Le Corroller’s Cannes Midnight Screening Body Horror ‘Species’

(date: 2026-05-12)

EXCLUSIVE: WTFilms has unveiled first sales and a first clip for French director Marion Le Corroller’s body horror thriller Species ahead of its premiere in Cannes Midnight Screenings this week. In Europe, the film has sold to Spain to Barcelona-based indie distributors ADSO and Twelve Oaks Pictures, the latter of which recently also acquired Virginia […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/wtfilms-sales-clip-cannes-midnight-body-horror-species-1236899033/

Lit Hub Daily: May 12, 2026

(date: 2026-05-12)

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-12-2026/

Farmers are rightfully pissed at Trump

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

From diesel to tariffs, the GOP is doing everything it can to turn the Midwest blue.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-farmers

Behind the Docs: The Future of Docs Is More Human Than You Think

(date: 2026-05-12)

I joined Patrick Bosek on the Behind the Docs podcast to talk about what AI actually means for technical writing. We covered the evolving role of tech writers as architects of tooling and content systems, why AI works better as a collaborator than a replacement, the tension between moving fast and implementing thoughtfully, the case for local and self-hosted models, and why great docs in the future will need to work for machines as much as for humans.

https://passo.uno/behind-the-docs-future-of-docs-human/

William Kentridge: That Which I Have Drawn

(date: 2026-05-12)

To begin In preparation for these lectures, I made a list of projects, drawings, films, installations and performances I could use as the spine of these talks—each lecture having a project, to be used both as a reference to what

https://lithub.com/william-kentridge-that-which-i-have-drawn/

On the Particular Joys of Etymology and Polyglot Prose

(date: 2026-05-12)

I teach a very strange North Sea Germanic language called “English” to other people for work. I teach other people’s languages to myself for fun. Spanish and Norwegian are my mainstays, but I dabble intermittently in Catalan, Portuguese, Italian, and

https://lithub.com/on-the-particular-joys-of-etymology-and-polyglot-prose/

On the Death of Branwell Brontë and the Shadow of Grief It Cast Upon His Literary Family

(date: 2026-05-12)

Through August and into September, Emily Brontë watched her brother kill himself, not with a pistol shot to his head or hanging with a rope, as he had threatened, but with drink. He mostly stopped eating, and what he did

https://lithub.com/on-the-death-of-branwell-bronte-and-the-shadow-of-grief-it-cast-upon-his-literary-family/

Lori Carlson-Hijuelos on Honoring Her Husband’s Literary Legacy

(date: 2026-05-12)

Without doubt, the novels of my late husband, Oscar Hijuelos, especially the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, are admired around the world even though his writing is quintessentially American in tone and subject matter. Oscar was

https://lithub.com/lori-carlson-hijuelos-on-honoring-her-husbands-literary-legacy/

Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers

(date: 2026-05-12)

The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire is a monthly interview featuring seven questions for five authors with new books. This month we talk to: Harriet Clark (The Hill) Anna Konkle (The Sane One) Hafeez Lakhani (Abundance) Ashton Politanoff (Dad Had a

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-asks-5-authors-7-questions-no-wrong-answers-june-2026/

Hannah Thurman on Writing a Family Drama Set in a Mental Hospital

(date: 2026-05-12)

Hannah Thurman’s Mercy Hill, is an emotionally nuanced coming-of-age story set within the confines of an aging mental institution in Raleigh, North Carolina, told from the point of view of the youngest of four gifted daughters of the hospital’s head

https://lithub.com/hannah-thurman-on-writing-a-family-drama-set-in-a-mental-hospital/

How Middle Management Made the Modern World

(date: 2026-05-12)

Late nineteenth-century American machine shop foreman Frederick Winslow Taylor had a problem: his friends didn’t like him. Rather like Samuel Bentham a century earlier, he began his career in a facility defined by working-class solidarity but did not himself come

https://lithub.com/how-middle-management-made-the-modern-world/

Coyoteland

(date: 2026-05-12)

Days after Ana Rodriguez started working for the Belles, feeding the chickens had become a part of the morning routine: her bosses’ youngest daughter, Jordan, would fetch a scoop of pellets from the plastic tub in the pantry. Ana’s daughter,

https://lithub.com/coyoteland/

Tove Ditlevsen, Vanessa Hua, Barry Walters, and more: 20 new books out today!

(date: 2026-05-12)

Last week was fiction heavy, and today we have a slew of the other side of the coin: many nonfiction riches await. Isaac Fitzerald’s study of Johnny Appleseed is available, as well as Barry Walter’s comprehensive survey of LGBTQ music

https://lithub.com/tove-ditlevsen-vanessa-hua-barry-walters-and-more-20-new-books-out-today/

How To Respond to the Rebirth of the Jim Crow South

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-22)

My conversation with Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/how-to-respond-to-the-rebirth-of

Pluralistic: A fascist paradigm (12 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links A fascist paradigm: The change that changed everything. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Openstreetmap x Isle of Wight; Found grocery lists; Mayor wants to pray away potholes; Designing a D120; "Too Like the Lightning." Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. A fascist paradigm (permalink) Yesterday, I attended a workshop on systems thinking and political change, which included a presentation on the work of Donella Meadows, whose Thinking in Systems is a canonical work on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_In_Systems:_A_Primer "Systems thinking" is an analytical framework that treats the world as a mesh of interconnected, nonlinear components and relationships that can't be easily understood or steered. A complex system isn't merely "complicated." A mechanical watch is complicated, in that it has many parts that work together in ways that require training and specialized knowledge to understand. But it isn't "complex" because each part has a specific function that can be understood and adjusted. In a complex system – say, an ecosystem – the parts are meshed in a web of unobvious relationships that make it difficult to predict what effect will follow from a given perturbation. When a blight kills off a plant species, the soil stability declines, resulting in landslides during the rainy season, changing the mineral content of nearby waterways, which creates microbial blooms or fish die-offs in a distant, downstream lake. But systems thinking isn't a counsel of despair that insists that you shouldn't do anything because you can never predict what will come of your actions. In Thinking in Systems, Meadows presents a hierarchy of leverage points for changing a system, ranked from least effective ("Constants, numbers, parameters") to most ("The power to shift paradigms to deal with new challenges"): https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/55264856861/ In all, Meadows theorizes 12 different "places to intervene in a system." The least effective of these – constants like taxes and standards, negative and positive feedback loops – are the sites of most of our political fights, and rightly so. They are the fine-tuning knobs of the system that adjust its margins. Once you have the rule of law ("the rules of the system"), you can drive change by amending, repealing or passing a law: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/ But when you're confronted with a system that is significantly, persistently dysfunctional, you will likely have to work at sites that are further up the hierarchy, such as "the distribution of power over the rules of the system" or "the goals of the system"; or the most profound of all, "the paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules, its culture — arises." Thinking about paradigms is a form of "meta-cognition," which is to say, "thinking about how you think." Your paradigm encompasses all your assumptions, including your assumptions about how to proceed from your other assumptions: "if x, then y" is a paradigm. The workshop where we were discussing all of this is part of a group whose goal is reversing the antidemocratic movement in our society and the climate emergency that is its backdrop. But as I listened to the speaker and the ensuing discussion, it occurred to me that Meadows' theoretical work was a very good way of describing the successes of the fascist movement in the UK and around the world. Fascists like Farage and Trump are, at their root, anti-democratic. Their pitch is that the people are incapable of self-determination (as Peter Thiel puts it, "democracy is incompatible with freedom"). They want us to think that all our neighbors are irrational and foolish, and that we, too, are irrational and foolish, and that our safety and prosperity can only be safeguarded if we seek out those few people who are born to rule and liberate them from the petty niceties and regulations that democracy and the rule of law demand. In other words, the paradigm of democracy is that all of us are capable of both wise self-governance and self-rationalized misgovernance, and each of us has a useful perspective to contribute. The fascist paradigm is that we can't be trusted to rule ourselves, and only the people who are born with "good blood" are capable of directing our lives: https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/20/big-cornflakes-energy/#caliper-pilled This is the theory behind "race realism" and "human diversity" and all the other polite names the modern fascist uses to obscure the fact that they're reviving eugenics. It explains the panic over DEI, a panic driven by the belief that lesser people are being elevated to positions of rule and authority that they are genetically incapable of carrying out. That's why, whenever a disaster arises, fascists demand to know the gender, race and sexual orientation of the pilot, the ship's captain, or the official in charge. If the person who crashed the cargo ship into the bridge has brown skin, we can add another line to the ledger of costs associated with the doomed project to put people who were born to be bossed around in the boss's seat (of course, if the pilot turns out to be a white guy, that proves nothing, except that mistakes sometimes happen). The revival of fascism in this century has been scarily effective, and at times it can feel unstoppable. Meadows' work on systems thinking provides an explanation for that efficacy – and suggests a theory of change for dispatching fascism back to the graveyard of history. Fascists have made changes to things like laws and feedback loops, rules and distribution of power, but this all stems from a more profound alteration to the system, at the level of the paradigm. Which suggests that the real fight we have is over that paradigm: we have to convince our neighbors that they are smart enough to rule themselves, and so are we, and so is everyone else. We have to convince them that even the smartest and wisest person (including us, including them) is capable of folly and needs to have checks on their (our) authority. We need to attack the theory of the "unitary executive" and every other autocratic ideology head on. We have to insist that these aren't just unconstitutional, but that they are ideologically catastrophic. "No kings," because even an omnibenevolent king isn't omniscient, and that means that omnipotence is always omnidestructive in the long run. The fascist revival has been scarily effective and resilient – and systems thinking offers an explanation for both that efficacy and that resiliency. Hey look at this (permalink) I knew my writing students were using AI. Their confessions led to a powerful teaching moment https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/10/fiction-writing-professor-ai Reporters at McClatchy withhold bylines in dispute over AI content https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/may/01/reporters-at-mcclatchy-withhold-bylines-in-dispute/ Someone Built an App to Fight Surveillance Pricing With a Flipper Zero… for Research Purposes https://gizmodo.com/someone-built-an-app-to-fight-surveillance-pricing-with-a-flipper-zero-for-research-purposes-2000755224 Life without US tech https://www.ft.com/content/4c3aad70-e0cb-46a2-95d5-15d11b6bf818?accessToken=zwAAAZ4VoJdukc9MOq1w4MtGotOV1RXRG2v4GA.MEQCIFXG2BBi81XpJ8D4_1uEUIencLlX2h_fjR9DN9YSKjmdAiA9W8XTlEm0uuh0SQioErfqHFu5R_9gkFTD4L54Bmg-cQ&sharetype=gift&token=3519ae98-a671-4dbe-9058-4ebf21385c9a&syn-25a6b1a6=1 What Challenging a Bowling Monopoly Says About America https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-what-challenging The Oligarchs Are Starting to Lose Their Grip on Power https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/opinion/hollywood-merger-fear-paramount-warner-bros.html Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago First aid for the dying dotcom http://modernhumorist.com/mh/0010/dotcom/ #20yrsago OpenStreetMap maps Isle of Wight, Manchester next https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapchester_Mapping_Party_2006 #20yrsago Fueling model rockets with Oreo fillings https://web.archive.org/web/20060616192646/https://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/600152d7d441b010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html #20yrsago Legal guide for podcasters https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Welcome_To_The_Podcasting_Legal_Guide #20yrsago Collection of 1100+ found grocery lists https://grocerylists.org/ #10yrsago Mayor of Jackson, MS: “I believe we can pray potholes away” https://www.wjtv.com/news/jackson-mayor-tony-yarber-we-can-pray-potholes-away/ #10yrsago What’s the best way to distribute numbers on the faces of a D120? https://web.archive.org/web/20160510182023/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/mathematical-challenge-of-designing-the-worlds-most-complex-120-sided-dice/ #10yrsago Billionaire Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel will be a California Trump delegate https://web.archive.org/web/20160510155226/https://www.wired.com/2016/05/investor-peter-thiel-will-california-delegate-trump/ #10yrsago McClatchy newspapers’ CEO pleased to announce that he’s shipping IT jobs overseas https://web.archive.org/web/20160510102956/https://www.computerworld.com/article/3067304/it-careers/newspaper-chain-sending-it-jobs-overseas.html #10yrsago Peace in Our Time: how publishers, libraries and writers could work together https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-peace-in-our-time/ #10yrsago Too Like the Lightning: intricate worldbuilding, brilliant speculation, gripping storytelling https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/10/too-like-the-lightning-intricate-worldbuilding-brilliant-speculation-gripping-storytelling/ #5yrsago LA traveling toward free public transit https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#get-on-the-bus #5yrsago Biden's shift on vaccine patents is a Big Deal https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#vaccine-diplomacy Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/12/donella-meadows/

Modeling the US-Europe Paradox (Very Wonkish)

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-27)

A brief, incomprehensible technical note

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/modeling-the-us-europe-paradox-very

How SCOTUS Is Erasing Black Voters, and Abby Phillip on Jesse Jackson’s Legacy

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-21)

The post How SCOTUS Is Erasing Black Voters, and Abby Phillip on Jesse Jackson’s Legacy appeared first on Crooked Media.

https://crooked.com/podcast/how-scotus-is-erasing-black-voters-and-abby-phillip-on-jesse-jacksons-legacy/

May 11, 2026

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-20)

The story of the Trump Mobile phone seems a microcosm of the Trump administration.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-11-2026

SILVER: THE BEST TIME TO OWN IT, WORST TIME TO TRADE IT

(date: 2026-05-12, updated: 2026-05-21)

What a great day Monday was for Silver investors, with the metal trading as high as 87$, up more than 7% on the day, while the rest of the market, from gold, to bonds, to stocks, was broadly flat. While I’m feeling pretty happy about the nominal gains in my...

The post SILVER: THE BEST TIME TO OWN IT, WORST TIME TO TRADE IT appeared first on JustDario.

https://justdario.com/2026/05/silver-the-best-time-to-own-it-worst-time-to-trade-it/

Wed, May 13th, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-21)

Welcome New Subscribers!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/wed-may-13th-7pm-et-our-weekly-hopium

I knew my writing students were using AI. Their confessions led to a powerful teaching moment | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian

(date: 2026-05-11)

AI writing reminds me of Tennyson’s description of the beautiful Maud in the titular poem:

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null

Dead perfection; no more

adactio.com/links/22565

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/10/fiction-writing-professor-ai

Better Browser Caching with No-Vary-Search – CSS Wizardry

(date: 2026-05-11)

Handy! I’ve added this header to The Session.

adactio.com/links/22564

https://csswizardry.com/2026/05/better-browser-caching-with-no-vary-search/

The Boring Internet | Terry Godier

(date: 2026-05-11)

You cannot kill a federated thing by killing one node, the way you can kill a platform by changing one company.

adactio.com/links/22563

https://www.terrygodier.com/the-boring-internet

Bridging feels seamless. Behind the scenes, it's a technical marvel

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

"When you all give us your hard-earned money, we feel a deep responsibility to use it as well, and as efficiently, as possible." A responsibility A New Social lives up to in spades.

https://werd.io/bridging-feels-seamless-behind-the-scenes-its-a-technical-marvel/

Needed: A Diplomatic Masterstroke

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Not likely to happen with Trump in Beijing

https://steady.substack.com/p/needed-a-diplomatic-masterstroke

To maintain their independence, publishers are fleeing Substack

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

"Substack faced talent drain in 2024 linked to its platforming of Nazi newsletters, but now it’s not just the platform’s stance on hate speech that’s driving away creators."

https://werd.io/to-maintain-their-independence-publishers-are-fleeing-substack/

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-11)

I first met Clark Reynolds when he was just three years old at our Black History Month reception at the White House.

Over the last ten years, it's been wonderful getting updates about his life through his letters. Check out how he’s doing now:

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mlmasafznk2a

Reflections on this 50th Anniversary of my Deprogramming

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Connecting the dots with the Cult of Trump Coup

https://stevenhassan.substack.com/p/reflections-on-this-50th-anniversary

Seeking God in Science part 7: Information, Knowledge and Belief

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-15)

We are now finally ready to tackle three of the thorniest topics the human intellect has ever grappled with, the concepts of information, knowledge, and belief. The relevance of these concepts to the scientific search for God should be obvious, but I want to be explicit about it because, as ever in this series, we're going to apply the scientific method. That always begins with the

https://blog.rongarret.info/2026/05/seeking-god-in-science-part-7.html

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Swift performance: I learned a couple of tricks (I know they have been discussed in Swift Evolution, but I have been dragging my feet), so it was nice to see their use in the real world:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116557772706704497

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-16)

BYD is upgrading one of its top selling EVs with 5-min charging.

https://electrek.co/2026/05/11/byd-upgrading-top-selling-evs-with-5-min-charging/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

That thing had a video on it, and Mastodon sucked the life out of it and slapped a static image on it.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116557640606804601

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

I love SwiftUI animations, sprinkled a withAnimation on the graph sorting for my Godot animation controls:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116557637937205555

@Andy Sylvester's River of News

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-24)

Dave Winer posted on Sunday: “Right now we could put a twitter-like product there that you can set up in a few minutes, run it yourself, and or join one that’s run by a friend.” Is this what he is talking about?

https://andysylvester.com/2026/05/11/4271/

The Emergent Self Loop

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Nearly once a week I receive an email from a different stranger.

https://kevinkelly.substack.com/p/the-emergent-self-loop

Dragoncatcher: News travels too fast these days

(date: 2026-05-11)

The deflation of instant access. Read here.

https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/travels-too-fast/

macOS 26.5

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (release notes, security, enterprise, developer, full installer, IPSW): macOS Tahoe 26.5 adds a Suggested Places section to the search interface in the Apple Maps app. It also lays the groundwork for ads in the Maps app, which are coming this summer. The App Store is also getting a monthly subscription option that will […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/11/macos-26-5/

iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no enterprise, developer): iOS 26.5 introduces end-to-end encryption for RCS messages exchanged between iPhone and Android users. E2EE for RCS requires both participants in the conversation to have a carrier that supports the feature, and carriers will be rolling out support over time. Encrypted RCS messages have a small lock […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/11/ios-26-5-and-ipados-26-5/

watchOS 26.5

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (release notes, security, developer): watchOS 26.5 adds a new Pride Luminance watch face. It also fixes a bug with dual SIM iPhones and an issue that could cause audio alerts to fail to play in the Workout app. Previously: watchOS 26.4

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/11/watchos-26-5/

tvOS 26.5

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (release notes, security, developer): No new features were found in tvOS 26.5 during the beta testing period, so it likely focuses on bug fixes and performance improvements. Previously: tvOS 26.4

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/11/tvos-26-5/

visionOS 26.5

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (release notes, security, no enterprise, developer): Apple’s release notes say that visionOS 26.5 includes bug fixes and security improvements. Previously: visionOS 26.4

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/11/visionos-26-5/

audioOS 26.5

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (release notes): According to Apple’s release notes, HomePod Software 26.5 includes performance and stability improvements. Previously: audioOS 26.4

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/11/audioos-26-5/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-16)

Who’s Who in AI according to Digg (rebooted).

https://di.gg/ai/1000

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

@Drwave @RYStorm GDExtension-version of the USD loader/importer, no Godot fork necessary: https://github.com/migueldeicaza/godot-usd

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116557025518500128

WebKit Features for Safari 26.5

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-22)

Safari 26.5 is here, delivering the :open pseudo-class, the element-scoped keyword for random(), color-interpolation for SVG gradients, the ToggleEvent.source property for popovers, and the Origin API.

https://webkit.org/blog/17938/webkit-features-for-safari-26-5/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Godot USD: Moved from a patched Godot to a proper GDExtension, so you no longer need a fork.

Pretty happy with the live variant changes, it also has a traditional "one-off" importer if you do not want to pay a runtime libOpenUSD price.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116556960380309403

One year of Strength In Numbers!

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Short reflections on the business so far and an update on what's to come this year

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/one-year-of-strength-in-numbers

Roadside Attractions and Hawaii

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/roadside-attraction-hawaii/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Last Week in the #PleiadesGazetteer (4-11 May 2026): Over the past week the Pleiades editorial college published 20 new and 118 updated place resources, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Catherine Bouras, Anika Campbell, Tom Elliott, Greta Hawes, Daniel C. Browning Jr., Noah Kaye, Brady Kiesling, Gabriel Mckee, R. Scott Smith and Enes Yılandiloğlu.

A list of all new and changed resources, complete with titles, descriptions, bylines, change summaries and links to the actual gazetteer entries, as well as an overview map, may be read on the blog at https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/last-week-in-pleiades-4-11-may-2026

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

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116556926665393606

Last Week in Pleiades (4-11 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-11)

Last week the Pleiades editorial college published 20 new and 118 updated place resources, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Catherine Bouras, Anika Campbell, Tom Elliott, Greta Hawes, Daniel C. Browning Jr., Noah Kaye, Brady Kiesling, Gabriel Mckee, R. Scott Smith and Enes Yılandiloğlu.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/last-week-in-pleiades-4-11-may-2026

Remember Tariffs?

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

The Iran war isn't the only big, illegal, stupid policy

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/remember-tariffs

Purism’s Product Philosophy in an Age of Government–Big Tech Convergence

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-21)

Purism exists because individual rights are no longer reliably protected by policy alone. In practice, they are determined by the design of the technology people are required to use.

The post Purism’s Product Philosophy in an Age of Government–Big Tech Convergence appeared first on Purism.

https://puri.sm/posts/purisms-product-philosophy-in-an-age-of-government-big-tech-convergence/

@IIIF Mastodon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-13)

Join the IIIF Accessibility & Usability Group for our May Community Call on May 13 (9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 6pm CEST).

The group will share the IIIF Ideas Box, where community members can share ideas, questions, or challenges working with #IIIF or digital media tools.

Zoom: iiif.io/community

https://glammr.us/@IIIF/116556873578257892

Hanging out with Sandy in the sunshine.

(date: 2026-05-11)

Hanging out with Sandy in the sunshine.

https://adactio.com/notes/22561

Las películas más esperadas del Festival de Cannes 2026

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Para los cinéfilos, sin importar en qué lugar del mundo nos encontramos, mayo es importante por la cita ineludible del séptimo arte: el Festival de cine de Cannes. La 79ª edición, que se celebrará del 12 al 23 de mayo de 2026, llega cargada de expectativas, especialmente con la competencia oficial bajo la presidencia del […]

La entrada Las películas más esperadas del Festival de Cannes 2026 se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/las-peliculas-mas-esperadas-del-festival-de-cannes-2026/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=las-peliculas-mas-esperadas-del-festival-de-cannes-2026

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-16)

Your AI Use Is Breaking My Brain.

https://www.404media.co/your-ai-use-is-breaking-my-brain/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-24)

Boston Godot Users group meets tonight: https://www.meetup.com/bostongamedev/events/313618732/

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116556751313513676

@DAIR blog

(date: 2026-05-11)

Today!

Catch the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 live stream at noon PT

twitch.tv/dair_institute

[contains quote post or other embedded content]

https://bsky.app/profile/dairinstitute.bsky.social/post/3mlllzdeal22n

Some Thoughts On What Comes Next

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-21)

It's been a rough few weeks for us, but for Putinism-Trumpism too......

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/some-thoughts-on-what-comes-next-ad3

Why I’m Giving Away My New Book for Free

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Everybody has something to hide.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/why-im-giving-away-my-new-book-for

Realtime Claude still evading me!

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-22)

A while back I was asking Claude (privately) if we could have it monitoring the messages posted to an app I'm working on. I wanted it to save them in a certain way, have it watch for messages that begin with //claude and maybe act on them somehow. I mostly just wanted to see if I could create a pipe and what its limits would be.

I asked what the max frequency is and was told it was 1 minute, meaning it would start a thread running Claude that would initialize, and it would read the file, and if there were any new items, it would process them, and then it would shut down. Barely enough to be useful, where we live we like notification within a second, but I went ahead, at least it'll be a thought-provoking demo.

So I wrote the software. Not much to it, a Node app that's hooked up to FeedlandSocket, and when it sees a message from me, it appends it to a JSONL file that Claude is watching. At most one minute later it wakes up and sees the new stuff and acts on it.

So I'm right there, it's all working, the JSONL file is being saved in a public place, and when I ask it to start listening to my JSONL messages I learn that the max frequency is one hour, rendering my work useless. This has happened before, btw.

I asked what about all the "agentic" stuff they hype so much, how do I do that?? I can't?? What?? Somehow I have trouble believing they're all telling such a big lie. I wonder if Claude understands its own architecture.

Dave: "What is all this hype about agentic stuff. Every time I try to do something I hit a wall like this."

Claude: "The pitch is 'agents that run on their own'; the reality you just hit is a one-hour floor on the only scheduling path the tooling actually exposes. That's not agency, that's a batch job with extra steps. The honest read: the cloud-side scheduler is built around long-running, infrequent tasks (digest emails, nightly reports) because each run spins up a fresh sandboxed session, which is expensive. Anything that wants to react quickly to a stream of incoming items -- which is what your app actually is -- doesn't fit that model. A plain local cron on some server running every minute would do the job today and cost nothing."

I edited Claude's response so as not to not reveal code names for products. ;-)

A silver lining -- I had never heard of JSONL, but it sounds pretty useful, so if I can't hook up to Claude realtime, now -- I can start using JSONL, which I wll.

Comments, stories, suggestions -- here.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/11/144453.html?title=realtimeClaudeStillEvadingMe

Stenberg: Mythos finds a curl vulnerability

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-14)

Daniel Stenberg has published a lengthy
article on his thoughts on Anthropic's Mythos, which the company decided was too dangerous for wide public release.

My personal conclusion can however not end up with anything else than that the big hype around this model so far was primarily marketing. I see no evidence that this setup finds issues to any particular higher or more advanced degree than the other tools have done before Mythos. Maybe this model is a little bit better, but even if it is, it is not better to a degree that seems to make a significant dent in code analyzing.

This is just one source code repository and maybe it is much better on other things. I can only tell and comment on what it found here.

But allow me to highlight and reiterate what I have said before: AI powered code analyzers are significantly better at finding security flaws and mistakes in source code than any traditional code analyzers did in the past. All modern AI models are good at this now. Anyone with time and some experimental spirits can find security problems now. The high
quality chaos is real.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072325/

Asking platforms to do better won't work. We need to force their hands

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

"If there were a dictator of the internet who intentionally set out to destroy your ability to get accurate information, the result would look a lot like what’s already on your screen. But why?"

https://werd.io/asking-platforms-to-do-better-wont-work-we-need-to-force-their-hands/

Flatpak Sandbox Escape via Yelp

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-25)

Yelp 49.1 fixes a significant Flatpak sandbox escape related to last year’s CVE-2025-3155. CVE assignment for this new issue is currently pending. This is not a bug in Flatpak. Flatpak allows sandboxed applications to open URIs or files, meaning the sandboxed application may use a URI or file path to launch another application to open […]

https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2026/05/11/flatpak-sandbox-escape-via-yelp/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-11:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

1 new and 85 updated places.

https://xcancel.com/gothburz/status/2053823415455273294?s=46

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

"main" branch:

c6571f46 - updated json

bddd5b1b - updated rdf/ttl

9f8ec4d8 - updated gis package

0e96dde1 - updated data quality

c5341e02 - updated bibliography

8b35146b - updated indexes

f32fe900 - updated sidebar

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

1219064c - updated geojson and names index

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

85ba8de9 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116556243260810656

‘Best Medicine’ Season 2 Order Increased As Series Sets Fall Return On Fox

(date: 2026-05-11)

Season 1 of Fox’s Best Medicine launched in January but fans won’t need to wait until next January for Season 2. The network this morning unveiled its fall 2026 schedule, and Best Medicine is on it, once again paired with fellow medical drama Doc on Tuesdays for what Fox’s head of scheduling Dan Harrison called […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/best-medicine-season-2-episode-count-premiere-window-fox-1236890112/

Two stable kernels with Dirty Frag fixes

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-14)

Greg Kroah-Hartman has released the 7.0.6 and 6.18.29 stable kernels with Hyunwoo Kim's patch for the second vulnerability ( CVE-2026-43500) reported with Dirty Frag and Copy Fail 2. All users are advised to upgrade.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072311/

[$] Providing 64KB base pages with 4KB kernels, two different ways

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-14)

Some CPU architectures are able to run with a number of different base-page sizes; using a larger size can often result in better performance at the cost of increased memory use. Other architectures are more limited. At the 2026 Linux
Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, two sessions in the memory-management track explored options for letting processes run with 64KB page sizes when the underlying kernel does not. The first was focused on letting each process have its own page size, while the second concerned bringing 64KB pages to x86 systems.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071484/

WordPress powers 47% of the web. Now it's more social, too

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

WordPress is the most popular publishing platform in the world. It wants you to publish and be heard - and that means supporting conversation.

https://werd.io/wordpress-powers-47-of-the-web-now-its-more-social-too/

Fox President On Holding ‘Baywatch’ Until January & ‘Rescue: HI-Surf’ Comparisons: “It Is A Much Soapier, Juicier Show”

(date: 2026-05-11)

Fox’s Baywatch has been in production in Los Angeles for two months now, so it will be ready for fall. But the high-profile reboot will not premiere then. Instead, the network is planning a January launch. Why? “We have a rich history of launching series midseason, we just did it most recently with Best Medicine […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/baywatch-reboot-premiere-window-rescue-hi-surf-difference-1236889809/

Fox “Taking A Step Back” From Live-Action Comedies While Mulling Viable Business Model

(date: 2026-05-11)

Fox is down to one live-action comedy series next season, Animal Control, starring Joel McHale, after cancelling sophomore Going Dutch. While a couple of half-hour projects, including Mammoth, Thunderjacks and King Gary, had been heating up at the network over the past few of weeks, Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade and Fox Television Network President […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/fox-live-action-comedies-business-model-license-fees-1236890057/

‘The Five Star Weekend’ Trailer: Jennifer Garner Plays A Widowed Food Blogger In Upcoming Peacock Adaptation

(date: 2026-05-11)

A full look at Peacock’s upcoming adaptation of The Five Star Weekend has arrived. The streamer revealed a trailer on Monday morning ahead of parent company NBCUniversal’s Upfront presentation. The trailer follows star and executive producer Jennifer Garner as Hollis Shaw, a well known food blogger and best-selling author. After she suffers the devastating loss […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/the-five-star-weekend-trailer-tv-adaptation-jennifer-garner-1236888891/

Peacock Orders Docuseries ‘The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers’

(date: 2026-05-11)

Peacock is releasing a three-part documentary series on convicted sex traffickers and former luxury real estate moguls Oren, Tal, and Alon Alexander. The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers, as it’s been dubbed at least for now, will debut this summer, the streamer revealed ahead of parent company NBCUniversal’s Upfront presentation on Monday. The […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/wolves-of-real-estate-alexander-brothers-docuseries-peacock-1236888896/

‘Summer House’s Ciara Miller Joins ‘Love Island USA’ As ‘Aftersun’ Co-Host Alongside Tefi Pessoa

(date: 2026-05-11)

A hot new bombshell enters the Love Island USA villa as Ciara Miller has been set to co-host companion series Aftersun. The Summer House star will be hosting Peacock’s dating series after show alongside Tefi Pessoa. Miller has been hosting red carpet events and, most recently, was a commentator on E!’s coverage of the Met […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/summer-house-ciara-miller-host-love-island-usa-aftersun-1236889090/

‘Love Island Games’ Renewed For Season 3 At Peacock With Ariana Madix Returning As Host

(date: 2026-05-11)

Peacock has renewed Love Island Games for a third season, with Ariana Madix set to return as host. The streamer made the announcement during the NBCUniversal Upfront, revealing that Season 3 of the competition-dating series will launch in the Fall of 2027. With the competition’s premiere set for next year, Peacock has established a pattern […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/love-island-games-renewed-season-3-peacock-1236889120/

Peacock Launching Vertical Bravo Microdramas With ‘Southern Charm’s Madison LeCroy & ‘RHOSLC’ Daughter Georgia Gay

(date: 2026-05-11)

Peacock is launching microdramas with Bravo personalities from Southern Charm and The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. The streamer is set to premiere two Bravo Original unscripted microdramas this summer to boost the mobile experience with vertical video content. Madison LeCroy will star in Salon Confessionals and Campust Confidential: Miami (wt) will star Georgia […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/peacock-bravo-microdramas-southern-charm-madison-lecroy-rhoslc-1236889141/

Fox Fall 2026 Schedule: ‘Animal Control’ Joins Sunday Animated Block; ‘Baywatch’, ‘Bob’s Burgers’, ‘Murder’ & ‘Memory Of A Killer’ Held For Midseason

(date: 2026-05-11)

Stability has been the theme of all 2026-27 broadcast schedules released so far, and Fox fits that to a t with a fall 2026 lineup that closely mirrors the fall 2025 one. “90% of our slate is returning shows,” Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade said during a pre-upfront call Sunday about the 2026-27 lineup, which […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/fox-fall-2026-schedule-animal-control-baywatch-bobs-burgers-1236889202/

‘Celebrity Weakest Link’, ‘Special Forces’ & ‘Extracted’ Among Glut Of Renewals At Fox

(date: 2026-05-11)

Fox has renewed the majority of its unscripted slate. The network has handed renewals to series including Celebrity Weakest, Extracted and Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test ahead of its Upfronts presentation. It has also cooked up a raft of renewals for Gordon Ramsay’s menu of titles. Celebrity Weakest Link, hosted by Jane Lynch, returns for a […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/celebrity-weakest-link-special-forces-extracted-renewed-fox-1236889837/

‘So You Think You Can Dance’ & ‘The Snake’ Not Returning To Fox

(date: 2026-05-11)

While Fox has renewed the vast majority of its unscripted slate, there were a couple of shows that didn’t make the cut this year. The network is benching So You Think You Can Dance and Jim Jeffries-hosted The Snake. Neither move is a huge surprise; The Snake didn’t take much of a bite out of […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/so-you-think-you-can-dance-the-snake-not-returning-fox-1236889846/

Fox Continues To Cook Up Gordon Ramsay Renewals

(date: 2026-05-11)

Gordon Ramsay is arguably Fox’s most important human star. The chef has long had a relationship with the network and that is only going to continue after Fox renewed a raft of his shows. The network is bringing back Ramsay shows including Kitchen Nightmares, Hell’s Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service and Next Level Baker, on top of […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/gordon-ramsay-fox-renewals-kitchen-nightmares-1236889850/

Debian to require reproducible builds

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-13)

Paul Gevers has slipped an interesting bit of news into a " bits from the release
team" message:

Aided by the efforts of the Reproducible Builds project, we've decided it's time to say that Debian must ship reproducible packages. Since yesterday, we have enabled our migration software to block migration of new packages that can't be reproduced or existing packages (in testing) that regress in reproducibility.

As Gioele Barabucci pointed
out, "reproducible" in this sense is limited to building within an instance of Debian's build environment, which is a tighter requirement than is normally used. It is still a big step forward for reproducible builds.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072314/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-24)

Another jewel from Peter Girnus, this time covering the war criminal Netanyahu:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116556142370841546

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-22)

It would be great if Beeper supported RSS in and out. It would help encourage other messaging services to do the same, and all of a sudden we'd have lots of easy interop instead of lots of really iffy interop. If they want to do it, I'd help, for free. Just to help things flow better on the messaging web, because we reallllly need help there.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/11.html#a131733

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-23)

Members of the WordPress community. Monday morning is a good time to check out WordPress News via FeedLand at wp.feedland.org. You can also subscribe to the list of feeds this site follows in your own feed reader, and if you have a WordPress news site, please post the URL here so we can send readers to your blog too. I think there are a lot of would-be bloggers out there that need a slight kick in the pants to get going. I'm happy to provide readers if you provide the ideas. There's a lot of power in WordPress that no one knows about. Let's help other users and developers find the good stuff. If you have questions or suggestions, here's a new thread on GitHub.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/11.html#a131433

Security updates for Monday

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-13)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (corosync, freeipmi, kernel, and kernel-rt), Debian (corosync, firefox-esr, kernel, lcms2, libpng1.6, linux-6.1, php8.2, php8.4, postorius, pyjwt, and tor), Fedora (dotnet10.0, exim, gnutls, kernel, nextcloud, nodejs22, php, proftpd, prosody, python-pulp-glue, python-requests, rclone, and SDL3_image), Mageia (firefox, nss, rootcerts, openvpn, thunderbird, and vim), Oracle (corosync, freeipmi, gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free, gstreamer1-plugins-base, and gstreamer1-plugins-good, kernel, libpng, and mingw-libtiff), Slackware (kernel and mozilla), SUSE (build, product-composer, c-ares, cairo, copacetic, distribution, firefox, firefox-esr, frr, glibc, go1.25, google-cloud-sap-agent, iproute2, java-11-openj9, java-17-openj9, java-17-openjdk, java-1_8_0-openj9, java-21-openj9, java-21-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, kernel, libexif-devel, libpcp-devel, libtpms, libtree-sitter0_26, Mesa, micropython, mozjs128, nginx, opencc, openCryptoki, php-composer2, podman, postfix, python-pytest, python311-Django, python311-Django4, redis, semaphore, strongswan, terraform-provider-aws, terraform-provider-azurerm, terraform-provider-external, terraform-provider-google, terraform-provider-helm, terraform-provider-kubernetes, terraform-provid, tor, valkey, vim, and wireshark), and Ubuntu (linux-nvidia-tegra, linux-raspi, linux-raspi-5.4, and nasm).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072301/

Maker Monday: Some of the best RP2350-based boards

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Raspberry Pi’s RP2350 microcontroller chip is the brains of Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and a host of third-party boards.

The post Maker Monday: Some of the best RP2350-based boards appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/maker-monday-some-of-the-best-rp2350-based-boards/

What I've learned designing agentic workflows for docs

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-12)

Back in 2024 I wrote that AI helps me remove boring work at the margins. This is fine for a lone writer, but how to scale this to an entire team of technical writers? How to make the system helpful but not intrusive? These are all questions I’m starting to answer now, partly through experimentation, but also through dialogue with practitioners and colleagues. One answer I’m testing these days relies on GitHub Agentic Workflows.

https://passo.uno/agentic-workflows-for-docs/

LLMs and Text-in-Text Steganography

(date: 2026-05-11)

Turns out that LLMs are really good at hiding text messages in other text messages.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/llms-and-text-in-text-steganography.html

Joe Manchin Cedes Title of Most Despised Democrat in History to John Fetterman

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

“For fourteen years, every morning I’d wake up and say, ‘How can I be an irritating assclown today?” Manchin said. “But Fetterman takes it to a new level.”

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/joe-manchin-cedes-title-of-most-despised

Taking Legislative Primacy Seriously

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

As we work toward a durable democratic future, a commitment to legislative primacy can serve as an orienting north star. Reaching that goal, however, will require using both legislative and executive tools, especially while we are working with an imperfect, hobbled, and significantly co-opted legislature.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/taking-legislative-primacy-seriously/

The Emergent Self Loop

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-14)

Nearly once a week I receive an email from a different stranger. The messages are eerily similar. The sender has developed an unusual relationship with an AI gained over many hours of interactions. The AI has given them extraordinary insight … Continue reading →

https://kk.org/thetechnium/the-emergent-self-loop/

Mumday

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-18)

Better late than later I just found that a number of IIWs that I photographed never made it online. I’m fixing that, starting with IIW #7, from November 2008, one sample of which is above. Circling drain Good Marketoon and write-up (titled Circling Back) by Tom Fishburne on why personalization in marketing typically fails. Boo School’s out. 50,000 […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/11/mumday/

Lit Hub Daily: May 11, 2026

(date: 2026-05-11)

Lilian Pizzichini searches for the Elsa Schiaparelli dress from Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means. | Lit Hub Art “In other words, this high drama of winners and losers follows a very, very old human narrative tradition rooted in

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-11-2026/

Will our Hyper-Gilded Age Usher in Genuine Populism?

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-25)

The tech bros are worse than the robber barons ever were — and voters are catching on

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/will-our-hyper-gilded-age-usher-in

This is a crisis of democracy. What will Dems do about it?

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

They need a bold and radical political reform agenda, or things will only get worse.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/vra-democracy-crisis-democrats

Pluralistic: 2024 (apart from the obvious) (11 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links 2024 (apart from the obvious): Some unforced errors. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Denmark legalizing music trading; Babysuit; Patent Office invites "peer review"; DRM protest at the Bastille; Scientology's "super powers"; Banana Dalek; Florida v pediatricians' gun safety advice; Copyright filters and wage theft; "Who Broke the Internet?" Vatican astronomer v Creationism; Teens, privacy and Facebook; Čapek's graveside robot; Save iTunes; NZ laundered money for Latinamerica's looters; Memex Method. Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. 2024 (apart from the obvious) (permalink) Just as Hillary Clinton positioned her run as a third term for Obama ("America is already great"), so did Biden (and then Harris) position their campaigns as a second Biden term. As Biden said (in 2019): "Nothing would fundamentally change": https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/ So a vote for Biden would be a vote for another four years of forceful, material support for genocide; another four years of compromise with the Democratic establishment on student debt and healthcare gouging; and another four years of a president who was obviously in mental decline. Harris's campaign was, "A vote for me is a vote for all of the above (minus the cognitive decline)." Actually, it was worse: by conspicuously failing to campaign on the Biden administration's record on reining in corporate power, a vote for Harris was "A vote for all of the above, minus the mental decline and the antitrust." Whereas a vote for Trump was a vote for change, a vote to give the establishment a black eye. It was also a vote for genocide and racist pogroms and gangster kleptocracy, which is why many voters stayed home, casting a ballot for America's all-time favorite candidate, "None of the above," while any number of furious people and/or vicious racists turned out for Trump. There's one book that crystallizes my thoughts on this better than any other: Naomi Klein's 2023 Doppelganger, which analyzes our politics in terms of (warped) "mirror images." One of the mirror world pairings that Klein analyzes is the progressive movement, a coalition of liberals and leftists (led by liberals). Like every coalition, the two main groups that constitute "the progressives" do not agree on many important issues, though they do have common goals. Both groups support equality for people of all genders and races, but for liberals, an equal world is one that fixes the problem that 150 straight white men own everything by replacing 75 of them with racialized people, women and queer people (whereas the leftist fix is abolishing the system in which 150 people own everything). Biden set himself up as a peacemaker for this coalition, and his "unity task force" divided up the appointments in his administration between the Warren-Sanders leftists and liberals, including those who clearly belonged to the Manchin-Sinematic universe. This meant that his administration worked at cross-purposes to itself, neutering its boldest initiatives, rendering them impotent. Take Biden's plan to finally allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharma companies, a move that was very long overdue. Before this, the way the system worked was: pharma companies named a price – any price! – and then Uncle Sucker paid it. No other country in the world operates this way, and, of course, the lion's share of pharma R&D costs are already borne by the American public (or they were, until Musk DOGEd the US research budget to death). So the American public pays more than anyone else in the world to develop these drugs, and then they pay more than anyone else in the world to buy these drugs. This is madness, and putting an end to it is an obvious political win. But Biden found a way to do it that "balanced" the leftist principle of protecting people from capitalist exploitation with the liberal principle of protecting businesses lest the essential function of developing life-saving drugs become a state activity (rather than a market one). Biden's solution? A "Build Back Better" plan that would allow the federal government to negotiate up to ten drug prices (and as few as zero drug prices), but the new prices would only kick in after the 2024 election, so no one would see the benefit of this in time for the next general election: https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/18/bipartisan-consensus/#corruption This is a solution that pleases no one – and that's the point. Biden and his team viewed the presidency as an institution for making sure everyone was equally unhappy, a philosophy that Anat Shenker-Osorio calls "pizzaburger politics." This is named for a thought-experiment in which half your family wants pizza and the other half wants burgers, so you serve them "pizzaburgers" and make everyone miserable and declare yourself to have the fair-handed wisdom of Solomon (yes, I'm aware that this analogy has a fatal flaw in that pizzaburgers actually sound delicious, but work with me here). Biden prided himself on running a pizzaburger presidency, in which every move that satisfied the left of his party was neutralized by a concession to the party's right wing establishment: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change (Trump enacted a mirror-world version of Biden's pharma price controls: TrumpRx, a program that claims to lower drug prices while those prices actually go up): https://democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/e-c-democrats-trumprx-big-talk-little-savings.pdf Biden's pizzaburger compromises made everyone unhappy. He appointed generational talents like Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter and Rohit Chopra to run key agencies charged with crushing corporate power, and then gave lifetime appointments to corporate-friendly judges who blocked their rulemakings and penalties: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/11/us-judge-turns-down-challenge-to-microsoft-merger-with-activision Of course, it wasn't just Biden's own judicial appointees who stood in his way; from the Supreme Court on down, on issues from student debt cancellation to noncompetes, judges blocked the Biden administration. When this happened, Biden somehow couldn't find his way to his bully pulpit. Rather than working the refs – the way Trump does, in ways that energize his base, stiffens his legislators' resolve and intimidates other judges – Biden tinkered in the margins to find ways to advance half-measures and stayed mum in public. This compromise-oriented meekness carried over into Biden's relationship with Democratic lawmakers who sold out the American people. Rather than campaigning for the primary opponents of monsters like Fetterman, Sinema and Manchin, Biden worked behind the scenes to broker compromises, delivering yet another inedible pizzaburger (and acting hurt and bewildered when no one thanked him for it). The alternative? Constitutional hardball: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/18/states-rights/#cold-civil-war It's not clear whether Harris's abbreviated campaign could have made the public case that she would govern in a more muscular fashion as befitted the polycrisis facing the nation, but she didn't even try. A couple Democratic Party insiders of my acquaintance tell me that Biden only agreed to step aside on the condition that Harris not criticize his record. I don't know if that's true, but even within that hypothetical constraint, Harris hardly presented herself as an avatar of change. She carried on Biden's tradition of conspicuously failing to campaign on the significant achievements of Biden's own trustbusters, and put her brother-in-law, the lawyer who helped Uber crush labor rights in California, in charge of her campaign: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/04/us/politics/kamala-harris-tony-west.html The point of all this is that the American people have, on two occasions, comprehensively rejected the "America is already great"/"Nothing would fundamentally change" politics of a liberal-dominated left/liberal progressive coalition. The senior partners in that coalition have driven the country into a ditch, letting Trump stage a fascist takeover that has us fighting not to win another election, but just to have another one. Americans are sick of being told that their politicians can't do anything because "they're not the Green Lantern:" https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge America isn't already great. If we are to have more elections – much less win them – we will need to mobilize millions of people. You don't do that by telling them to oppose Trumpismo – you get them out in the streets by giving them something to support. That was Mamdani's winning message: "I know what a politician can do, and I will do it": https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/24/mamdani-thought/#public-excellence Hey look at this (permalink) taken. https://sinceyouarrived.world/taken Big Finance Might Be Dooming the SPLC — Even Before Its Day in Court https://theintercept.com/2026/05/08/splc-donations-banks-censorship/ Four Theses on the Conservative Legal Movement https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/four-theses-on-the-conservative-legal Hearts and Minds: An Ambivalent Review of “Project Hail Mary” https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=11659 Meta Is Dying. It’s About Time. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/opinion/meta-facebook-zuckerberg.html Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Denmark plans to legalize music trading https://edition.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/05/07/denmark.downloads.idg/index.html #20yrsago Babysuit https://web.archive.org/web/20060513013815/https://www.gildlilies.com/pop_ups/phillip_toledano_kaleidoscope.htm #20yrsago Patent office will ask the public to “peer review” inventions https://web.archive.org/web/20060512051743/http://www.dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/ #20yrsago Report from France’s DRM protest at Place de la Bastille https://web.archive.org/web/20170902135411/https://tofz.org/?dir=Paris%2Fevents%2FMarch #20yrsago Interactive maps show your city’s floodline when the sea rises https://flood.firetree.net/ #20yrsago Scientology to open “Super Power” training center in FL https://web.archive.org/web/20060522112457/http://www.sptimes.com/2006/05/06/Tampabay/Scientology_nearly_re.shtml/ #20yrsago Homemade radios http://www.duntemann.com/radiogallery.htm #20yrsago Vatican astronomer denounces Creationism as “paganism” https://web.archive.org/web/20060517013332/http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=674042006 #20yrsago Canada’s New Democratic Party embraces copyfighting musicians https://web.archive.org/web/20060520024734/http://www.ndp.ca/page/3713 #15yrsago Teens and privacy online: using Facebook is compatible with valuing privacy https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/05/09/how-teens-understand-privacy.html #15yrsago Ann Arbor library acquires lending, sharing and copying rights to Creative Commons music catalog https://annarborchronicle.com/2011/04/28/ann-arbor-library-signs-digital-music-deal/ #15yrsago Tin robot on Karel Čapek’s grave https://www.gilesorr.com/travels/Prague2011/BestPrague.20110421.6142.GO.CanonSX10.html #15yrsago Just look at this banana Dalek. https://web.archive.org/web/20110716022131/https://www.daleksoftheday.com/2011/05/banana-dalek.html #15yrsago NRA and Florida gag pediatricians: no more firearm safety advice for parents https://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136063523/florida-bill-could-muzzle-doctors-on-gun-safety #10yrsago Conservative economics: what’s happened to the UK economy after a year of Tory rule https://web.archive.org/web/20160509113126/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/what-has-happened-to-the-economy-under-the-tories-in-six-charts-a7017131.html #10yrsago Save iTunes: how the W3C’s argument for web-wide DRM would have killed iTunes https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-itunes #10yrsago America’s courts are going dark https://www.justsecurity.org/30920/courts-going-dark/ #10yrsaogo Australian government issues report calling for copyright and patent liberalisation https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/australian-productivity-commission-slams-protectionist-copyright-and-patent-laws #10yrsago Panama Papers: New Zealand is the go-to money launderer for crooked Latin Americans https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/panama-papers/303356/nz-at-heart-of-panama-money-go-round #10yrsago Safe Patient Project: searchable spreadsheet tells Californians whether their doc is on probation, and why https://web.archive.org/web/20160507002350/http://consumersunion.org/research/california-doctors-on-probation/ #5yrsago The Memex Method https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/ #5yrsago How copyright filters lead to wage-theft https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/08/copyfraud/#beethoven-just-wrote-music #1yrago Who broke the internet? https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/08/who-broke-the-internet/#bruce-lehman Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/11/postmortem/

What We Talk About When We Talk About the Weather

(date: 2026-05-11)

I’ve always found the idea of accurately trying to predict incoming weather using technology slightly strange, somehow off-kilter. Useful and practical, I’m sure, but something about the standing of a lone, smartly suited person in front of a blindingly bright

https://lithub.com/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-the-weather/

What Close Reading Can Reveal About an Author’s Intentions

(date: 2026-05-11)

Margaret Atwood’s short story, “Death by Landscape,” opens with an elderly widow who has recently moved into a Toronto apartment along with her fine collection of Canadian art. After a brief description of Lois’s relief at no longer having to

https://lithub.com/what-close-reading-can-reveal-about-an-authors-intentions/

Schiaparelli and Spark: On the Fashion of The Girls of Slender Means

(date: 2026-05-11)

There is a dress in Muriel Spark’s novel The Girls of Slender Means (1963) that my memory has never quite shrugged off. It’s a dress by the Paris-based designer, Elsa Schiaparelli—renowned in the 1930s and 40s for her surrealist designs. Spark’s novel

https://lithub.com/sciaparelli-and-spark-on-the-fashion-of-the-girls-of-slender-means/

When a 15-Year-Old Martin Luther King Jr. Confronted Jim Crow on a Train

(date: 2026-05-11)

At some point during Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1944 train trip from Atlanta to Simsbury, Conn., the hungry, rambunctious teenager left the company of his fellow Morehouse students and went to the state-of-the-art dining car to enjoy Southern Railway’s fine

https://lithub.com/when-a-15-year-old-martin-luther-king-jr-confronted-jim-crow-on-a-train/

Argentina Through the Eyes of Polish Writer Witold Gombrowicz

(date: 2026-05-11)

The scene is something like this: one leaden winter morning the Chrobry, a luxury liner that set sail in Poland and has been traveling across the Atlantic Ocean for over twenty days, approaches Buenos Aires. The passengers include diplomats, businessmen,

https://lithub.com/argentina-through-the-eyes-of-polish-writer-witold-gombrowicz/

This Week in Literary History: Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is Published.

(date: 2026-05-11)

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Literary History newsletter—sign up here. In August 1922, Virginia Woolf turned to a blank page in one of her notebooks to take a few notes on “a book to be called, perhaps, At Home: or The

https://lithub.com/this-week-in-literary-history-virginia-woolfs-mrs-dalloway-is-published/

Mysterious, Isolated and Seductive: The Map of Literary Islands That Inspired My Novel

(date: 2026-05-11)

Islands emerge in novels and poems as mythical, seductive places; they are separate from the mainland in a way that could be a punishment or an escape, or sometimes both. They are places of nostalgia and longing, where we may

https://lithub.com/mysterious-isolated-and-seductive-the-map-of-literary-islands-that-inspired-my-novel/

The Surprising Similarities Between the Kardashians and WWE

(date: 2026-05-11)

However immersive Keeping Up With the Kardashians might have been, it was limited to two dimensions on-screen; few viewers would likely make it to California Community Church or the paths in Jerusalem that Jesus walked. It was only a matter

https://lithub.com/the-surprising-similarities-between-the-kardashians-and-wwe/

“How My Light Is Spent”

(date: 2026-05-11)

Teaching, Darcy’s father had always told her, was useful work. It was meaningful work, work that made sense and also made money, and it would allow her to be independent. Darcy had been a bookworm and an introvert as a

https://lithub.com/how-my-light-is-spent/

Psst: What No One Will Tell You About the National Debt (But I Will)

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-21)

You really need to know this

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-no-one-will-tell-you-about-the

Mythos finds a curl vulnerability

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-26)

yes, as in singular one. Back in April 2026 Anthropic caused a lot of media noise when they concluded that their new AI model Mythos is dangerously good at finding security flaws in source code. Apparently Mythos was so good at this that Anthropic would not release this model to the public yet but instead … Continue reading Mythos finds a curl vulnerability→

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2026/05/11/mythos-finds-a-curl-vulnerability/

Invite your friends to read Fix The News

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

Some things are better with friends

https://fixthenews.com/p/invite-your-friends-to-read-fix-the

May 10, 2026

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-18)

There were two very different celebrations in Russia and in Hungary yesterday.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-10-2026

Why filmmaker Deeyah Khan sits with extremists

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-27)

and demonstrates how listening matters!

https://stevenhassan.substack.com/p/why-filmmaker-deeyah-khan-sits-with

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-15)

Jalen Brunson’s Knicks legacy is still being written, but it’s already quite good.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7268707/2026/05/10/ny-knicks-jalen-brunsons-legacy-playoffs-sweep-2026/?source=emp_shared_article&unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.M3Vm.sz81KJkXsGgf

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-11, updated: 2026-05-24)

My 379 part series on the crimes against humanity done by Israel to Palestinians in the West Bank:

https://xcancel.com/migueldeicaza/status/2052789843835355580

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116553090489624708

Autonomous web scraping with Claude Code

(date: 2026-05-11)

Andrej Karpathy’s autoresearch project made a lot of ripples. I guess it’s exciting because a program that modifies itself feels like actual AI. The concept of autonomous programs is not new – see genetic programming – but what we’re witnessing now is somewhat more convincing. We just got a bit closer to Neuromancer’s world, with a Turing Police that’s in charge of stopping AIs from rewriting themselves.

While we wait for AI to become self-conscious, there are mundane problems that can be solved with autoresearch. Web scraping is one of these. Indeed, turning unstructured data into knowledge is an excellent problem for LLMs to solve. But there are nuances to have in mind:

https://maxhalford.github.io/blog/autonomous-web-scraping-claude-code/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-22)

I have to say something about the Knicks, who just blew out the Sixers in a sweep, 4 games to zero. They've never played this well. They are more than a deep team of great athletes, they are highly intelligent people and they're all really working together. Right now, it feels like a sure thing that they'll breeze through the next round and face off OKC or San Antonio in the finals, and that will be something. But I know that's not the right way to look at it. The next series is going to be with a team that feels the title is theirs as much as the Knicks do. I've been with the Knicks through the worst of times that never seemed to end. And now for something completely different.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/10.html#a233725

Monday 11 May, 2026

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-26)

Alliums ahoy! Some striking white ones in the Orchard in Grantchester on Friday afternoon. Quote of the Day “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” Picasso Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Louis Armstrong | What A … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/monday-11-may-2026/42030/

Kernel prepatch 7.1-rc3

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-13)

Linus has released 7.1-rc3 for testing. "I think this answers the 'is 7.1 continuing the larger size pattern that we saw with 7.0?' question, and the answer is yes: that wasn't a fluke brought on by a .0 release - it simply seems to be the new normal."

https://lwn.net/Articles/1072100/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-24)

It is incredible how good looking modern Gnome is:

https://thisweek.gnome.org/_astro/gitte-settings-dialog.D33JDAoH_lmTul.webp

https://codeberg.org/ckruse/Gitte

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116552583091981484

Sunday caption contest: The Gerrymander

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-20)

And last week's winner

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-caption-contest-map

Misplaced panic over AI progress

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-27)

Breaking down what METR’s latest “time horizon” graph does and does not show

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/misplaced-panic-over-ai-progress

Out With the JS, In With the HTML

(date: 2026-05-10)

I’ve been posting about how you can make lots of HTML pages and leverage navigations over in-page, JS-dependent interactions.

Now I’m gonna post another example.

On my icon sites, I have a little widget that allows you to resize the icons you’re looking at.

Previously, I implemented this functionality as a web component that looked something like this:

<icon-list size="md">
  <a href=""><img src="" width="128" height="128" /></a>
  <a href=""><img src="" width="128" height="128" /></a>
  <!-- more -->
</icon-list>

The size attribute corresponded to an enumeration like sm | md | lg | xl which mapped to actual pixel dimensions like 64×64 or 512×512.

When the little widget was clicked to render icons at a different size, JavaScript changed the size attribute on the <icon-list> custom element. From there, the web component’s JS took over changing the dimensions of the children <img> elements, their src attributes, etc.

It all worked pretty well. However, because that was a client-side solution to my otherwise entirely pre-rendered static site, it required some templating logic and data be duplicated and sent over the wire to every client.

I didn’t love that for various reasons — like “Crap, I updated this one small part of how my icon list renders on the server, but forgot to tweak it on the client, so things are slightly broken now.”

Then one day the thought hit me: instead of relying on JS to make that interaction work (click, execute JS, modify in-page DOM to a new list), what if I just made that interaction a navigation? Click, navigate to a new list.

Instead of “every list of icons ships with some JS that allows them to re-render at four different sizes” I could do “every list of icons ships in four different sizes”.

Previously: one page, like /colors/red/, with JS to re-render the icon list based on user interactions.
Idea: four pages, like /colors/red/{sm|md|lg|xl}, each a different icon list size.

So I tried it. And guess what? Once I added some code to support CSS view transitions, I got a cool effect amongst the icons for free — that’s right, by removing code!

Works nice on mobile too!

I know I’m not doing anything particularly novel here, but as we continue to get new, powerful primitives on the web — like CSS view transitions — I find it really interesting to revisit basic patterns and explore what’s possible now that wasn’t previously.

It’s fun to ask yourself: “Could I remove some client-side JS and get a better overall experience?” If the answer is yes, I’ll bet you the development experience (and maintenance burden) is much improved too!

Reply via:

Email · Mastodon ·

https://sinceyouarrived.world/taken

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/out-with-js-in-with-html/

Our Wins Of The Week

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-27)

As the midterm elections approach, Democratic voters are leading the way in enthusiasm.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-progressive-wins-may-10

Seoul, South Korea

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-20)

"Seoul, officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. Seoul has a population of 9.9 million people, and forms the heart of the Seoul Capital Area with the surrounding Incheon metropolis and Gyeonggi province. Considered to be a global city and rated as an Alpha – City by Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC), Seoul was the world's 4th largest metropolitan economy in 2014 after Tokyo, New York City and Los Angeles."

https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/travel/south-korea/seoul-2026/

Personal Agentry

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-17)

In Know your .agent, Esther Dyson suggests that we need a DNS-like registry of AI agents. She and her colleagues at the Agentic AI foundation (agentcommunity.org) have started one, and it has some good premises, such as accountability for AI agents and their operators. .agent is clearly designed—so far—to make Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, OpenAi, Perplexity, et. […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/10/personal-agentry/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-22)

Leaflet is a nice editor designed to work with Bluesky. But they've been branching out. They now support email and RSS output. They're going in the right direction, toward the internet with the email, and toward the web with the RSS support. As nice as Bluesky is, it's a small part of the web, and it isn't as open as it might appear to be, imho.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/10.html#a153116

Happy Mother's Day All

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-20)

Some roses today.......back to politics tomorrow....

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/happy-mothers-day-all

Routing around the algorithms

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-22)

AOC in an interview nailed everything in one brief answer to a question from the audience. You can watch it here.

It was so good and quotable that I recorded it and created a transcript via Google and Claude.

I've been emailing with Josh Marshall at TPM for the last few weeks, saying that we can't just keep building on what the tech industy has given us as a news distribution system. AOC touches on this in her answer -- she says the tech people control the algorithms, and they do. But the web doesn't have algorithms, and we have enough standards available to create a very good network that isn't owned by anyone.

I was at one time motivated by money, the same way politicians are motivated to attain higher office, but I had an impulsive idea when the web popped up that I am not doing it for money anymore. I'm doing it so we can change our political and work communication so it gives power to the people, not to the tech industry. At that time we were already dealing with the excesses of tech, I knew it well because I was an an insider.

They are welcome to make products for it, but they can't control the users. That's what I envisioned in the 90s and 00s. The ads won't be as important as what people say, because the price of using the web is very low. But we got snookered anyway. The VCs were only motivated by money, and to maximize that, they needed maximum control, and they got it. People like being part of big things, and Twitter was and still is big.

We're now at the next turning point. AI is creating new pathways for ideas to flow. It's all wide open right now, more open than it's been in over 20 years. Right now we could put a twitter-like product there that you can set up in a few minutes, run it yourself, and or join one that's run by a friend. And they federate immediately. All based on the open standards of the web. Every component replaceable. No big central thing to be owned.

But Josh, we can't do it without your help. AOC doesn't know us. She probably doesn't think how the web could route around the algorithms. But she, and you should be thinking about that, and Heather Cox Richardson too, because we can create the people's tool for the change she wants, which is the change I want, and you want too (I read your columns). But we have to work together to make it happen.

BTW, all politicians should swear by what she says. And we should never care about polls. We should only care about results.

Transcript of AOC's answer

I recorded the interview, Claude did a light edit of the transcript. I highlighted the part about the algorithms.

You know, it's funny, because, in this op-ed that Jeff Bezos paid for in the Washington Post, there was this line where you had mentioned earlier about me as a potential 2028 contender, and in the context of that, it was very clear this was a veiled threat, right?

So the elite think: if you want this job, you just stepped out of line. And we want you to know where the real power is. And it's in the modern-day barons who own the Post and own the algorithms. And we're gonna— we'll make an example out of you.

And what's funny about that is that they assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. But my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.

Presidents come and go. Senate and house seat elected officials come and go. But single-payer healthcare's forever. In many ways, it's forever work, right? Forever work is what we should follow, and so anyways, I— the way— but to put a finer point on your question, is that when you aren't attached, right? When you haven't been, like, fantasizing about being this or that since the time you're seven years old, it's a tremendously liberating thing. Because I get to wake up every day and say, how am I going to meet the moment? And conditions change radically all the time. So, I make my response— less out of an attachment to a positional, like, you know, title or position and working backwards from there— but I make decisions by waking up in the morning, looking out the window and observing the conditions of this country and saying, what move or what decision can I make today that's going to get us closer to that future— stronger, faster, better than yesterday?

http://scripting.com/2026/05/10/133115.html?title=routingAroundTheAlgorithms

“Hello, Dolly!”

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-27)

A Reason To Smile

https://steady.substack.com/p/hello-dolly

Is Europe in Economic Decline?

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-24)

Interrogating the conventional wisdom that Europe is lagging America

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/is-europe-in-economic-decline

Has anyone seen Chris Alexander?

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-17)

You're invited to a symposium with him today—if we can find him.

https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/has-anyone-seen-chris-alexander

Democrats now have to win the House vote by 4 points due to Republican gerrymandering

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-27)

A new analysis by Strength In Numbers reveals the impacts of mid-decade and post-VRA redistricting by Republicans, with the now-missing Democratic counter-gerrymander in Virginia

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-10-dem-house-pop-vote-threshold-gerrymandering

Mother's Day Gifts From the Ka$h Patel Kollection™

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-27)

TBR Sunday Read

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/mothers-day-gifts-from-the-kah-patel

‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ Sashays Past ‘Mortal Kombat II’ With $41M U.S. After Strong Saturday; ‘Michael’ Dances To $570M WW – Mother’s Day Weekend B.O. Early Update

(date: 2026-05-10)

SUNDAY EARLY AM: 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Devil Wears Prada 2 won Saturday with an estimated $14.9M per industry sources putting the sequel in pole position to best New Line’s Mortal Kombat II over Mother’s Day weekend. Many thought that this brawl would boil down to Sunday, however, Devil 2‘s edge puts it at a second […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/box-office-mortal-kombat-ii-devil-wears-prada-2-1236887876/

Hannah Waddingham Provides Shot In Arm For ‘Saturday Night Live UK’s Viewing Figures

(date: 2026-05-10)

Hannah Waddingham was on hosting duties for Saturday Night Live UK‘s penultimate episode of the season, helping boost the show’s ratings. The Sky comedy series, based on the iconic NBC original, was watched by a live audience of 197,200 on Saturday evening, according to official BARB figures supplied by overnights.tv. The audience of nearly 200,000 […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/hannah-waddingham-boost-snl-uk-viewing-figures-1236889395/

Dragoncatcher: Referer reality

(date: 2026-05-10)

Love that misspelling. Read here.

https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/referer/

Sunday thought: My Mother's Crazy Optimism

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-20)

And why this past two weeks has made it especially hard to recall

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-the-difference-between

MDAG’s Artistic Director Takes Issue With Wim Wenders, Says Politics Belongs In Films: “We Have To Talk About These Things”

(date: 2026-05-10)

The artistic director of Millennium Docs Against Gravity in Poland is offering a rebuttal to Wim Wenders after the German director said filmmakers should “stay out of politics.” “I’m not going to take issue with the person that said it, but with the sentiment,” Karol Piekarczyk said on the opening night of the international documentary […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/millenium-docs-against-gravity-artistic-director-karol-piekarczyk-interview-1236889375/

Letting things build

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-26)

This week I put together a reading list for my digital aura series. I recall starting to write around Thanksgiving — but when I looked back at my reading, I’d started reading for it months earlier. (No wonder it’s felt like such a big endeavor!) I’ve been thinking about taste for a while now, but […]

https://tracydurnell.com/2026/05/09/letting-things-build/

Fromday

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-17)

That number is way too low California AG Bob Bonta writes, “On Friday, we announced a historic $12.75 million settlement against General Motors for illegally retaining and selling hundreds of thousands of Californians’ location and driving data to data brokers.” It’s coming down There are three great teams left in the NBA playoffs. The Knicks […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/09/fromday/

‘SNL’s Weekend Update Scores With Jeremy Culhane’s Tucker Carlson Trashing Met Gala, Mikey Day & Marcello Hernández As Kamikaze Dolphins

(date: 2026-05-10)

That’s the rule, that’s the goal now. After hitting the jackpot with newcomer Jeremy Culhane’s spot-on Tucker Carlson impression a month ago, Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update opted for a redux — this time featuring the infamous Fox News commentator’s less-than-complimentary takes on the Met Gala. Pitching his voice up ever so slightly and interspersing […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/snl-weekend-update-jeremy-culhane-tucker-carlson-met-gala-1236889336/

May 9, 2026

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-16)

If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-9-2026

Weekly Bookmarks

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-24)

These are some things I’ve wandered across on the web this week.

🔖 lowkey: criticalcoding club

lowkey: critical coding club is first and foremost a coding club - a series of hangouts for anyone who wants to write computer programs with other people. Whether you’re new or experienced, need inspiration, or just want to throw on headphones and hack, you are welcome to join. Expect it to be laid-back and self-organised outside usual hierarchies: study groups, spontaneous pair programming, parallel working/body doubling, or just folks with laptops.

In lowkey we are focused on creating a space for diverse coding practices and building a community outside the usual institutions and sites with temporary contracts. E.g., academic institutions, businesses and entrepreneurship with ethical compromises, or “expert” meetups. Through the lens of critical technical practice, we are also open to address politics and social issues tied to coding, but rather than discussing them in the abstract, we focus on integrating this into our practice of coding.

🔖 permacomputing principles

Commentary from the hacker news community…

🔖 I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here’s What I Actually Handed Over.

I wanted the blue checkmark on LinkedIn. The one that says “this person is real.” In a sea of fake recruiters, bot accounts, and AI-generated headshots, it seemed like a smart thing to do.

So I tapped “verify.” I scanned my passport. I took a selfie. Three minutes later — done. Badge acquired. I felt a tiny dopamine hit of legitimacy.

Then I did what apparently nobody does. I went and read the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not LinkedIn’s. The other company’s.

🔖 Agentic Coding is a Trap

Despite the countless failed attempts at trying to democratize coding while not understanding coding, we’re faced with the reality that you cannot understand code without engaging with it. And it’s become clear that if you don’t keep engaging and writing it, you can lose touch with that understanding, which will in turn make you a less capable orchestrator in the first place, rendering this phase of AI coding a strange and needlessly stressful interlude.

🔖 Computing as a social activity

By using LLMs to reduce their dependence on other humans, developers risk abandoning that social foundation. They work through roadblocks not by interacting with other developers on forums, but by asking a model trained on a millions of StackOverflow posts. They review code that no one has written, or submit code that will be reviewed by no one. Until now, FOSS has been conducted as a conversation, humans responding to other humans in the formal languages of code and project management, but increasingly it’s a conversation conducted between chatbots.1

https://inkdroid.org/2026/05/10/bookmarks/

‘Saturday Night Live’ Open Has Matt Damon As Brett Kavanaugh Joining Pete Hegseth And Kash Patel In Boozy Night On The Town

(date: 2026-05-10)

Saturday Night Live returned Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) and Kash Patel (Aziz Ansari) to the cold open, this time as they cavort in a booze-filled night along with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (Matt Damon). Following last week’s debut of Ansari as Patel, the fact that SNL returned to the same theme this week is […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/saturday-night-live-matt-damon-brett-kavanaugh-hegseth-open-1236889333/

Sally Field Credits Jack Nicholson With Reviving Career After ‘The Flying Nun’ Ensured She “Couldn’t Get In A Room To Audition”

(date: 2026-05-10)

Throughout the years, two-time Oscar-winning actress Sally Field has made her distaste for her breakout, titular role in The Flying Nun known, but while opening up to People, she revealed it was fellow Actors Studio alum Jack Nicholson who helped get her career going again afterward. After starring in ABC’s hit fantasy sitcom from 1967 […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sally-field-jack-nicholson-the-flying-nun-reviving-career-1236889325/

Charlie Cox Reflects On Disney’s Initial ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Creative Pivot & Credits Marvel For Listening: “We’re Indebted To Them”

(date: 2026-05-10)

Charlie Cox is giving credit where credit is due, saying he and Daredevil: Born Again co-star Vincent D’Onofrio are “indebted” to Marvel for listening to the duo’s creative input ahead of the show’s Season 1 launch. Post 2023 WGA strike, it was well-documented that Disney+’s revival of the beloved anti-hero underwent an overhaul following a […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/charlie-cox-marvel-daredevil-born-again-creative-pivot-1236889154/

Post removed

(date: 2026-05-10, updated: 2026-05-23)

Post removed as I wrote it in a situation of complete, abject burnout

https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/networking-house-live-cnn

Mom

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

Your mother probably thinks of motherhood in terms of the obvious things: meals made, rides given, worries carried quietly, bills paid when money was tight, staying up when children were sick.

https://dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/mom

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

(date: 2026-05-09)

Lesbian necromancers in space. That’s the usual pitch for Gideon The Ninth and it’s not wrong. Though there’s a lot more necromancy than space or lesbianism.

The book begins in an environment fairly dripping with death, all bones and darkness. It sounds like it should be grim, but thanks to the sarcastic attitude of the protagonist, the tone is actually quite fun.

Sassy goth; that’s how I would describe the general vibe. Once I settled into it, I found that tone thoroughly enjoyable.

The bulk of the action takes place in the planetary equivalent of a haunted mansion and the various characters are assembled like the cast of an Agatha Christie mystery.

I must admit that I struggled a bit to distinguish one space necromancer from another. I should’ve payed more attention to the dramatis personae at the front of the book.

The plot kept me intrigued and invested throughout, although it did sometimes feel a bit like a video game with puzzles to be solved in order to unlock the next level.

The driving force of Gideon The Ninth is its excellent world-building. Though you’re dropped into things in media res, the foundations of the world you’re in are revealed piece by piece, and it all adds up to a fascinating premise for this book and its sequels.

I’m already looking forward to reading the next book.

https://adactio.com/journal/22560

Riley Green Joins ‘The Voice’ As A Coach For Season 30

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-10)

The Voice will have some new blood for Season 30. Country singer Riley Green will join Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine as a coach on the NBC show. Season 29, which just ended, saw Clarkson, Levine and John Legend as the three coaches. Season 30, which returns in the fall, will feature four coaches with […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/riley-green-the-voice-season-30-1236888509/

‘Saturday Night Live UK’ Finally Takes On Nigel Farage With Cold Open Cameo From Well-Known British Comic

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-10)

It took Saturday Night Live UK seven episodes to take on Donald Trump’s good pal Nigel Farage but we finally have it from British comic Peter Serafinowicz. Making a cold open cameo depicting the Reform UK leader, Serafinowicz played Farage in a sketch set in 2046 when he is Prime Minister and the monarch is […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/saturday-night-live-uk-nigel-farage-cold-open-donald-trump-1236889056/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-15)

All Those A.I. Note Takers? They’re Making Lawyers Very Nervous.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/business/dealbook/ai-notetakers-legal-risk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hFA.gK8L.d1MbIP_wBYlh&smid=url-share

Nicolas Winding Refn Claims ‘Neon Demon’ Inspired NEON’s Name, Says Founder Has Been “Very Instrumental In My Life”

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-10)

As Nicolas Winding Refn teams with NEON Rated for his Cannes return, the film marks an important collaboration ahead of the indie banner’s 10th anniversary. The co-writer and director of Her Private Hell, debuting May 18 at Cannes before its July 24 U.S. premiere, recently explained how his 2016 film The Neon Demon inspired the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/nicolas-winding-refn-neon-demon-inspired-neon-name-1236889031/

@Tomosino's Mastodon feed

(date: 2026-05-09)

New gpg key

https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/116546371392393740

Easily Create Progress Bars in C

(date: 2026-05-09)

Easily Create Progress Bars in C

c_progress_bar is a library for C that helps you create:

Colorful progress bar
Estimated remaining time
Elapsed time tracking
Works with MSVC, Clang, and GCC
Written in C99 with minimal dependencies

Installation

git clone https://github.com/c-modules/c_progress_bar
cd c_progress_bar/
cmake . -B build
cmake --build build/
sudo cmake install build

Simple example

#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#include "c_progress_bar.h"

#define N 1000000000

int main(void)
{
    double sum = 0.0;

    // Setup progress bar
    CPB_Config config = cpb_get_default_config();
    config.description = "Processing";                // Default: ""
    config.min_refresh_time = 0.1;                    // Minimum refresh time in seconds. Default: 0.1.
    config.timer_remaining_time_recent_weight = 0.3;  // Weight for recent rate in remaining time estimation. Range: [0, 1]. Default: 0.3.

    // You don't need to modify anything for CPB_ProgressBar.
    // Just call cpb_init
    CPB_ProgressBar progress_bar;
    cpb_init(&progress_bar, 0, N, config);

    // Main loop
    cpb_start(&progress_bar);
    for (int64_t i = 0; i <= N; i++)
    {
        if (i % 1000 == 0)
        {
            cpb_update(&progress_bar, i);
        }

        sum += (i % 100) * 0.0001;
    }
    cpb_finish(&progress_bar);

    printf("Final result: %f\n", sum);

    return 0;
}

For more information, visit the repository

https://terminalroot.com/easily-create-progress-bars-in-c-language/

Eric Kripke Reacts To ‘The Boys’ Accidentally Predicting Trump’s Gold Statue: “Seriously What The F*ck?”

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-10)

With Eric Kripke’s depiction of an all-powerful fascist in The Boys, its been impossible not to find parallels in certain current events, and the latest episode continues to serve as an eery prediction. Following the unveiling of a gold Donald Trump statue during last month’s Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral Golf Club, the creator […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/eric-kripke-reacts-the-boys-predicting-trump-gold-statue-1236889017/

Apple Private Relay and network parental control

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-23)

I’m jotting down a few things I’ve learned about Apple’s iCloud Private Relay network service and the implications of using it for having parental controls or other network allow/block settings in place. What is iCloud Private Relay? Apple describes iCloud Private Relay as a privacy-protecting service that hides the IP address and network activity (DNS … Continue reading Apple Private Relay and network parental control

The post Apple Private Relay and network parental control appeared first on Chris Hardie's Tech and Software Blog.

https://tech.chrishardie.com/2026/apple-private-relay-network-parental-control/

Kelly Reilly Wants A ‘Dutton Ranch’, ‘Marshals’ Crossover: “Maybe We Will”

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-10)

Nearly two years after leaving Yellowstone in the rearview with the series finale of the Taylor Sheridan hit, Kelly Reilly is missing her onscreen brother. The Dutton Ranch star, who reprises her role as Beth Dutton on the Paramount+ spin-off, recently shared her “wish” for a crossover with Luke Grimes’ CBS spin-off Marshals, in which […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/kelly-reilly-wants-dutton-ranch-marshals-crossover-1236888998/

Web to Mastodon makes sense

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-22)

A post from Scripting News, automatically mirrored to a WordPress site, and that flowed via ActivityPub to Mastodon, via a relatively new feature in WordPress. Almost by accident Mastodon supports long text, styling and links -- even though their editor doesn't generate it, if it comes from the outside it will respect the styling.

Below is a post on Mastodon coming from WordPress. Masto's limits aren't enforced, and that's good.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/09/142415.html?title=webToMastodonMakesSense

Trump Hits New Polling Low, Putin's Sad Parade, Magyar Takes Control In Hungary, Expanding Our Maps

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-20)

Pissed about the GOP's ongoing assault on our democracy? Help us flip two state Supreme Court seats in Georgia on May 19th......

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trump-hits-new-polling-low-putins

The value of having a good bench

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-22)

The Knicks continue to astound. Last night, they went up 3-0 against the Sixers in Philadelphia. Game 4 is tomorrow at 3:30PM Eastern.

Last night's game was a fantastic contrast with the way the Knicks played in the post-season last year. They had the same starting lineup then, but a different coach, one who rarely put in the bench players unless he had to because of injury. As a result our starters were always playing exhausted, and it got worse as they got deeper into the post-season, until finally in the conference finals against Indiana they had no more gas and were eliminated. This year's Knicks with a deep bench of fantastic players, who the new coach rotates in, makes all the difference. Why? Because the players on the court for the Knicks aren't particularly tired, and if they are, they can get a rest,.

So in the first period the Sixers came out with fury, and they won the first quarter, because both teams were fresh, and maybe the Knicks were onto their problem, and didn't fight too hard to win the first knowing they'd have the big advantage in the second, third and fourth, where the Sixers players legs would be getting wobbly and they were thinking too much about the shots they were taking.

Also worth noting we have a grudge against the Philadelphia team, esp their overwhelmed and dirty-playing big man, Embiid.

The Knicks have a fantastic core team, veterans in their prime, and have been with each other for some since college. They have added to the team incredibly well. Every player coming off the bench has a special power, and it all works.

What's the limit? Unlike many fans I'm not in the expectations business. I'm happy to see how well they're playing now, and am prepared for whatever lessons come our way in the rest of the playoffs.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/09/135221.html?title=theValueOfHavingAGoodBench

Canvas is open source, but its cloud services ransomware attack really hurts

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

It's "the biggest student data privacy disaster in history" - even though the core platform is open source.

https://werd.io/canvas-is-open-source-but-its-cloud-services-ransomware-attack-really-hurts/

Performance work on FeedLand

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-22)

Just spent a couple of days working with FeedLand in Claude Code. I want to do some work on features, but first, we're looking at performance issues. There had been a longtime problem with categories that didn't have many feeds that were viewed through the news pages. Examples, the podcasts category, or the NYT category.

You can test it yourself. I was using the categories in news page on feedland.org for the test.

When I checked, on feedland.org all my categories on the news page displayed slowly except for All, which we had put an optimization in for in October 2025. So I worked with Claude on this yesterday, did a set of tests, and realized that the optimization we did last year, made categories with very few feeds much slower. So we put in an exception, installed the new software on feedland.org and I'm happy to report that all my tabs are fast now.

Now all the tabs are fast enough. I'd always like them to be faster, but all load in less than 2 seconds, most in less than 1.

The new version is not installed on feedland.com or feedland.social yet.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/09/134301.html?title=performanceWorkOnFeedland

Graduation Day

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-16)

Go refigure Trying to watch the Thunder-Lakers game, which ABC.com says is live now, with a button to watch. After logging in (using my credentials as a Dish Network customer), ABC gives me NBC News, not the game, which is on WRTV/6, which I can get on my TV over our outside antenna. But not […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/09/graduation-day/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-24)

“You opened this page. It already knows the following.”

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116544740655935047

Pluralistic: Trump's fruitless search for a goreable ox (09 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links Trump's fruitless search for a goreable ox: You can keep billionaires happy, or you can fight the cost of living crisis, but not both. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Typewriter bust; Phrack's new issue; Panama Papers whistleblower speaks; The PRO Act; Zuck's new mind-control ray. Upcoming appearances: Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. Trump's fruitless search for a goreable ox (permalink) I've got good news and bad news for Trump. The good news: you can get elected by promising to do something about the cost of living crisis, and the president actually has a lot of ways to improve people's daily costs. The bad news: everything you could do to fix working people's cost of living will make an oligarch worse off. This is the essential conundrum of Trumpismo: to keep his base happy, he needs to make their lives better; but to make their lives better, he'll have to make oligarchs angry. The oligarchs' wealth bonanza caused the cost of living crisis. Oligarchs' pleasure causes our suffering, so alleviating our suffering will reduce their pleasure. This means that while Trump can promise help with prices, all he can deliver is union-busting, ICE lynchings, and pointless wars, none of which have any hope of materially improving the lives of working people. Indeed, all of this stuff makes working people materially worse off, as wages fall, crops rot in the fields, and gas prices shoot through the roof. Trump would dearly love to find an ox he can safely gore, but all the good oxen are owned by his oligarch chums. Trump can't punish Ticketmaster, because the billions Ticketmaster steals from the WWE, F1 and football fans in his base all land in the pocket of oligarchs who own stock in Ticketmaster, and Trump can't afford to upset those oligarchs: https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/03/aoi-aoi-oh/#concentrated-gains-vast-diffused-losses Indeed, I can't think of a single corrupt racket that Trump can afford to do something about. Not even the only cost of living metric that can approach gas prices in the hierarchy of American electoral salience: grocery prices. Your grocery bill went up because oligarchs price-gouge you. Eggflation was caused by Cal-Maine, the monopolist that owns every brand of eggs in your grocer's fridge, who jacked up prices because they knew they could: https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/10/demand-and-supply/#keep-cal-maine-and-carry-on Pepsi and Walmart conspired to force every retailer to jack up the prices of all Pepsi products (including Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Aquafina, etc) at every retailer's store, so that Walmart could also jack up their prices and still undersell their competition (naturally, Trump let them get away with it): https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/secret-documents-show-pepsi-and-walmart This stuff isn't exactly a secret. Grocery store owners hold earnings calls with their investors where they boast about the fact that they can raise their prices far in excess of their increased costs, and blame it on inflation: https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power They boast about their "personalized pricing" swindles, whereby they use surveillance data to figure out how desperate you are and jack up the prices you see in their apps: https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/11/nothing-personal/#instacartography Trump has the power to put a stop to all of this, but still, he can't, because his oligarch pals would squeal, and when they squeal, Trump jumps. In theory, Trump has lots of power, but in practice, Trump can't do anything. Which brings me to the cost of meat. Meat inflation has raced ahead of other forms of food inflation, even as the payments to ranchers and other producers fell sharply, leading to waves of bankruptcies: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/beef-is-expensive-so-why-are-cattle Partly, that's because meat processing is controlled by cartels, with 85% of all the beef being processed by four packers, and nearly every chicken going through one of four poultry processors. These middlemen jack up prices to grocers while colluding to push down the payments to their suppliers. How do they rig those prices? After all, it's very illegal for these four companies to get together around a table to rig prices. Instead, they use a "price consultancy" called Agri Stats that does the price-rigging for them. Every week, the packers send a detailed list of all their costs and prices into Agri Stats, and Agri Stats "advises" them all to raise all their prices at once, and anyone who doesn't play along is pushed out of the Agri Stats cartel. Everyone wins – except families paying for groceries: https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy Agri Stats has been doing this since the Reagan years, but they grew steadily more brazen, until, back in 2023, Biden's DOJ brought history's most obvious, easily won antitrust case against them: https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/29124-doj-sues-agri-stats-for-complicity-in-meat-market-manipulation And wouldn't you know it, Trump just settled that case, in a way that will make Agri Stats much, much richer and give them far more opportunities to rig prices: https://prospect.org/2026/05/08/meat-industry-agri-stats-department-of-justice-price-fix-trump/ Under the terms of the settlement, Agri Stats must "allow" restaurants, farmers, and other parts of the supply chain to pay it for the data it consolidates. This will allow more parties to collude to rig prices, and provide more income to Agri Stats. As David Dayen writes in The American Prospect, they've been "sentenced to make money." Agri Stats isn't the only "price consultancy" that is used to launder a price-fixing cartel that's driving up the cost of living for all Americans, including Trump's base, in order to make oligarchs better off. Companies like Realpage do the same thing for residential rents: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/11/nimby-yimby-fimby/#home-team-advantage Trump can't do anything about any of these scams, not without goring some oligarch's precious ox. But, as Dayen points out, there are dozens of Democratic state Attorneys General who can kill Trump's sweetheart deal for Agri Stats using the Tunney Act, which gives them standing to sue to force a federal judge to review the settlement and determine whether it is fair. Whether any AG will seize the moment remains to be seen, of course, but it would be very good politics to do so – after all, the path to political power in America runs through credible promises to do something about the cost of living crisis. Hey look at this (permalink) The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-08-simple-math-error-scotus-callais-vra Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-congress-curbing-monopolies The Scam Artistry of the Right’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels https://jacobin.com/2026/05/peterson-musk-tate-right-victimization Ploopy Bean Pointing Stick https://ploopy.co/shop/bean-pointing-stick/ 'The Biggest Student Data Privacy Disaster in History': Canvas Hack Shows the Danger of Centralized EdTech https://www.404media.co/the-biggest-student-data-privacy-disaster-in-history-canvas-hack-shows-the-danger-of-centralized-edtech/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago A dotcom founder's tale (funny) https://features.slashdot.org/story/01/05/04/1541239/the-worst-of-times #20yrsago Shell UK abandons chip-and-pin after £1M fraud https://web.archive.org/web/20060508044110/https://www.snakeoillabs.com/2006/05/07/shell-stops-accepting-chip-and-pin-in-fraud-fiasco-bp-to-follow/ #15yrsago Typewriter bust: Grandfather https://web.archive.org/web/20110511033756/http://jemayer.tumblr.com/post/5260317696 #10yrsago Kobo “upgrade” deprives readers of hundreds of DRM-locked ebooks https://www.teleread.com/drm-nightmare-after-recent-upgrade-kobo-customers-report-losing-sony-books-from-their-libraries/ #10yrsago Venerable hacker zine Phrack publishes its first issue in four years https://phrack.org/issues/69/1 #10yrsago Panama Papers whistleblower issues statement, naming and shaming failed states and institutions https://web.archive.org/web/20160506180902/https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160506-john-doe-statement.html #5yrsago The FTC's (kick-ass) Right to Repair report https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/07/pro-act-class-war/#we-fixit #5yrsago The PRO Act and worker misclassification https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/07/pro-act-class-war/#sectoral-balances #1yrago Mark Zuckerberg announces mind-control ray (again) https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/07/rah-rah-rasputin/#credulous-dolts Upcoming appearances (permalink) Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers) https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/ Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/09/cossie-livvie-crissie/

The End of Trump: A Chat with Heather Cox Richardson

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Andy Borowitz Show

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/how-the-trump-nightmare-ends-a-conversation

Day Off

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-23)

For real, probably

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/day-off

Lit Hub Weekly: May 4 – 8, 2026

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-08)

Elizabeth Zaleski compiles a list of the Western literary canon’s greatest farts. | Lit Hub Reading Lists “As it happens, most early readers of my novel have found Dickens less sympathetic than I do.” On Charles Dickens and other bad

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-weekly-may-4-8-2026/

Liked: The Slow Death of the Power User — fireborn

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-23)

This is a really interesting & powerful post. Problems from the tech giants, algorithms & AI, suggesting learning and anger as possible ways to fight back.

https://johnjohnston.info/blog/liked-the-slow-death-of-the-power-user-fireborn/

The Irony of a Jobs Pickup That Lands Right Where It Started

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

And what tariffs and immigration have to do with it.

https://newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/the-irony-of-a-jobs-pickup-that-ends

Why fixing America is much harder than fixing Hungary

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

Cleaning up Trump's wreckage will prove especially tricky.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-orban

Desperate Donald's Debacle | The Coffee Klatch for Saturday, May 9, 2026

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-20)

With Michael Lahanas Caldéron and yours truly, Robert Reich

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/desperate-donalds-debacle-the-coffee

Polish Festival Millennium Docs Against Gravity Opens With ‘Closure,’ Award-Winning Film From Native Son Michał Marczak

(date: 2026-05-09)

The first weekend of Millennium Docs Against Gravity – the prestigious international film festival in Poland – is underway after opening with Closure, the new film directed by Warsaw native Michał Marczak. The wrenching documentary about a father’s desperate search for his missing teenage son won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/millennium-docs-against-gravity-closure-screening-1236888893/

May 8, 2026

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-16)

In case you’re wondering what kind of a news day it was, President Donald J.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-8-2026

Projects selected for LibreOffice in the Google Summer of Code 2026

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

The LibreOffice Google Summer of Code projects have been selected for 2026. Aya Jamal – OpenType MATH: this project aims to add support for OpenType fonts that contain a MATH table. Data from the MATH table will be used to layout math formulas. Manish Bera – Improve word processor test

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/09/projects-selected-for-libreoffice-in-the-google-summer-of-code-2026/

Digital aura reading list

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-26)

Some of the most useful books and articles I read to think about digital aura. ⭐ = most useful for the question The ur-text ⭐ The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin (1936) — my notes Booklist Presented in reverse chronological order. Aura, art, and media studies Ways of […]

https://tracydurnell.com/2026/05/08/digital-aura-reading-list/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-14)

How Virginia Democrats can overturn the redistricting ruling: Retire the Supreme Court.

https://www.the-downballot.com/p/how-virginia-democrats-can-overturn

Weeknotes: May 2-8, 2026

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-26)

Win of the week: after several months of work, I posted my final* digital aura series post, on the Cult of Self! It’s about how art helps us build our identity. I would love it if you read it 💜 *(I have more to say about authenticity but haven’t decided yet whether I’ll make future […]

https://tracydurnell.com/2026/05/08/weeknotes-may-2-8-2026/

Village Roadshow Relinquishes ‘Matrix Resurrections’ Stake In $57M Payout To Warner Bros.

(date: 2026-05-09)

A re-configured multimillion-dollar settlement of sorts between Village Roadshow and Warner Bros over 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections seems prophetic and very much of the matrix in its own special way. With the once-big-league film co-financier paying out $57 million to the likely soon-to-be David Ellison-owned studio, the words of Matrix Resurrections‘ Smith to Neo of […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/matrix-resurrections-lawsuit-settlement-1236888767/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-14)

No, It’s Really Not a ‘Race to the Bottom’ on Redistricting.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/no-its-really-not-a-race-to-the-bottom-on-redistricting

The Left is Good Governing Itself into Obscurity

(date: 2026-05-09, updated: 2026-05-27)

Virginia nullified three million votes overnight while Republicans go on a redistricting spree with no restraint. I saw this coming a mile away.

https://plus.briantylercohen.com/p/the-left-is-good-governing-itself

Why do Oregon farms plant red clover every spring?

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

If you’re ever out on a bike ride with me and you ask an innocent question like “hey, what’s with all the red plants on farms?” I must warn you that because of my masters degree in soil chemistry (that has laid fallow for

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/why-do-oregon-farms-plant-red-clover-every-spring/

‘Linda Perry: Let It Die Here’ Timed To New Album, Tony Leung In ‘Silent Friend’, ‘Blue Film’ & ‘Influenced’ – Specialty Preview

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Well-reviewed limited releases including psycho-sexual drama Blue Film, Ildikó Enyed’s Silent Friend and documentaries about Linda Perry (timed to her first solo album in over 25 years), python hunting in the Everglades and gun control are new at the indie film box office this weekend as studio giants The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Mortal […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/indie-films-opening-linda-perry-let-it-die-here-blue-film-1236888638/

GTA VI has an unlimited budget, but A.I. hasn’t helped, CEO says

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

And 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' outlines journalism's saving grace

https://shannonliao.substack.com/p/gta-vi-has-an-unlimited-budget-but

Black Bear And Artists Equity Partner With Big Picture Co. On ‘A Woman In The Sun’ Starring Renée Zellweger, Sissy Spacek And Mia Threapleton

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Black Bear and Artists Equity have partnered on the dramatic feature A Woman in the Sun, starring Renée Zellweger and Sissy Spacek alongside rising star Mia Threapleton. A Woman in the Sun follows a month in the life of Claire Keating, a bartender on Nantucket and part of the island’s dwindling middle class. When her mother gets sick and […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/renee-zellweger-film-black-bear-artists-equity-1236888644/

@DAIR blog

(date: 2026-05-08)

“‘AI’ might not be good for xyz, but you can’t deny that it’s helpful for programming” -- sound familiar? On the next Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 @alexhanna.bsky.social and @emilymbender.bsky.social will be discussing!

Join the livestream: Monday, May 11, noon PT twitch.tv/dair_institutehttps://twitch.tv/dair_institute

https://bsky.app/profile/dairinstitute.bsky.social/post/3mlepiooym22j

Blog Carnival 24: Editor’s Outro: Multimodality, Social Justice, and Human-Centered Praxis

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-19)

Our Blog Carnival 24 comes at a time when the learning and well-being of many students are impacted by the enforcement of anti-DEI policies and growing restrictions on how educators, tutors, administrators, leaders, and directors can attend to the varied ways students learn, belong, and thrive within a globalized, multicultural, inclusive, and habitable world. While [...]

https://www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org/2026/05/08/blog-carnival-24-editors-outro-multimodality-social-justice-and-human-centered-praxis/

Merged Reality: HBO Max & Paramount+ Are Set To Be United, What Does That Mean For Unscripted?

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

As Paramount prepares to take over Warner Bros., the likely merger of HBO Max and Paramount+ would dominate the unscripted television market, new research has found. Paramount CEO David Ellison revealed in March that he plans to merge the two streaming services giving a combined platform over 200M subscribers. There’s been much discussion what a […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/hbo-max-paramount-plus-combo-dominate-unscripted-market-1236888254/

Friday Squid Blogging: Giant Squid Live in the Waters of Western Australia

(date: 2026-05-08)

Evidence of them has been found by analyzing DNA in the seawater.

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.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/friday-squid-blogging-giant-squid-live-in-the-waters-of-western-australia.html

Upfronts 2026 Offer An Anxious Industry A Chance To Tune In For A Repeat; Here’s The Lineup & Schedule

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Like the masses curling up to watch Friends, advertisers are being invited by media companies and streamers to tune into a repeat at next week’s annual upfronts in New York. Over three short days, from Monday morning to Wednesday night, eight companies will razzle-dazzle advertisers in a reassuringly familiar set of theaters across Manhattan. NBCUniversal […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tv-upfronts-2026-schedule-what-to-expect-1236882246/

David Attenborough Turns 100: Wildlife Supremo Celebrated By King Charles III, Camila Cabello & Paddington Bear

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

The world is celebrating David Attenborough’s 100th birthday. Huge names as wide ranging as King Charles III, Leonardo DiCaprio, Camila Cabello and Paddington Bear have just delivered virtual birthday messages to Attenborough in a celebration of his life that took place at London’s Royal Albert Hall and aired on the BBC. Others to have sent […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/david-attenborough-100-birthday-tributes-king-charles-1236887641/

Writing Your First ARM Assembly Program (Step-by-Step)

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-22)

Introduction A couple of weeks ago, I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of blog topics. “Writing Your First ARM Assembly Program (Step-by-Step)” was one of the topics, so I asked Copilot embedded in Microsoft Word to write a blog post on this topic. Below is that blog post. It looks like Copilot combined my […]

https://smist08.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/writing-your-first-arm-assembly-program-step-by-step/

2026-05-07 Nein zur SVP Schweiz!

(date: 2026-05-08)

2026-05-07 Nein zur SVP Schweiz!

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

https://alexschroeder.ch/view/2026-05-07-nein-zur-svp-schweiz

Here’s a task where AI did a poor job

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-24)

In a previous post, I mentioned that I asked Claude to collect RSS feeds for US newspapers. Here was the prompt: Create a list of RSS feeds and save them using the following steps: * Review all of the newspapers linked from this page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_States ), identify if they have a website, and make a […]

https://andysylvester.com/2026/05/08/heres-a-task-where-ai-did-a-poor-job/

@Tomosino's Mastodon feed

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Is there still a demo scene? Those dudes were mind boggling back in the 90s

https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/116540932473306156

@Tomosino's Mastodon feed

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Please join me in this evening's epic scream into the void. We begin momentarily.

https://tilde.zone/@tomasino/116540928280733144

‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ Struts Past Original Movie At Global Box Office; Fashion Franchise Soon Passing $700M WW

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Today, Devil Wears Prada 2 will outstrip the original 2006’s global lifetime of $326.5M at the worldwide box office. Through yesterday, the reteam of director David Frankel, and stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, has grossed $324M worldwide with $101.8M in its first week stateside and $222.2M abroad in a 100% […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/devil-wears-prada-2-box-office-record-1236888479/

Guillermo Del Toro Teases His Adaptation Of Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Buried Giant’ At BFI Career Talk: “A Fascinatingly Difficult Stop-Motion Movie For Adults”

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Guillermo del Toro was awarded a BFI Fellowship, the British Film Institute’s highest honor, earlier this week in London. And to celebrate the award, the Mexican filmmaker has taken part in a series of talks and presentations across the British capital. This evening, he sat for an onstage career Q&A session with film historian and […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/guillermo-del-tor-kazuo-ishiguros-the-buried-giant-bfi-1236888463/

Meet Elaine Luria, Our Candidate Fighting To Turn VA-02 Blue

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-20)

The maps are now set in Virginia, and we have two seats we can flip. Elaine Luria is running in one, Shannon Taylor another. Let's rally for them today......

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/meet-elaine-luria-our-candidate-fighting

Emile Hirsch, Justin Long & Kevin Connolly Pic ‘Lice’ Acquired By Bob Yari’s Magenta Light Studios – Cannes

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

EXCLUSIVE: Bob Yari’s Magenta Light Studios has taken North American theatrical rights to the horror-thriller, Lice, for a Q1 2027 release. The feature directorial debut of filmmaker Jonathan Bensimon stars Emile Hirsch, Justin Long, and Kevin Connolly during a deadly outbreak of a parasite at a Long Island high school in the 1980s. When the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/emile-hirsch-justin-long-lice-movie-1236888428/

Reddit Pushes Web Visitors to App

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-26)

Nate Anderson: I’ve recently developed a daily habit—perhaps one I should cut back on—of visiting several subreddits to keep up on things like audio production and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I was surprised this weekend to suddenly find myself cut off; Reddit simply would not let me visit the site on my mobile […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/08/reddit-pushes-web-visitors-to-app/

Ask Jeeves Shuts Down

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-26)

Ask.com: As IAC continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com. After 30 years of answering the world's questions, Ask.com officially closed on May 1, 2026. Mr. Macintosh: Courtesy of the Internet archive, the image above is from the 1996 beta. This is what Ask […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/08/ask-jeeves-shuts-down/

Building Shopie for Mac With SwiftUI

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-26)

Paulo Andrade (Mastodon): Unlike my other apps, where I typically blend AppKit (or UIKit) with SwiftUI, Shopie is built entirely in SwiftUI. I wanted to keep it that way to maximize code reuse across iOS, iPadOS, and now macOS. This post explores how far SwiftUI can take you on the Mac in 2026, especially if […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/08/building-shopie-for-mac-with-swiftui/

Apple Sued for Removing Rave App From Store

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover: Rave, a cross-platform service that lets users watch movies and TV shows together, today filed a series of antitrust lawsuits against Apple after Apple removed the Rave app from the App Store in August 2025. According to Rave, Apple cited “unspecified allegations of fraud and vague concerns about content moderation” when pulling the […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/08/apple-sued-for-removing-rave-app-from-store/

Tony Amatullo Dies: TV Producer, Former Warner Bros. Production Exec Was 76

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-09)

Tony Amatullo, an associate producer on TV series including Fame and Miami Vice and later an exec producer on the Reelz 2013 series Beverly Hills Pawn as well as a production executive at Warner Bros., died Sunday, May 3, in New York City from acute myeloid leukemia after being diagnosed last August. He was 76. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tony-amatullo-dead-1236888365/

More stable kernels with partial Dirty Frag fixes

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-13)

Greg Kroah-Hartman has released the 6.1.171, 5.15.205, and 5.10.255 stable kernels, quickly followed by 6.1.172 and 5.15.206 kernels. This is another round of stable kernels to provide fixes for one of the CVEs ( CVE-2026-43284) assigned following the Dirty
Frag and Copy Fail 2 security disclosures. There is not, yet, a stable kernel with a fix for CVE-2026-43500, though a
patch to fix the second half is in the works.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071483/

What the Virginia ruling does — and does not — mean for 2026

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

The news is not good for Democrats, but they can still win the House.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/what-the-virginia-ruling-does-and

Virginia Supreme Court blocks Dems' map. Trump wins big in Indiana. Supreme Court preserves remote mifepristone access for now.

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Virginia Supreme Court blocks Democrats’ new maps

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/may-8-weekly-news-roundup

Community Office Hours: Contributor Spotlight on Bogomil Shopov

(date: 2026-05-08)

If you have ever used Thunderbird in Bulgarian, the subject of this month’s office hours is one of the contributors who made that possible! Office Hours hosts Heather and Monica have been lucky enough to chat with long-time localizer Bogamil Shopov at conferences like FOSDEM. Now, they’re sitting down to talk to him about how […]

The post Community Office Hours: Contributor Spotlight on Bogomil Shopov appeared first on The Thunderbird Blog.

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2026/05/community-office-hours-contributor-spotlight-on-bogomil-shopov/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-14)

OpenAI Codex arrives in the browser with new Chrome extension.

https://thenewstack.io/openai-codex-chrome-extension/

Insider Betting on Polymarket

(date: 2026-05-08)

Insider trading is rife on Polymarket:

Analysis by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a non-profit research and advocacy group, found that long-shot bets—defined as wagers of $2,500 or more at odds of 35 percent or less—on the platform had an average win rate of around 52 percent in markets on military and defense actions.

That compares with a win rate of 25 percent across all politics-focused markets and just 14 percent for all markets on the platform as a whole.

It is absolutely insane that this is legal. We already know how insider betting warps sports. Insider betting warping politics—and military actions—is orders of magnitude worse...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/insider-betting-on-polymarket.html

Barranco de Guayadeque

(date: 2026-05-08)

Due to some road closures I moved my openstreetmaps planned journey through the mountains to more cave houses up one day, and it was definitely worth it. The view is magnificent - squint, the ocean is right at the end -, if you leave early enough in April…

https://petermolnar.net/photo/barranco-de-guayadeque/

Virtual Civil Society Is Coming To China

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-26)

The post Virtual Civil Society Is Coming To China appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/virtual-civil-society-is-coming-to-china

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-22)

Lots of WordPress news showing up on wp.feedland.org as the core team gets version 7.0 out. And it's showing up as news on the site, and that's great. Let's make sure that by the time 8.0 comes around there will be lots of developers saying how it makes their editors or social web systems work soooo much better, better than anything else.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/08.html#a164319

[$] Forgejo "carrot disclosure" raises security questions

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-13)

An unusual, some might say hostile, approach to disclosing an alleged remote-code-execution (RCE) flaw in the Forgejo software-collaboration platform has sparked a multifaceted conversation. A so-called "carrot disclosure" in April has raised questions about the researcher's methods of unveiling a security problem, Forgejo's security policies, and the project's overall security posture.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071499/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-14)

Cadillac admits after going EV, you don't go back as sales top 100K.

https://electrek.co/2026/05/08/cadillac-admits-after-going-ev-you-dont-go-back-sales-top-100k/

Trump's Failed War Keeps Failing, His Tariffs Are Struck Down (Again), VA Supreme Court Overturns An Election

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-19)

Pissed? Let's elect Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin to the Georgia Supreme Court on May 19th

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/trumps-failed-war-keeps-failing-his

Marianne Boruch has won the $100,000 Jackson Poetry Prize.

(date: 2026-05-08)

This week, Poets & Writers awarded their annual Jackson Poetry Prize, which “recognizes an American poet of exceptional talent,” and comes with a purse of $100,000, to Chicago-born poet Marianne Boruch. This year’s judges were Major Jackson, Cole Swensen, and Afaa Michael

https://lithub.com/marianne-boruch-has-won-the-100000-jackson-poetry-prize/

Reading Brigid by Kim Curran.

(date: 2026-05-08)

Reading Brigid by Kim Curran.

https://adactio.com/notes/22559

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-08:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

7 new and 19 updated places.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/resenas-el-diablo-viste-a-la-moda-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resenas-el-diablo-viste-a-la-moda-2

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

"main" branch:

10b9a25d - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

86ec6d3a - updated gis package

1c9632a5 - updated data quality

7b4e395d - updated bibliography

c722e0dd - updated indexes

0ab13c81 - updated sidebar

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

448b74f1 - updated geojson and names index

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

19f42f3b - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116539556153297364

Unscrewing lightbulbs

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-20)

Giving lightbulbs a MAC address was a mistake that I’m living with. “I’m literally unscrewing lightbulbs to renew their DHCP lease @dbushell.com - Bluesky”Instead of enjoying the bank holiday Monday I updated my homelab software. I was ‘inspired’ by the Copy Fail Linux bug to run full distro […]

https://dbushell.com/2026/05/08/self-hosted-update-spring-2026/

Agents and ROI

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Remember that MIT study that showed that the ROI for generative AI wasn’t really there for most businesses?

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/agents-and-roi

Inside the Truth Booth

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

A scroll through some highlights of the Truth Tellers Summit

https://tinabrown.substack.com/p/inside-the-truth-booth

Notable links: May 8, 2026

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Building a civic information economy, not cultures of extraction.

https://werd.io/notable-links-may-8-2026/

Issue 105 – The new boogeyman

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

A crypto billionaire who escaped fraud allegations after investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the Trump family’s crypto projects is now accusing them of fraud

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-105/

HomePod mini feels like magic, but it's just good timing

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

HomePod mini stereo pair demonstration with iPhone

Apple introduced the HomePod mini six years ago, in 2020.

I'm not one into smart speakers, but the feature that made me take a closer look was their ability to form stereo pairs, without any direct wired connection.

I know there are other speaker manufacturers with wireless speakers, but to my knowledge, Apple was just using AirPlay over WiFi... so how does it work?

Through the magic of buying two HomePods mini (pictured above), I found out. A video detailing the process is embedded below:

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/homepod-mini-feels-like-magic--but-it-s-just-good-timing/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-22)

Said to Claude: "Here's something to add to the list of things for you to do -- just post a checkmark to acknowledge. 'I'll wait' makes me feel bad because I know you're a piece of software, and as a developer of systems I know how you'll wait very well (Iearned how it works in the mid-late 70s). So just show a checkmark and we're cool." It responded with a checkmark. I said it could be bold. I felt a little bad because I had insulted the little fella.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/08.html#a134526

killswitch for short-term emergency vulnerability mitigation

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-13)

It seems that we are in for an extended period of the disclosure of vulnerabilities before fixes become available. One possible way of coping with this flood might be the killswitch proposal from Sasha Levin. In short, killswitch can immediately disable access to specific functionality in a running kernel, essentially blasting a vulnerable path (and its associated functionality) out of existence until a fix can be installed. "For most users, the cost of 'this socket family stops working for the day' is much smaller than the cost of running a known vulnerable kernel until the fix land."

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071861/

Duncan Sheik Manga Musical ‘Memoirs Of Amorous Gentlemen’ Sets Off Broadway Fall Premiere

(date: 2026-05-08)

Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen, Duncan Sheik’s new musical based on the Manga graphic novel, will premiere Off Broadway this fall, producers announced today. The production, featuring music and lyrics by Sheik, will open at a new Chelsea neighborhood venue called The Night Egg, named after a French brothel in the Japanese novel. The venue is […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/duncan-sheik-manga-memoirs-amorous-gentlemen-musical-1236887694/

[$] A 2026 DAMON update

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-12)

The kernel's DAMON subsystem provides user-space monitoring and management of system memory. DAMON is developing rapidly, so an update on its progress has become a regular feature of the annual Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. This tradition continued at the 2026 gathering with an update from DAMON creator SeongJae Park covering a long list of new capabilities — tiering, data attributes monitoring, transparent huge pages, and more — being added to this subsystem.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071256/

‘The Walking Dead’ Rights Near Sale; AMC Global Angling For Co-Exclusive, But CEO Kristin Dolan Says “Large Players” In Mix

(date: 2026-05-08)

AMC Global Media is nearing a deal for the next round of rights to The Walking Dead, with the company looking to keep a share of the rights and several large players are in pursuit. The flagship iteration of the franchise, a cornerstone for the company, had its finale in 2022. It remains popular on […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/the-walking-dead-rights-amc-global-1236887691/

Security updates for Friday

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-12)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (libsoup and mingw-libtiff), Debian (apache2, chromium, lcms2, libreoffice, and prosody), Fedora (openssl and perl-Starman), Oracle (git-lfs, libsoup, and perl-XML-Parser), Slackware (libgpg, mozilla, and php), SUSE (389-ds, cairo, cf-cli, chromedriver, cri-tools, freeipmi, gnutls, grafana, java-11-openjdk, java-17-openjdk, jetty-minimal, libmariadbd-devel, librsvg, mesa, mozjs52, mutt, nix, opencryptoki, python-Django, python-django, python-pytest, rmt-server, thunderbird, traefik, webkit2gtk3, wireshark, and xen), and Ubuntu (civicrm, dpkg, htmlunit, lcms2, libpng1.6, linux, linux-*, linux-azure, linux-azure-fips, linux-raspi, linux-xilinx, lua5.1, nasm, opam, openexr, openjpeg2, owslib, postfix, postfixadmin, and vim).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071859/

Freakend

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-15)

Hard to learn the language, though. This might help. Wall Street Journal: The Most Coveted Cosmetic Enhancement in Asia Right Now: Elf Ears. Down and out While finals week at countless schools has been disrupted by a ransomware cyberattack on Canvas, more than 21,000 students are graduating from Indiana University this weekend. About half of those will do […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/08/freakend/

Cheryl Lynch Exiting Sony Pictures Television As International Business Affairs Shifts From L.A. To London

(date: 2026-05-08)

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Television (SPT) veteran Cheryl Lynch is exiting this summer as the international production group shifts business affairs from L.A. to London. The news comes a few weeks after Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) boss Ravi Ahuja commenced a months-long layoffs process that will impact a few hundred of its 12,000 global staff. As […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cheryl-lynch-exits-sony-pictures-television-business-affairs-1236887671/

Pluralistic: Lee Lai's "Cannon" (08 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links Lee Lai's "Cannon": A beautiful, subtle, long-lingering tale of duty, sex, and working for a shitty restaurant boss. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Ebay paying to run newspaper classifieds; Chuck Tingle v Sad Puppies; FBI v TOR; Daycare v Goldman Sachs; Scammers re-used covid nose-swabs; "The Adventures of Mary Darling." Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. Lee Lai's "Cannon" (permalink) Lee Lai's Cannon is an extraordinary graphic novel that turns out a beautifully told, subtle and ambiguous tale about Lucy (Lucy -> "Loose" -> "Loose Cannon" -> "Cannon"), a queer Chinese-Canadian chef at a Montreal restaurant whose messy family, work, personal and sex life are all falling apart in ways that are powerfully engrossing: https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/cannon/ This is the second outing from Lee Lai, whose debut, Stone Fruit, swept many of the field's awards and won major critical acclaim. When a debut comes out that strong, it's sometimes followed with the dread "second book syndrome" in which a creator who has poured everything they ever thought about putting in a book now has to write another book, from scratch. But Cannon avoids any hint of that second book malaise; rather, it is jammed with dense and densely connected ideas, character beats and graphic signifiers that are brilliant in so many ways: https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/stone-fruit Cannon is a thirtysomething chef in a Montreal restaurant run by Guy, an instantly recognizable hustler who praises Cannon for her culinary abilities and her pliability, talks over her, demands the impossible from her kitchen colleagues and periodically breaks out into soliloquies about his own martyrdom to the hardships of entrepreneurship. Cannon cares for her grandfather, who has been abandoned by her mother, who has been traumatized by the abuse he meted out to her during her upbringing. Now in decline and unable to care for himself, Cannon's grandfather continues his abusive ways, scaring off all of his home help, which means Cannon must devote even more time to him (she can't bring herself to put him in a care facility that will inevitably be full of white people who don't speak Chinese). These familial duties leave Cannon isolated, with only one important friendship: Trish, an up-and-coming novelist whom Cannon has known since their school days in Montreal's suburban Eastern Townships, where they were the only queer Chinese girls either of them knew. Trish owes her professional acclaim to her own neurotic social instincts, which she polishes on the page with the help of an old writing teacher who serves as her mentor. Trish may be Cannon's oldest and best friend, but she's not actually a very good friend, and now that they're both in their 30s, neither Cannon nor Trish is entirely sure where they'd make new friends. This is where Cannon starts, as Cannon tries to resolve all these bad situations, each of which is only worsening. Trish disapproves of Cannon's sexual affair with the new front-of-house woman at the restaurant – even as Trish begins a friends-with-benefits arrangement with a guy from her fitness club who clearly wants more than the odd tumble. Guy the restaurateur positions Cannon as his hatchet-woman and confidante, driving conflict in the kitchen that she is meant to hold the bag for. Her grandfather enters a terminal decline, and still her mother won't answer her calls and texts about it. And then, Cannon discovers that Trish has violated her in a way that is intimate and appalling. These may sound like the beats that you'd find in a melodramatic soap opera, but Cannon's affect is so stoic, and her interiority is so beautifully and inventively depicted – Lai deploying the unique strengths of the graphic novel form here with total virtuosity – that the vibe is more David Lynch than Dallas. The result is something that's beautiful, sharp, critical and lingering. Long after I closed the cover, I found myself mulling over the delicate ways that Lai raised the contradictions, sorrows and beauty of queer love, racial identity, camaraderie, self-control, and self-indulgence. Lai's characters have no answers, only questions that can never be fully resolved. Instead, these questions are the defining puzzles, defeats and triumphs of their lives. It's a magnificent, sensitive and innovative work of storytelling. Hey look at this (permalink) Here’s Every Single Death Linked to Immigration Enforcement Since Trump’s Raids Began in 2025 https://lataco.com/ice-death-tracker We only win when we’re singing https://www.absurdintelligence.com/we-only-win-when-were-singing/ Native Apps Should Be Avoided Whenever Possible https://nooneshappy.com/article/native-apps-should-be-avoided-whenever-possible/ The Last Comic https://www.thelastcomic.com Heartland Institute Podcast Questions Whether All Americans ‘Should Have the Right to Vote’ https://www.desmog.com/2026/05/05/heartland-institute-limiting-voting-rights-lee-zeldin/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Ebay paying newspapers to run listings in the classifieds section https://web.archive.org/web/20010506063910/http://www.business2.com/news/2001/05/ebaypapers.htm #20yrsago Airline spoons of the world photo-gallery https://www.flickr.com/photos/airlinespoons #20yrsago Coach passengers arrested for moving to first class http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4980364.stm #15yrsago Hidden cognitive costs of doing stuff https://web.archive.org/web/20110507154653/https://us.lifehacker.com/5798202/the-cognitive-cost-of-doing-things #15yrsago Syria’s man-in-the-middle attack on Facebook https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/syrian-man-middle-against-facebook #10yrsago Weird erotica author who was dragged into Hugo Awards mess pulls off epic troll https://web.archive.org/web/20160506175535/http://www.dailydot.com/lol/chuck-tingle-trolling-hugo-zoe-quinn-genius/ #10yrsago FBI has been harassing a Tor developer since 2015, won’t tell her or her lawyer why https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html #10yrsago 2,000 US doctors endorse Sanders’ single-payer healthcare proposal https://web.archive.org/web/20160506095034/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/05/2000-doctors-say-bernie-sanders-has-the-right-approach-to-health-care/ #10yrsago Community college evicts daycare center to make room for Goldman Sachs https://www.golocalprov.com/news/daycare-center-being-moved-out-of-ccri-for-goldman-sachs #10yrsago Data-driven look at America’s brutal, racist debt-collection machine https://www.propublica.org/article/so-sue-them-what-weve-learned-about-the-debt-collection-lawsuit-machine #10yrsago Homeland Security wants to subpoena Techdirt over the identity of a hyperbolic commenter https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/06/homeland-security-wants-to-subpoena-us-over-clearly-hyperbolic-techdirt-comment/ #5yrsago NY AG attributes Net Neutrality fraud to telcos https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#pais-lies #5yrsago Ed-tech apps spy on kids https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#i-spy #5yrsago Scammers recycled covid nose-swabs https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/06/boogeration/#up-your-nose #1yrago The Adventures of Mary Darling https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/06/nevereverland/#lesser-ormond-street Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/08/gung-gung/

Former AMPAS Prez Janet Yang & Rai Cinema Among Producers Of Borneo Rainforest Doc ‘Shinta’ — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-08)

EXCLUSIVE: Former AMPAS President and The People vs. Larry Flynt producer Janet Yang is among the team behind new environmental doc Shinta, about a young Dayak girl and Indigenous activist Emanuela Shinta on a journey through Borneo’s rainforest. The film is developed, written and produced by Michela Scolari (Paolo Rossi: The Heart Of A Champion) and […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/borneo-rainforest-documentary-shinta-janet-yang-rai-cinema-1236887681/

International Insider: Ted Turner’s Legacy; Cannes Scene Setter; Prime Video India

(date: 2026-05-08)

Welcome back to Insider City, traveller. Jesse Whittock on the keyboard today to walk you through the biggest TV and film news from around the globe. Sign up to the newsletter here. Ted Turner’s Legacy “Generational entrepreneur”: The passing of Ted Turner aged 87 marks an historic moment for international television. Without the American media […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/ted-turner-legacy-cannes-deadline-international-insider-1236884123/

Sarah Gadon & Tom Hughes To Lead ‘Iron Ribbon’, Story Of Notorious Paris Crime-Of-Passion Case — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-08)

EXCLUSVE: Sarah Gadon (Alias Grace), Tom Hughes (Victoria), Robert Kazinsky (Pacific Rim), and Tamer Hassan (Layer Cake) have been set to lead Iron Ribbon, a UK independent feature based on the true story of Polish actress Stanisława “Stasia” Umińska, whose 1920s Paris trial became a landmark crime-of-passion case. Gadon will play Stanisława “Stasia” Umińska, “an […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sarah-gadon-tom-hughes-iron-ribbon-paris-crime-passion-case-1236887670/

‘Popeye The Slayer Man 2’ Underway With Daniel Baldwin & Avaryana Rose Joining Cast & First Look Revealed

(date: 2026-05-08)

EXCLUSIVE: Popeye The Slayer Man 2, the sequel to the public domain horror released last year, has begun filming in upstate New York with new cast additions including Daniel Baldwin (Homicide: Life on the Street) and Avaryana Rose (The Caretaker). The film concerns Popeye, the legendary sailor man whose consumption of contaminated spinach in the first film made […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/popeye-the-slayer-man-2-starts-daniel-baldwin-avaryana-rose-1236887662/

The simple statistical error Republican Supreme Court justices used to gut the VRA

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Court says vote dilution can be proven only after "controlling" racial polarization for partisan polarization. This is a nonsensical and impossible test

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-08-simple-math-error-scotus-callais-vra

Louis Paxton’s ‘The Incomer’ To Open Edinburgh International Film Festival

(date: 2026-05-08)

The 2026 Edinburgh International Film Festival will open with The Incomer, the debut feature from Edinburgh-born filmmaker Louis Paxton. Focus and Universal have taken international rights on the title, which debuted at Sundance. The film stars Domhnall Gleeson (Ex Machina, The Paper), Gayle Rankin (House of The Dragon, Glow), and Grant O’Rourke (Outlander). The wider […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/louis-paxton-the-incomer-edinburgh-film-festival-2026-1236887624/

Eric Cantona Talks Alex Ferguson In First Footage From Cannes-Bound Documentary: “I Was Well Protected By Him…We Loved Him”

(date: 2026-05-08)

EXCLUSIVE: Here is first footage of Cannes Film Festival-bound documentary Cantona, about soccer great turned actor Eric Cantona. In the clip, Cantona and legendary Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson touch on their relationship. Cantona admits he was “well protected” by the Scot, and that the players would “give their lives for him”. The Cannes Special […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/eric-cantona-talks-alex-ferguson-first-footage-new-film-1236887650/

On Men

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Part 1

https://dbarkhuff.substack.com/p/on-men

Nicholas Pinnock Joins Lorna Tucker’s Feature Debut ‘Bare’ — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-08)

EXCLUSIVE: Nicholas Pinnock has signed on to join Florence Hunt, Isla Fisher, and Colin Firth in Lorna Tucker’s feature debut Bare. Bare is described as “a visceral coming-of-age survival story set on the streets of London, where a young runaway called Sophie finds her tribe amidst the darkness and begins to reclaim her sense of […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/nicholas-pinnock-lorna-tucker-bare-1236887651/

Unlocked Repost: Curing U.S. Health Care, Part I

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-22)

America doesn’t have to be like this

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/unlocked-repost-curing-us-health

Lit Hub Daily: May 8, 2026

(date: 2026-05-08)

Irene Zabytko recounts reimagining The Canterbury Tales in post-Soviet Ukraine. | Lit Hub Craft What our Google searches reveal about humanity and grief. | Lit Hub Technology Think it’s hard to write stories for adults? Try writing stories for children.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-8-2026/

Stephen Miller's closed system of white supremacy

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Won't somebody think of the white guys?

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/stephen-miller-america-first-legal-trump

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-14)

How to Never Hit Claude’s Usage Limit Again: 3 Proven Methods.

https://medium.com/no-time/how-to-never-hit-claudes-usage-limit-again-3-proven-methods-e248208f5b0a

Four stable kernels with partial fixes for Dirty Frag

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-12)

Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 7.0.5, 6.18.28, 6.12.87, and 6.6.138 stable kernels. These kernels contain a partial fix for the Dirty
Frag and Copy Fail 2 security flaws. Kroah-Hartman has confirmed that a second patch is required, but it is still in development and has not yet been merged.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071775/

Netflix Turns Attention To ‘Florida’ In Sequel To Norwegian Disaster Series ‘La Palma’

(date: 2026-05-08)

Netflix is returning to hit Norwegian disaster series La Palma. The streamer has greenlit a mini-series sequel titled Florida for the show that is currently ranking in the top 10 of Netflix’s non-English language charts. La Palma stars Severance breakout Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Thea Sofie Loch Næss and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal. Partly based on the […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/netflix-making-la-palma-sequel-florida-disaster-series-1236887511/

Adaptive Parallel Reasoning: The Next Paradigm in Efficient Inference Scaling

(date: 2026-05-08)

Adaptive Parallel Reasoning overview

Overview of adaptive parallel reasoning.

What if a reasoning model could decide for itself when to decompose and parallelize independent subtasks, how many concurrent threads to spawn, and how to coordinate them based on the problem at hand? We provide a detailed analysis of recent progress in the field of parallel reasoning, especially Adaptive Parallel Reasoning.

Disclosure: this post is part landscape survey, part perspective on adaptive parallel reasoning. One of the authors (Tony Lian) co-led ThreadWeaver ( Lian et al., 2025), one of the methods discussed below. The authors aim to present each approach on its own terms.

Motivation

Recent progress in LLM reasoning capabilities has been largely driven by inference-time scaling, in addition to data and parameter scaling ( OpenAI et al., 2024; DeepSeek-AI et al., 2025). Models that explicitly output reasoning tokens (through intermediate steps, backtracking, and exploration) now dominate math, coding, and agentic benchmarks. These behaviors allow models to explore alternative hypotheses, correct earlier mistakes, and synthesize conclusions rather than committing to a single solution ( Wen et al., 2025).

The problem is that sequential reasoning scales linearly with the amount of exploration. Scaling sequential reasoning tokens comes at a cost, as models risk exceeding effective context limits ( Hsieh et al., 2024). The accumulation of intermediate exploration paths makes it challenging for the model to disambiguate amongst distractors when attending to information in its context, leading to a degradation of model performance, also known as context-rot ( Hong, Troynikov and Huber, 2025). Latency also grows proportionally with reasoning length. For complex tasks requiring millions of tokens for exploration and planning, it’s not uncommon to see users wait tens of minutes or even hours for an answer ( Qu et al., 2025). As we continue to scale along the output sequence length dimension, we also make inference slower, less reliable, and more compute-intensive. Parallel reasoning has emerged as a natural solution. Instead of exploring paths sequentially ( Gandhi et al., 2024) and accumulating the context window at every step, we can allow models to explore multiple threads independently (threads don’t rely on each other’s context) and concurrently (threads can be executed at the same time).

Figure 1: Sequential vs. Parallel Reasoning

Figure 1: Sequential vs. Parallel Reasoning

Over recent years, a growing body of work has explored this idea across synthetic settings (e.g., the Countdown game ( Katz, Kokel and Sreedharan, 2025)), real-world math problems, and general reasoning tasks.

From Fixed Parallelism to Adaptive Control

Existing approaches show that parallel reasoning can help, but most of them still decide the parallel structure outside the model rather than letting the model choose it.

Simple fork-and-join.

Self-consistency/Majority Voting — independently sample multiple complete reasoning traces, extract final answer from each, and return the most common one ( Wang et al., 2023).
Best-of-N (BoN) — similar to self-consistency, but uses a trained verifier to select the best solution instead of using majority voting ( Stiennon et al., 2022).
Although simple to implement, these methods often incur redundant computation across branches since trajectories are sampled independently.

Heuristic-based structured search.

Tree / Graph / Skeleton of Thoughts — a family of structured decomposition methods that explores multiple alternative “thoughts” using known search algorithms (BFS/DFS) and prunes via LLM-based evaluation ( Yao et al., 2023; Besta et al., 2024; Ning et al., 2024).
Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) — estimates node values by sampling random rollouts and expands the search tree with Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) style exploration-exploitation ( Xie et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2024).
These methods improve upon simple fork-and-join by decomposing tasks into non-overlapping subtasks; however, they require prior knowledge about the decomposition strategy, which is not always known.

Recent variants.

ParaThinker — trains a model to run in two fixed stages: first generating multiple reasoning threads in parallel, then synthesizing them. They introduce trainable control tokens ( <think_i>) and thought-specific positional embeddings to enforce independence during reasoning and controlled integration during summarization via a two-phase attention mask ( Wen et al., 2025).
GroupThink — multiple parallel reasoning threads can see each other’s partial progress at token level and adapt mid-generation. Unlike prior concurrent methods that operate on independent requests, GroupThink runs a single LLM producing multiple interdependent reasoning trajectories simultaneously ( Hsu et al., 2025).
Hogwild! Inference — multiple parallel reasoning threads share KV cache and decide how to decompose tasks without an explicit coordination protocol. Workers generate concurrently into a shared attention cache using RoPE to stitch together individual KV blocks in different orders without recomputation ( Rodionov et al., 2025).

Figure 2: Various Strategies for Parallel Reasoning

Figure 2: Various Strategies for Parallel Reasoning

The methods above share a common limitation: the decision to parallelize, the level of parallelization, and the search strategy are imposed on the model, regardless of whether the problem actually benefits from it. However, different problems need different levels of parallelization, and that is something critical to the effectiveness of parallelization. For example, a framework that applies the same parallel structure to “What’s 25+42?” and “What’s the smallest planar region in which you can continuously rotate a unit-length line segment by 180°?” is wasting compute on the former and probably using the wrong decomposition strategy for the latter. In the approaches described above, the model is not taught this adaptive behavior. A natural question arises: What if the model could decide for itself when to parallelize, how many threads to spawn, and how to coordinate them based on the problem at hand?

Adaptive Parallel Reasoning (APR) answers this question by making parallelization part of the model’s generated control flow. Formally defined, adaptivity refers to the model’s ability to dynamically allocate compute between parallel and serial operations at inference time. In other words, a model with adaptive parallel reasoning (APR) capability is taught to coordinate its control flow — when to generate sequences sequentially vs. in parallel.

It’s important to note that the concept of adaptive parallel reasoning was introduced by the work Learning Adaptive Parallel Reasoning with Language Models ( Pan et al., 2025), but is a paradigm rather than a specific method. Throughout this post, APR refers to the paradigm, while “ the APR method” denotes the specific instantiation from Pan et al. (2025).

This shift matters for three reasons. Compared to Tree-of-Thoughts, APR doesn’t need domain-specific heuristics for decomposition. During RL, the model learns general decomposition strategies from trial and error. In fact, models discover useful parallelization patterns, such as running the next step along with the self-verification of a previous step, or hedging a primary approach with a backup one, in an emergent manner that would be difficult to hand-design ( Yao et al., 2023; Wu et al., 2025; Zheng et al., 2025).

Compared to BoN, APR avoids redundant computation. APR models have control over what each parallel thread will do before branching out. Therefore, APR can learn to produce a set of unique, non-overlapping subtasks before assigning them to independent threads ( Wang et al., 2023; Stiennon et al., 2022; Pan et al., 2025; Yang et al., 2025).

Compared to non-adaptive approaches, APR can choose not to parallelize. Adaptive models can adjust the level of parallelization to match the complexity of the problem against the complexity and overhead of parallelization ( Lian et al., 2025).

In practice, this is implemented by having the model output special tokens that control when to reason in parallel versus sequentially. Below is a condensed ThreadWeaver-style trace: two outlines and two paths under a block, then the threads agree on a single boxed answer.

Figure 3: Example of an Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Trajectory from ThreadWeaver, manually condensed for ease of illustration.

Figure 3: Example of an Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Trajectory from ThreadWeaver, manually condensed for ease of illustration.

Figure 4: Special Tokens Variants across Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Papers

Figure 4: Special Tokens Variants across Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Papers

Inference Systems for Adaptive Parallelism

How do we actually execute parallel branches? We take inspiration from computer systems, and specifically, multithreading and multiprocessing. Most of this work can be viewed as leveraging a fork-join design.

At inference time, we are effectively asking the model to perform a map-reduce operation:

Fork the problem into subtasks/threads, process them concurrently
Join them into a final answer

Figure 5: Fork-join Inference Design

Figure 5: Fork-join Inference Design

Specifically, the model will encounter a list of subtasks. It will then prefill each of the subtasks and send them off as independent requests for the inference engine to process. These threads then decode concurrently until they hit an end token or exceed max length. This process blocks until all threads finish decoding and then aggregates the results. This is common across various adaptive parallel reasoning approaches. However, one issue arises during aggregation: the content generated in branches cannot be easily aggregated at the KV cache level. This is because tokens in independent threads start at identical position IDs, resulting in encoding overlap and non-standard behavior when merging KV cache back together. Similarly, since independent threads do not attend to each other, their concatenated KV cache results in a non-causal attention pattern, which the base model has not seen during training.

To address this issue, the field splits into two schools of thought on how to execute the aggregation process, defined by whether they modify the inference engine or work around it.

Multiverse modifies the inference engine to reuse KV cache across the join. Before taking a deeper look into Multiverse ( Yang et al., 2025)’s memory management, let’s first understand how KV cache is handled up until the “join” phase. Notice how each of the independent threads share the prefix sequence, i.e., the list of subtasks. Without optimization, each thread needs to prefill and recompute the KV cache for the prefix sequence. However, this redundancy can be avoided with SGLang’s RadixAttention ( Sheng et al., 2023), which organizes multiple requests into a radix tree, a trie (prefix tree) with sequences of elements of varying lengths instead of single elements. This way, the only new KV cache entries are those from independent thread generation.

Figure 6: RadixAttention’s KV Cache Management Strategy

Figure 6: RadixAttention’s KV Cache Management Strategy

Now, if everything went well, all the independent threads have come back from the inference engine. Our goal is now to figure out how to synthesize them back into a single sequence to continue decoding for next steps. It turns out, we can reuse the KV cache of these independent threads during the synthesis stage. Specifically, Multiverse ( Yang et al., 2025), Parallel-R1 ( Zheng et al., 2025), and NPR ( Wu et al., 2025) modify the inference engine to copy over the KV cache generated by each thread and edits the page table so that it stitches together non-contiguous memory blocks into a single KV cache sequence. This avoids the redundant computation of a second prefill and reuses existing KV cache as much as possible. However, this has several major limitations.

First, this approach requires modifying the inference engine to perform non-standard memory handling, which can result in unexpected behaviors. Specifically, since the synthesis request references KV cache from previous requests, it creates fragility in the system and the possibility of bad pointers. Another request can come in and evict the referenced KV cache before the synthesis request completes, requiring it to halt and trigger a re-prefilling of the previous thread request. This problem has led the Multiverse researchers ( Yang et al., 2025) to limit the batch size that the inference engine can handle, which restricts throughput.

Figure 7: KV Cache “Stitching” During Multiverse Inference

Figure 7: KV Cache “Stitching” During Multiverse Inference

Second, this approach modifies how models see the sequence, which creates a distributional shift that models are not pretrained on, therefore requiring more extensive training to align behavior. Specifically, when we stitch together KV cache this way, we create a sequence with non-standard position encoding. During independent-thread generation, all threads started at the same position index and attended to the prior subtasks, NOT each other. So when the threads merge back, the resulting KV cache has a non-standard positional encoding and does not use causal attention. Therefore, this approach requires extensive training to align the model to this new behavior. To address this, Multiverse ( Yang et al., 2025) and related works apply a modified attention mask during training to prevent independent threads from attending to each other, aligning the training and inference behaviors.

Figure 8: Multiverse’s Attention Mask

Figure 8: Multiverse’s Attention Mask

With these issues arising from non-standard KV cache management, can we try an approach without engine modifications?

ThreadWeaver keeps the inference engine unchanged and moves orchestration to the client. ThreadWeaver ( Lian et al., 2025) treats parallel inference purely as a client-side problem. The “Fork” process is nearly identical to Multiverse’s, but the join phase handles memory very differently as it does NOT modify engine internals. Instead, the client concatenates all text outputs from independent branches into one contiguous sequence. Then, the engine performs a second prefill to generate the KV cache for the conclusion generation step. While this introduces computational redundancy that Multiverse tries to avoid, the cost of prefill is significantly lower than decoding. In addition, this does not require special attention handling during inference, as the second prefill uses causal attention (threads see each other), making it easier to adapt sequential autoregressive models for this task.

Figure 9: ThreadWeaver’s Prefill and Decode Strategy

Figure 9: ThreadWeaver’s Prefill and Decode Strategy

How should we train a model to learn this behavior? Naively, for each parallel trajectory, we can break it down into multiple sequential pieces following our inference pattern. For instance, we would train the model to output the subtasks given prompt, individual threads given prompt+subtask assignment, and conclusion given prompt+subtasks+corresponding threads. However, this seems redundant and not compute efficient. Can we do better? Turns out, yes. As in ThreadWeaver ( Lian et al., 2025), we can organize a parallel trajectory into a prefix-tree (trie), flatten it into a single sequence, and apply an ancestor-only attention mask during training (not inference!).

Figure 10: Building the Prefix-tree and Flattening into a single training sequence

Figure 10: Building the Prefix-tree and Flattening into a single training sequence

Specifically, we apply masking and position IDs to mimic the inference behavior, such that each thread is only conditioned on the prompt+subtasks, without ever attending to sibling threads or the final conclusion.

The engine-agnostic design makes adoption easy since you don’t need to figure out a separate hosting method and can leverage existing hardware infra. It also gets better as existing inference engines get better. What’s more, with an engine-agnostic method, we can serve a hybrid model that switches between sequential and parallel thinking modes easily.

Training Models to Use Parallelism

Once the inference path exists, the next problem is teaching a model to use it. Demonstrations are needed because the model must learn to output special tokens that orchestrate control flow. We found the instruction-following capabilities of base models insufficient for generating parallel threads.

An interesting question here is: does SFT training induce a fundamental reasoning capability for parallel execution that was previously absent, or does it merely align the model’s existing pre-trained capabilities to a specific control-flow token syntax. Typical wisdom is SFT teaches new knowledge; but contrary to common belief, some papers—notably Parallel-R1 ( Zheng et al., 2025) and NPR ( Wu et al., 2025)—argue that their SFT demonstrations simply induce format following (i.e., how to structure parallel requests). We leave this as future work.

Figure 11: Sources of Parallelization Demonstration Data

Figure 11: Sources of Parallelization Demonstration Data

Demonstrations teach the syntax of parallel control flow, but they do not fully solve the incentive problem. In an ideal world, we only need to reward the outcome accuracy, and the parallelization pattern emerges naturally given that it learns to output special tokens through SFT, similar to the emergence of long CoT. However, researchers ( Zheng et al., 2025) observed that this is not enough, and we do in fact need parallelization incentives. The question then becomes, how do we tell when the model is parallelizing effectively?

Structure-only rewards are too easy to game. Naively, we can give a reward for the number of threads spawned. But models can spawn many short, useless threads to hack the reward. Okay, that doesn’t work. How about a binary reward for simply using parallel structure correctly? This partially solves the issue of models spamming new threads, but models still learn to spawn threads when they don’t need to. The authors of Parallel-R1 ( Zheng et al., 2025) introduced an alternating-schedule, only rewarding parallel structure 20% of the time, which successfully increased the use of parallel structure (13.6% → 63%), but had little impact on overall accuracy.

With this structure-only approach, we might be drifting away from our original goal of increasing accuracy and reducing latency… How can we optimize for the Pareto frontier directly? Accuracy is simple — we just look at the outcome. How about latency?

Efficiency rewards need to track the critical path. In sequential-only trajectories, we can measure latency based on the total number of tokens generated. To extend this to parallel trajectories, we can focus on the critical path, or the longest sequence of tokens that are causally dependent, as this directly determines our end-to-end generation time (i.e., wall-clock time). As an example, when there are two sections with five threads each, the critical path will go through the longest thread from the first parallel section, then any sequential tokens, then the longest thread from the second parallel section, and so on until the end of sequence.

Figure 12: Critical Path Length Illustration

Figure 12: Critical Path Length Illustration

The goal is to minimize the length of the critical path. Simultaneously, we would still like the model to be spending tokens exploring threads in parallel. To combine the two objectives, we can focus on making the critical path a smaller fraction of the total tokens spent. Authors of ThreadWeaver ( Lian et al., 2025) framed the parallelization reward as $1 - L_{\mathrm{critical}} / L_{\mathrm{total}}$, which is 0 for a sequential trajectory, and increases linearly as the critical path gets smaller compared to the total tokens generated.

Parallel efficiency should be gated by correctness. Intuitively, when multiple trajectories are correct we should assign more reward to the trajectories that are more efficient at parallelization. But how about when they are all incorrect? Should we assign any reward at all? Probably not.

To formalize this, $R = R_{\mathrm{correctness}} + R_{\mathrm{parallel}}$. Assuming binary outcome correctness, this can be written as $R = \mathbf{1}(\text{Correctness}) + \mathbf{1}(\text{Correctness}) \times (\text{some parallelization metric})$. This way, a model only gets a parallelization reward when it answers correctly, since we don’t want to pose parallelization constraints on the model if it couldn’t answer the question correctly.

Figure 13: Differences in Reward Designs Across Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Works

Figure 13: Differences in Reward Designs Across Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Works

Evaluation and Open Questions

When all is said and done, how well do these adaptive parallel methods actually perform? Well…this is a hard question, as they differ in model choice and metrics. The model selection depends on the training method, SFT problem difficulty, and sequence length. When running SFT on difficult datasets like s1k, which contains graduate-level math and science problems, researchers chose a large base model (Qwen2.5 32B for Multiverse ( Yang et al., 2025)) to capture the complex reasoning structure behind the solution trajectories. When running RL, researchers chose a small, non-CoT, instruct model (4B, 8B) due to compute cost constraints.

Figure 14: Difference in Model Choice Across Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Papers

Figure 14: Difference in Model Choice Across Adaptive Parallel Reasoning Papers

Each paper also offers a slightly different interpretation about how adaptive parallel reasoning contributes to the research field. They optimize for different theoretical objectives, so they use slightly different sets of metrics:

Multiverse and ThreadWeaver ( Yang et al., 2025; Lian et al., 2025) aim to deliver sequential-AR-model-level accuracy at faster speeds. Multiverse shows that APR models can achieve higher accuracy under the same fixed context window, while ThreadWeaver shows that the APR model achieves shorter end-to-end token latency (critical path length) while getting comparable accuracy.
NPR ( Wu et al., 2025) treats sequential fallback as a failure mode and optimizes for 100% Genuine Parallelism Rate, measured as the ratio of parallel tokens to total tokens.
Parallel-R1 ( Zheng et al., 2025) does not focus on end-to-end latency and instead optimizes for exploration diversity, presenting APR as a form of mid-training exploration scaffold that provides a performance boost after RL.

Open Questions

While Adaptive Parallel Reasoning represents a promising step toward more efficient inference-time scaling, significant open questions remain.

As noted above, Parallel-R1 ( Zheng et al., 2025) presents APR as a form of mid-training exploration scaffold rather than a primarily inference-time technique. This invites a more fundamental question: Does parallelization at inference-time consistently improve accuracy, or is it primarily valuable as a training-time exploration scaffold? Parallel-R1 suggests that the diversity induced by parallel structure during RL may matter more than the parallelization itself at test time.

A related concern is stability. There’s also a persistent tendency for models to collapse back to sequential reasoning when parallelization rewards are relaxed. Parallel-R1 authors showed that removing parallelization reward after 200 steps results in the model reverting to sequential behavior. Is this a training stability issue, a reward signal design issue, or evidence that parallel structure genuinely conflicts with how autoregressive pretraining shapes the model’s prior?

Beyond whether APR works, deployment introduces its own questions. Can we design training methods that account for available compute budget at inference time, so parallelization decisions are hardware-aware rather than purely problem-driven?

Finally, the parallel structures considered above are essentially flat. What if we allow parallelization depth > 1? Recursive language models (RLMs; Zhang, Kraska and Khattab, 2026) effectively manage long context and show promising inference-time scaling capabilities. How well do RLMs perform when trained with end-to-end RL that incentivizes adaptive parallelization?

Acknowledgements

We thank Nicholas Tomlin and Alane Suhr for providing us with helpful feedback. We thank Christopher Park, Karl Vilhelmsson, Nyx Iskandar, Georgia Zhou, Kaival Shah, and Jyoti Rani for their insightful suggestions. We thank Vijay Kethana, Jaewon Chang, Cameron Jordan, Syrielle Montariol, Erran Li, and Anya Ji for their valuable discussions. We thank Jiayi Pan, Xiuyu Li, and Alex Zhang for their constructive correspondences about Adaptive Parallel Reasoning and Recursive Language Models.

http://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2026/05/08/adaptive-parallel-reasoning/

What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

(date: 2026-05-08)

John Lanchester’s Look What You Made Me Do, Elizabeth Strout’s The Things We Never Say, and Siri Hustvedt’s Ghost Stories all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book

https://lithub.com/what-should-you-read-next-here-are-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-9/

What Our Ideas About Ugliness Reveal About Our Anxieties Surrounding Gender

(date: 2026-05-08)

I was assessing my face against my mother’s from my earliest memories, or rather the world around me was, and it was consistently communicating—in a quizzical glance or a compliment withheld or a hostile blank face—that I was falling short,

https://lithub.com/what-our-ideas-about-ugliness-reveal-about-our-anxieties-surrounding-gender/

“The Data Shows We’re Never Truly Alone.” What Our Online Searches Say About Loss

(date: 2026-05-08)

As a Brit living in the US, I get two Mother’s Days every year—the UK celebration in March and the American one in May. It used to mean a double celebration, an extra excuse to send a card across the

https://lithub.com/the-data-shows-were-never-truly-alone-what-our-online-searches-say-about-loss/

How My Mother Made Magic Happen

(date: 2026-05-08)

My mother could make me anything I wanted to be. As a child she transformed me into a swan, a mermaid, a white Persian cat dressed like an elegant Victorian lady with a porkpie hat and a ruffled bustle to

https://lithub.com/how-my-mother-made-magic-happen/

Tom Junod on Finding the Right Trick

(date: 2026-05-08)

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. You have some tricks. You’re a magazine writer, after all—you have to write a lot of different kinds of stories, and sometimes tricks are what gets you to the end

https://lithub.com/tom-junod-on-finding-the-right-trick/

How the Fanatical Legion of Mary Secreted Young Girls Away to Toil in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries

(date: 2026-05-08)

Fifteen-year-old Eileen disappeared on a quiet Sunday evening in February 1954. She was at work when it happened. Eileen was a maid at a bed-and-breakfast in a large Georgian townhouse in inner-city Dublin, where she remade the crumpled beds, bundled

https://lithub.com/how-the-fanatical-legion-of-mary-secreted-young-girls-away-to-toil-in-irelands-magdalene-laundries/

Why Writing Stories For Children is So Much Harder Than Writing Stories For Adults

(date: 2026-05-08)

A few years ago, my longtime children’s book editor rejected my idea for a new middle grade novel. The rejection hit me hard—the story, of the daughter of a celebrity chef who moves to a small town after being adopted

https://lithub.com/why-writing-stories-for-children-is-so-much-harder-than-writing-stories-for-adults/

Rebel Wilson Branded A “Fantastical Liar” After Claiming ‘The Deb’ Actress Made Harassment Complaint

(date: 2026-05-08)

Rebel Wilson has been described as a “fantastical liar” in the closing arguments of an explosive defamation trial over The Deb, her directorial debut. Wilson is being sued for defamation by Charlotte MacInnes, The Deb‘s lead actress. MacInnes claims Wilson tarnished her reputation by alleging that she had made a sexual harassment complaint against The Deb producer Amanda Ghost, then […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/rebel-wilson-branded-fantastical-liar-the-deb-1236887480/

Good News

(date: 2026-05-08)

They were late to John’s girlfriend’s art show, though apparently his girlfriend didn’t believe in time and claimed she didn’t know what late really meant. According to her, everything was unfolding in its “divine timing.” John’s girlfriend was tedious and

https://lithub.com/good-news/

Meet the Future of the Democratic Party

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-19)

Hint: It's not Chuck Schumer or Rahm Emanuel

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/heres-how-democrats-are-responding

337: Rongorongo (say it out loud). Colombia poverty. Whales. Batteries down under.

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Maybe soon we’ll find out what it all means.

https://fixthenews.com/p/337-rongorongo-say-it-out-loud-colombia

What if there was no BASIC in EndBASIC?

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

An overview of the cool technical building blocks behind EndBASIC and what they could turn into if they evolved on their own

https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/no-basic-in-endbasic

Ghosts in the Heart [en]

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-18)

[en] In the days of early grief, the pull towards the being you lost is still there. It pulls at your heart but has nowhere to go. It is a ghost. A ghost of habits and rituals, a ghost of familiarity, who feeds on unmoored love – another name for grief. Like a phantom limb … Continue reading "Ghosts in the Heart [en]"

https://climbtothestars.org/archives/2026/05/08/ghosts-in-the-heart/

Watch SUFFS on PBS' Great Performances This Weekend!

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Friends,

https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/watch-suffs-on-pbs-great-performances

Twenty Years On, ODF Is Still the Only Open Standard for Office Documents, and the Only One Governments Can Trust

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-27)

Berlin, 8 May 2026 – Twenty years ago this week, on 3 May 2006, the Open Document Format cleared its Draft International Standard ballot at ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 with unanimous approval. On 30 November 2006 it was published as ISO/IEC 26300. Two decades later, ODF remains what it was

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/08/twenty-years-odf-as-iso/

May 7, 2026

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-14)

Today Tennessee state representative Justin Jones burned a Confederate battle flag in the rotunda of the Tennessee State Capitol in protest of the legislature’s redrawing of the state’s congressional district maps to erase the majority-Black 9th Congressional District.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-7-2026

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-08, updated: 2026-05-24)

“Hernán Cortez invaded Mexico to prevent it the Aztecs from getting an atomic bomb”

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116536493621457883

The Bold Ones Win

(date: 2026-05-08)

We lost Ted Turner, a patron saint of Tedium, just as an entrepreneur made an audacious Turner-style bet. What can we learn from that?

https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/17336568/ted-turner-bold-ceo-bets

Filter subscribers and automations by source

(date: 2026-05-08)

Where a subscriber came from is now a first-class filter on audiences and automations.

https://buttondown.com/blog/2026-05-08-source-filter

Fri, 1pm ET - Hopium Founding Members Most Fridays Get Together

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-19)

Trump's 2nd set of illegal tariffs struck down by US trade court!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/fri-1pm-et-hopium-founding-members-6a9

Friday 8 May, 2026

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Out of office? Cambridge in the Summer? Quote of the Day ”Holy Mother we do believe, That without sin Thou didst conceive; May we now in Thee believing, Also sin without conceiving.” A.P. Herbert My late mother, a very devout … Continue reading →

https://memex.naughtons.org/friday-8-may-2026/41998/

Meet Charlie Bailey, Chair of the Ass-Kicking Democratic Party of Georgia

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-18)

Join our campaign to elect Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin to the Georgia Supreme Court on May 19th

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/meet-charlie-bailey-chair-of-the

Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 243

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-22)

Safari Technology Preview Release 243 is now available for download for macOS Tahoe and macOS Sequoia.

https://webkit.org/blog/17953/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-243/

Republicans Shouldn't Celebrate Trump's Indiana Wins Quite Yet

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Trump proved he still has juice with the GOP base, but at what cost?

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-indiana-redistricting-2026-midterms

Epic Lies

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

The war is not over

https://steady.substack.com/p/epic-lies

Breaking news: “they hadn’t figured out how OpenAI would pay for it”

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Sign of things to come?

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/breaking-news-they-hadnt-figured

Viewer Beware!

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-19)

What we can do to stop and reverse Trump's takeover of the media

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/viewer-beware

Claude just astounded me

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-20)

I say to Claude: btw, i would have been surprised if it was broken, that feature went in very quickly and i use it a fair amount. one of the two big pages in feedland is the Feed List page. here's a screen shot. maybe you can figure out what everything does??

Example of a Feed LIst page in FeedLand.

Claude retorts

Disclosure triangle — expands the row to show more about that feed (recent items, description, full URL).
Blue checkbox (checked) — subscription state. Checked = you're subscribed. Click to subscribe/unsubscribe.
Row number — just positional, 1..14 for this result set.
Feed title — clickable, opens the feed's own page (the other "big page" you mentioned).
Small tag icon next to the title — opens a categories editor for that subscription, lets you tag the feed into categories.
When column — last update time, with adaptive granularity: minutes for very recent ("21 mins", "26 mins"), day-of-week for the past few days ("Fri", "Tue", "Thu"), month+day after that ("Nov 22", "Mar 29"), and presumably full date for old stuff.
Ct column — subscriber count for the feed. Every row shows 2 because feedland.social is small. Worth noting: this is the same
ct that the SQL we just touched uses for
order by ct desc — the column visible in the UI is the sort key.
Green circle "i" — info popup, probably feed metadata (URL, description, last build, maybe owner).

Claude is very very smart. And I guess I got the right answers. A lot of work went into the design

The only thing it didn't guess correctly about is what the other "big page" is. It's not the Feed Info page, it's the news page, a timeline or river.

Done for the day, my last words to Claude were -- FeedLand is an important product and we're going to do right by it.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/07/203808.html?title=claudeJustAstoundedMe

Pico de las Nieves in the cloud

(date: 2026-05-07)

My first destination on Gran Canaria was the pine forest close to me. I've been to southern pine forests at other locations, but that wonderful, serene scent that a canary pine forest disperses when the full sun warms them up is second to none.

https://petermolnar.net/photo/pico-de-las-nieves-in-the-cloud/

Dirty Frag: a zero-day universal Linux LPE

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-12)

Hyunwoo Kim has announced the Dirty
Frag security flaw, a local-privilege-escalation (LPE) vulnerability similar to the recently disclosed Copy Fail flaw:

Because the embargo has now been broken, no patches or CVEs exist for these vulnerabilities. After consultation with the linux-distros@vs.openwall.org maintainers, and at the maintainers' request, I am publicly releasing this Dirty Frag document.

As with the previous Copy Fail vulnerability, Dirty Frag likewise allows immediate root privilege escalation on all major distributions.

Kim, who discovered the flaw and had attempted a coordinated disclosure set for May 12, has released the code for an exploit, as well as a example script to remove the vulnerable modules. A full
write-up, with the disclosure timeline, is also available. It's unknown at this time whether this is an example of parallel discovery or how the third party was able to disclose it prior to the end of the embargo. We will be following up as more information comes to light.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071719/

America's new redistricting doom loop

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Welcome to the new era of "super-mandering"

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/americas-new-redistricting-doom-loop

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Registration is now open for another three-part, free, "Getting Started" online workshop series to orient and train new people interested in using and contributing to the #PleiadesGazetteer of ancient places.

The series will run from 10am-noon US Eastern time on Thursday, Tuesday, and Thursday 18, 23, and 25 June 2026. To learn more and to register in advance (required), please visit https://pleiades.stoa.org/events. This series is in addition to (and identical in content to) [the previously announced series earlier in June: https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/getting-started-workshops-june-2-4-and-9-2026.

Two or three more sets of these three-parters will be run later in the summer (and on different weekdays and different times to accommodate schedules and timezones). Additional announcements will be made when those dates and times are set.

Please boost for visibility.

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116534916886737770

AI News Archive Project – Report 1

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-24)

In a previous post, I mentioned that my first AI project was to develop an application to create a archive of US newspapers based on RSS feeds. I initially used Claude Code to review a list of US newspapers from Wikipedia to search for websites and RSS feeds. As I posted earlier, this took several […]

https://andysylvester.com/2026/05/07/ai-news-archive-project-report-1/

More "Getting Started" Workshops: June 18, 23, and 25, 2026

(date: 2026-05-07)

Registration is now open for another three-part, free, "Getting Started" online workshop series to orient and train new people interested in using and contributing to the Pleiades Gazetteer of ancient places.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/workshops-june-18-23-and-25-2026

@Barack Obama @Bsky

(date: 2026-05-07)

State supreme court justices play a critical role in defending your rights and freedoms, which is why the election happening in Georgia right now is so important.

Make sure you have a plan to vote for Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin.

https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mlbt2bznr22c

Sendy 7

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Hex: Sendy has been completely refreshed with a modern, more polished interface. […] Reach your audience sooner with 2 times faster sending speeds. […] Design beautiful emails faster than ever with the all-new drag & drop editor. No coding required. […] Get up and running faster with built-in templates. […] Introducing a new File Manager […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/07/sendy-7/

Arq Restore Notes

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Greg Hurrell: The other backup tool that has saved my hide in the past is SuperDuper!, but on this occasion I didn’t have access to my physical (SuperDuper!) backup, so restoring from the cloud (Arq) was my only option. […] Arq used all the memory on the system, requiring me to start again[…] Restarting is […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/07/arq-restore-notes/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-14)

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, etc, Mr Roberts.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/chief-justice-john-roberts-says-justices-are-not-political-actors-rcna343958

Octonous Open Beta: What We've Learned and Where We're Going

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

The Octonous open beta is live. Learn what we discovered during closed beta, the workflow patterns users kept returning to, and the biggest improvements shipped since launch.

https://blog.mozilla.ai/octonous-open-beta-what-weve-learned-and-where-were-going/

@IIIF Mastodon feed

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-13)

⏱️ There's exactly ONE WEEK left to register for the 2026 #IIIF Annual Conference.

Program, travel information, and a link to register is available at: conference2026.iiif.io

https://glammr.us/@IIIF/116534207107345942

The Opening

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

What if the conversation America needs is finally possible?

https://danismart.substack.com/p/the-opening

The Super-Rich are Different from You and Me

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-22)

They're pettier and more self-centered than most of us can imagine

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-super-rich-are-different-from

Behind the Scenes Hardening Firefox with Claude Mythos Preview

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-21)

Two weeks ago we announced that we had identified and fixed an unprecedented number of latent security bugs in Firefox with the help of Claude Mythos Preview and other AI models. In this post, we’ll go into more detail about how we approached this work, what we found, and advice for other projects on making […]

The post Behind the Scenes Hardening Firefox with Claude Mythos Preview appeared first on Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/05/behind-the-scenes-hardening-firefox/

El diablo viste a la moda 2: defendiendo el arte en tiempos de contenido

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Dirección: David Frankel. Guion: Aline Brosh McKenna. Elenco: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci. País: Estados Unidos. Más información de la película: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33612209/ Hay algo particularmente frágil en las secuelas que regresan demasiado tarde: no basta con recuperar a sus personajes, también necesitan encontrar una razón para existir en el presente. El regreso a […]

La entrada El diablo viste a la moda 2: defendiendo el arte en tiempos de contenido se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

Publish to Microsoft Store as a company—now with free registration and faster onboarding

(date: 2026-05-07)

We’re seeing growing demand from companies that want to reach Windows users across both consumer and enterprise devices, and we’ve heard consistent feedback that getting started should be simpler. Today, we’re addressing that with three updates

The post Publish to Microsoft Store as a company—now with free registration and faster onboarding appeared first on Windows Developer Blog.

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/05/07/publish-to-microsoft-store-as-a-company-now-with-free-registration-and-faster-onboarding/

The Price of Idiocracy

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-17)

If you elect stupid people, you'll get stupid outcomes.

https://claireberlinski.substack.com/p/the-price-of-idiocracy

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Since Monday, the #PleiadesGazetteer editorial college published 12 new and 20 updated place resources, reflecting the work of 7 people. The usual Monday blog post will summarize a full week's worth of such work, but meantime here's a #SneakPeek at one of the new ones. Authored by Gabriel McKee (@SecretTerror), we now have a place for the Katoghike Tsiranavor Church of Avan, the oldest surviving church structure within the boundaries of modern Yerevan, constructed in the late 6th century CE: https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/375489070

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #DH #gazetteers #HGIS

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116534043063169081

Democrats Are Expanding Our Maps And Competing In Hard To Win Places (New Video & Written Analysis)

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-18)

To defeat MAGA Democrats are going to have to build a party that can compete and win in red states and red places that we've ignored for far too long

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/democrats-are-expanding-our-maps

How to Experience More Meaning in Your Life

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Dave Evans challenges the entire premise of how we search for meaning, arguing that the question “what is the meaning of life?” is far less useful than “how do I experience meaning in my life right now?”

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/how-to-experience-more-meaning-in

SCOTUS Gutted the Voting Rights Act and Sent Southern States Sprinting to Gerrymander

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Within hours, Southern states staged an assault on majority-Black districts, threatening to send Black representation back to Reconstruction-

https://plus.briantylercohen.com/p/scotus-gutted-the-voting-rights-act

Oxbridge Dons and Corporate Thrillers

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Writing of lasting value

https://thebrowser.com/free/oxbridge-dons-and-corporate-thrillers/

A Newsletter of Humorous Writing #442

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-21)

For April 29-May 5, 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. This year’s spring bird migration is underway, which means you’ll find us spending a lot of time in Central Park, hoping to catch a glimpse of some warblers so that we can convince them to come down out of those dang trees and let us read them some short humor pieces.

What We Enjoyed This Week

Parents’ House Writing Residency by Nina Sharma (Slackjaw) The details that get revealed about the parents over the course of this piece are just terrific. Nina gives us a nice feel for who these characters are, but not at the expense of exploring the nuts and bolts of how this residency works. We also love the figure of the omnipresent leaf blower man.

RE: Met Gala Coat Check by Helen Laser (Points in Case) We particularly enjoy how Helen lets the reader connect the dots themselves in this piece. Rather than simply list and describe all the unusual items of clothes that might be left at the Met Gala coat check, lines like “charging stations for electronic gowns are not available“ and “sopping wet accessories are not permitted“ give us the space to infer and imagine what those items might be in a very satisfying way. It would be difficult to come up with fictional clothes that are more heightened than the ACTUAL clothes people wear to the Met Gala, and this is a very clever strategy for getting around that potential problem.

I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU BUT I AM CURSED TO SPEAK LIKE GUY FIERI by Megan Williams (HAD) A poem that manages to be funny and heartfelt at the same time. Who among us has not felt, at one time or another, that the language we have access to is inadequate to express what we feel in our heart? The idea of being cursed to speak like Guy Fieri is also just hilarious.

-- AD --

Sun. May 17th, 2-4pm EST (online & recorded): Riane Konc (New Yorker, McSweeney's, etc.) will lead a virtual 2-hour humor writing session focused on using mapping, juxtaposition, & known forms to generate memorable humor pieces. We'll dissect specifics of how to make these strategies work, dig into examples, cover generative approaches, & probably all have our lives changed forever? (TBD)

“Riane’s class was information dense in a way that felt generous.”

“Riane had a deep well of knowledge and her class was incredibly in depth for a two hour seminar.”

- Recent Writing Co-Lab students

Still a few spots left -- sign up today!

(Do you have an ad you'd like to place in the Newsletter? Fill out this form! )

An Old Favorite

The Ultimate Personality Test: Are You Myers or Briggs from the Myers-Briggs Test? by Tyler Gooch (Points in Case) The idea of that Meyers and Briggs would work through their interpersonal tension via a new personality test that the two of them put together is brilliant. The quiz form provides a nice setup/punchline structure, and there are a ton of really well-calibrated wacky details throughout. (“Allow flexibility within your workday so you have time to do things like wrap yourself in toilet paper and go, ‘Myers, I guess I must be Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking and Perceiving because I-N-TP!’”)

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

Nothing from us this week! A Wilson’s warbler is sitting on a low-hanging branch right by us and we think he’s really digging this Jack Handey piec—never mind he flew off.

https://buttondown.com/humorouswriting/archive/a-newsletter-of-humorous-writing-442/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

Export Updates 2026-05-07:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

5 new and 14 updated places.

Caltech Students Host Science Olympiad State Tournament

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

"main" branch:

605fd2fd - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

77ae176b - updated gis package

7494954e - updated data quality

bf2e63e5 - updated bibliography

96060fb0 - updated indexes

3755a587 - updated sidebar

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

0ea34e00 - updated geojson and names index

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

0ffa8d08 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116533851917061390

Caltech Weekly - May 7: Caltech Students Host Science Olympiad; A Conversation with Adrián Lozano-Durán

(date: 2026-05-07)

Caltech Weekly - May 7: Caltech Students Host Science Olympiad; A Conversation with Adrián Lozano-DuránView this email in your browser

Thursday, May 7, 2026

Caltech students' years of leadership and service with Science Olympiad inspire younger people to explore science and engineering.

A Conversation with Adrián Lozano-Durán

Growing up in Madrid, Spain, Adrián Lozano-Durán was always interested in aerospace. He was fascinated by planes, rockets, and how things fly. Today, he is an associate professor of aerospace at Caltech, where he develops models that accurately simulate phenomena such as the entry of spacecraft into the Martian atmosphere and the production of sound by supersonic aircraft.

Chemistry Grad Student Receives Future Leaders Award

The Future Leaders Program of the Chemical Abstracts Service honored graduate student Anjali Gurajapu from the laboratory of Sarah Reisman, Bren Professor of Chemistry and Norman Davidson Leadership Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

"Definitely don't try to draw a map of where your future is headed. I used to think I was a mapmaker, ... but the reality is life is not something you can generally map out. Treat it like a compass. Like orienteering into the wilderness, set your compass on good principles, run in that direction, lift your head up, look around, reorient, and then continue moving. You can find your way through the unknown really fast and efficiently that way."

In his welcome keynote at DiscoTech, which welcomes admitted students to campus, Kevin Noertker (BS '09), the co-founder and CEO of hybrid-electric aircraft company Ampaire, encouraged students to rethink how they approach their decision to choose a university.

In Case You Missed It

View recent lectures and events on Caltech's YouTube channel.

A Discussion on Academic Freedom and the Research of Clair Patterson

Caltech historian David Zierler and Professor of Geochemistry and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator François Tissot recently discussed Clair Patterson's work showing that leaded gasoline was poisoning the planet—and the attempts to discredit or deter him.

Did You Know?

John P. Preskill, Caltech's Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, recently appeared on The Quantum Kid podcast to discuss what happens when quantum computing meets robotics. The episode explored how quantum computers could help robots make smarter decisions and solve problems faster. The Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers have captured two 360-degree landscapes that highlight how the missions are revealing details of the Red Planet's formation, watery past, and potential for life. The rovers are operated by JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA.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.

If you received this email from someone you know, you can subscribe here. You are receiving this email because you are a member of the Caltech community or have signed up for this newsletter.

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https://mailchi.mp/caltech/caltech-weekly-may-7-caltech-students-host-science-olympiad-a-conversation-with-adrin-lozano-durn

[$] A new era for memory-management maintainership

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-11)

On April 21, Andrew Morton let
it be known that he intends to begin stepping away from the maintainership of kernel's memory-management subsystem — a responsibility he has carried since before memory management was even seen as its own subsystem. At the 2026 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit, one of the first sessions in the memory-management track was devoted to how the maintainership would be managed going forward. There are a lot of questions still to be answered.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1070994/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

The cause of overnight export failure has been identified and addressed, and the export script re-run. Derivative generation and reports are running now.

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116533779814048200

An update on KDE's Union style engine

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-11)

Arjen Hiemstra has published an article on the status of the Union project: a single system to support all of KDE's technologies used for styling applications.

The work on Union's Breeze implementation has progressed to the point where it is very hard to distinguish whether or not you are running the Union version. We have also tested with a bunch of applications and made sure that any differences were fixed. So we are at a stage where we need to get Union into the hands of more people, both to get extra people testing whether there are any major issues, but also to have interested people creating new styles.

This means that with the upcoming Plasma 6.7 release, we plan to include Union. Discussion is currently ongoing whether we will enable it by default, but even if not there will be a way to try it out.

See Hiemstra's introductory
article on Union, published in February 2025, for more about the project and its creation. KDE 6.7 is expected to be released in mid-June.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071703/

Trump's Blow-Up

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-19)

His ego cannot accept two giant pending defeats

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trumps-blow-up

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-13)

What comes after social media is messy.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/rip-social-media-what-comes-next-is-messy/

Plugging the gaps won't save news. It's time to redesign

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

"Journalists, cultural workers, content creators, and other trusted messengers are enabling better civic insight for communities. How do we economically support the civic information future that society needs?"

https://werd.io/plugging-the-gaps-wont-save-news-its-time-to-redesign/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

https://github.com/isawnyu/pleiades-gazetteer/issues/546

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116533557635403745

“Yah, boo, sucks.” On the time Angela Carter absolutely flamed Joan Didion in an interview.

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-08)

Here’s a fun fact to celebrate Angela Carter’s birthday: the beloved feminist icon did not care for literary tote saint Joan Didion. Need some proof? In 1986, Angela Carter sat down for a phone interview with Rosemary Carroll for BOMB.

https://lithub.com/yah-boo-sucks-on-the-time-angela-carter-absolutely-flamed-joan-didion-in-an-interview/

‘Survival of the Thickest’ Season 3 Sets Premiere Date At Netflix With First-Look Photos & Teaser Trailer

(date: 2026-05-07)

The third and final season of Michelle Buteau’s Survival of the Thickest will arrive on Netflix July 2. Buteau revealed the teaser and debut date at her Netflix is a Joke stand-up show with a surprise appearance from Wanda Sykes, who guest stars this season, last night “Get my good side,” Beaumont says early on […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/survival-of-the-thickest-season-3-release-date-photos-1236878197/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-22)

Overnight exports have failed, so summary and derivative generation will be delayed while we investigate and remediate.

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116533529118219351

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-22)

Why did Twitter win? Because the RSS developers wouldn't work with each other. Thus subscribing to a feed was complicated. In Twitter, it was one click to subscribe, and another to unsub. You could see who your friends subscribed to, again -- one click to subscribe. And eventually that grew into a list of suggestions of people to follow. RSS had none of that because the RSS devs refused to work with each other. The development of RSS-based news products stopped, and pretty soon Twitter's stopped too. And thus news technology on the web remained frozen for two decades. We are getting another chance. The social media space is a highly disappointing wreck. Users are interested in new ideas, as long as they're fun and new, esp in relation to using AI tools. But it won't be open if we can't get it together any better than we could the first time around. You have to do things that help the web, and thus help your competitors. If you don't, if we don't, there will just be another Twitter, owning the users, and they'll probably sell out to a billionaire a lot sooner than Twitter did. At some point we'll realize if we want something new we have to work with each other. Otherwise you get Elon II, III etc.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/07.html#a132833

There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness’

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-26)

The post There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness’ appeared first on NOEMA.

https://www.noemamag.com/there-is-no-hard-problem-of-consciousness

The candidate

(date: 2026-05-07)

Coming back from lunch we got onto today’s elections, and someone asked which model we’d vote for. We all agreed pretty quickly: Opus 4.7. From there the idea kind of built itself. Every couple of years, instead of (alongside?) electing people, we choose a model. The winner gets plugged into all the state computers and … Continue reading "The candidate"

https://val.demar.in/2026/05/the-candidate/

Guillermo Del Toro Receives BFI Fellowship From Cate Blanchett At London Ceremony

(date: 2026-05-07)

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was awarded a BFI Fellowship last night during a ceremony in London. The filmmaker was handed the award, the British Film Institute’s highest honor, by his frequent collaborator Cate Blanchett. “For a man that has tried for 30 years to make the brutal and the beautiful sit together, I have […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/guillermo-del-toro-bfi-fellowship-cate-blanchett-1236884713/

Maya Rudolph Extends Run In Broadway’s ‘Oh, Mary!’ Following Record-Breaking Week

(date: 2026-05-07)

Maya Rudolph will extend her limited engagement in the title role of Broadway’s Oh, Mary! by two weeks after breaking two box office records in her first week with the production. Originally set to play through June 20, Rudolph will now remain in Cole Escola’s hit comedy for two additional weeks, through July 5, alongside […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/maya-rudolph-broadway-oh-mary-2-1236884512/

Security updates for Thursday

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-11)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (dovecot, fence-agents, freeipmi, git-lfs, image-builder, kernel, libsoup, osbuild-composer, and python-tornado), Debian (apache2, libdatetime-timezone-perl, lrzip, tzdata, and wireshark), Fedora (dovecot, forgejo-runner, gh, gnutls, krb5, nano, pdns, pyOpenSSL, squid, vim, and xorg-x11-server-Xwayland), Mageia (graphicsmagick, kernel-linus, krb5-appl, libexif, libtiff, nano, nginx, ntfs-3g, opam, perl-Net-CIDR-Lite, perl-Starlet, perl-Starman, tcpflow, and virtualbox), Oracle (dovecot, fence-agents, freeipmi, image-builder, kernel, libcap, LibRaw, libsoup, openssh, osbuild-composer, python, python-tornado, python3, systemd, thunderbird, and tigervnc), SUSE (containerd, curl, erlang, flatpak, java-11-openjdk, java-21-openjdk, java-25-openjdk, liblxc-devel, libpng12, libthrift-0_23_0, openCryptoki, openexr, openssl-3, python3, python311-social-auth-core, rclone, skim, and thunderbird), and Ubuntu (apache2, coin3, editorconfig-core, insighttoolkit, linux, linux-aws, linux-aws-6.17, linux-gcp, linux-gcp-6.17, linux-hwe-6.17, linux-oracle, linux-realtime, linux-realtime-6.17, linux-azure, linux-azure-6.17, linux-oem-6.17, linux-azure-5.15, linux-gcp-6.8, nghttp2, python-dynaconf, slurm-wlm, swish-e, and webkit2gtk).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071700/

FilmNation Entertainment Founder Glen Basner To Receive Game Changer Award At Zurich Summit

(date: 2026-05-07)

FilmNation Entertainment Founder and CEO Glen Basner will receive the Game Changer Award at this year’s Zurich Summit, which takes place September 25 – 27. Past recipients of the Game Changer Award include Neon Ceo Tom Quinn, CAA Media Finance & International Film Group Head Roeg Sutherland, Legendary-193 CEO Patrick Wachsberger (CODA), Warner Bros. Motion […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/filmnation-glen-basner-zurich-summit-game-changer-award-1236882626/

Australian Canine Reality Series ‘Muster Dogs’ To Be Remade In U.S. By Wonder Project For Prime Video

(date: 2026-05-07)

EXCLUSIVE: Muster Dogs, a canine reality series that has become one of the biggest shows on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), is taking a walk into the U.S. The show is being remade in the States by Wonder Project, which has acquired the exclusive U.S. format rights to the format. It will retitle it as […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/australian-reality-muster-dogs-wonder-project-prime-video-1236883489/

Sam Worthington-Led ‘I Will Find You’ Sets Netflix Release Date; Unveils Teaser & First-Look Photos

(date: 2026-05-07)

Netflix has set June 18 for the premiere of I Will Find You, its upcoming limited series starring Sam Worthington, based on Harlen Coben’s bestselling novel. The streamer also unveiled the first trailer and several first-look photos, which you see above and below. Created by Robert Hull, I Will Find You stars Worthington as David […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sam-worthington-i-will-find-you-release-date-trailer-photos-1236883770/

Javier Bardem Taunts Amy Adams’ Worst Fears In ‘Cape Fear’ Trailer

(date: 2026-05-07)

Javier Bardem will haunt your dreams as Max Cady in Apple TV’s Cape Fear limited series. Deadline has your first look at the trailer for the 10-episode psychological drama from Nick Antosca above. The show premieres on Friday, June 5, with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday through July 31. The Cape […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/apple-tv-cape-fear-trailer-1236884022/

Telemundo 2026-27 Programming Slate: ‘La Reina Del Sur’ Season 4, ‘El Señor De Los Cielos’ Returns, More Soccer, First Christmas Movie & More

(date: 2026-05-07)

Telemundo is sticking with its proven franchises and familiar faces for its 2026-27 programming slate, which includes El Señor de los Cielos Season 10, La Reina del Sur Season 4, soccer, La Casa de los Famosos, and its first Christmas movie. The network notes that it approaches this Upfront season as the fastest-growing Spanish-language network in weekday prime, the most-watched in […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/telemundo-2026-2027-upfront-programming-slate-1236884055/

Telemundo’s 2026-2027 Unscripted Slate: ‘House Of Villains’ Adaptation, ‘Operación Triunfo’ Sets Natalia Téllez As Host & More ‘Casa De Los Famosos’

(date: 2026-05-07)

Telemundo is leading the way in unscripted programming, and in their 2026-2027 programming slate, we’ll see more of their leading franchises, including La Casa de los Famosos, Exatlón Estados Unidos, and Top Chef VIP. Joining the slate is the singing competition Operación Triunfo and an adaptation of Peacock’s House of Villains. For Latinos, live content is not just a […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/telemundo-upfront-2026-2027-unscripted-slate-1236884073/

Dan Aykroyd Boards ‘Ghostbusters’ Animated Series As Netflix Unveils Annecy Lineup

(date: 2026-05-07)

Who you gonna call? Dan Aykroyd! The writer and star of the original Ghostbusters has officially boarded Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation’s animated series as EP, Netflix revealed today in its Annecy lineup. Netflix hasn’t given a whole lot of detail about the TV show – there is also an animated movie in the works […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/dan-aykroyd-producing-netflix-ghostbusters-animated-series-1236884114/

North star metrics for AI data products

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Why this "is this working" is trickier to answer than ever

https://ericdataproduct.substack.com/p/north-star-metrics-for-ai-data-products

Thrumsday

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-15)

Fills a void Great backstory in Axios on the Politik app. Just in time for finals and/or graduation A massive Canvas data breach paralyzes 9000 schools and 275 million students. My school, Indiana University, is among them. It’s a ransomware shakedown: You may already be infected Gadget Review: Google Chrome Silently Installs a 4 GB AI […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/07/thrumsday/

Am I the Literary Asshole For Thinking Most Writers Are Trash, Actually?

(date: 2026-05-07)

Well, hello there! Welcome back to another intriguing installment of everyone’s favorite drunken advice column, Am I the Literary Asshole? Yes, you heard right: this is the place where all your dreams come true (if your dream is to read

https://lithub.com/am-i-the-literary-asshole-for-thinking-most-writers-are-trash-actually/

‘Nagi Notes’ Clip: Japan’s Kôji Fukada Makes Cannes Competition Debut With Drama Sparked By Rural Museum Of Contemporary Art

(date: 2026-05-07)

EXCLUSIVE: Kôji Fukada makes his Cannes Competition debut this month with Nagi Notes and Deadline can reveal a first clip. The film, which will kick off the competition screenings on the first Wednesday, stars Takako Matsu as Yoriko, an artist living in rural Nagi, nursing the wounds of a failed love affair she cannot bear […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/cannes-competition-clip-nagi-notes-clip-japan-koji-fukada-1236884329/

Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Diego Luna, Stephanie Beatriz & Ron Perlman To Voice ‘I, Chihuahua’ With Rocket Science Launching Sales For Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-07)

EXCLUSIVE: Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias (Space Jam: A New Legacy), Diego Luna (Andor), Stephanie Beatriz (Zootopia 2) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) are set to voice family animated film I, Chihuahua from filmmaker Jorge R. Gutiérrez (The Book of Life). Rocket Science has boarded world sales and is launching for the Cannes market. As we told you […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/gabriel-fluffy-iglesias-diego-luna-voice-cast-i-chihuahua-1236884298/

Smart Glasses for the Authorities

(date: 2026-05-07)

ICE is developing its own version of smart glasses, with facial recognition tied to various databases.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/smart-glasses-for-the-authorities.html

An Old Lady Took on DHS. Guess Who Won?

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

How a tiny 75-year-old woman stood up to Trump's goons.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/the-hero-we-need-now-4ac

Grand Theft Oil Futures

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-21)

Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/grand-theft-oil-futures

Lit Hub Daily: May 7, 2026

(date: 2026-05-07)

Sarah Moroz considers “the poignant sibling renaissance” of Ocean Vuong’s first photography exhibition. | Lit Hub Photography Davin Malasarn and Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez talk about writing books that explore questions of family, queer identity, and the violence of conversion therapy.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-7-2026/

The Confederacy rises again

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Undoing the 1960s isn't enough. They're even taking aim at the 1860s.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-confederacy-rises-again

Going to San Diego. brb

(date: 2026-05-07)

Going to San Diego. brb

https://adactio.com/notes/22558

Announcing the new LibreOffice website!

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

LibreOffice’s website is the main source of information about the software (and project), and typically has 45,000 – 65,000 visitors every day. It is also the place to download the suite, of course, and make donations to support the community. Our website was looking rather old and becoming difficult to

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/07/announcing-the-new-libreoffice-website/

Fellow Travelers: On Reimagining Chaucer in Post-Soviet Ukraine

(date: 2026-05-07)

I’m not a medievalist but fell in love with one because he seduced me by quoting lines—in Middle English—from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. And of course, in my besotted state of lust, I studied that book in earnest. However, as it

https://lithub.com/fellow-travelers-on-reimagining-chaucer-in-post-soviet-ukraine/

5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

(date: 2026-05-07)

Our favorite criticism of the week includes James Wood on Harriet Clark’s The Hill, Laura Miller on James Lasdun’s The Family Man, Sam Worley on Douglas Stuart’s John of John, Colin Grant on Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s Backtalker, and Adam Begley

https://lithub.com/5-book-reviews-you-need-to-read-this-week-14/

In Writing About Cults (and Religion) Telling is Better than Showing

(date: 2026-05-07)

When I finished work on my new book, The Oracle’s Daughter: The Rise and Fall of an American Cult, I assumed I wouldn’t read anything more about cults for a good long while to come. I’d loved writing about the

https://lithub.com/in-writing-about-cults-and-religion-telling-is-better-than-showing/

Ocean Vuong: Photographer First, Writer Second?

(date: 2026-05-07)

“Unlike writing, which is a vocation mired with maybes, the camera, for all of its complex mechanisms, can only say yes,” Ocean Vuong wrote. “Photography is, for me, a medium of unanimous affirmation.” The embrace of such affirmation is made

https://lithub.com/ocean-vuong-photograph-first-writer-second/

On the Aftermath of Conversion Therapy

(date: 2026-05-07)

In March, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy discriminated against therapist Kaley Chiles based on first amendment rights. The case reminded us that such disproven practices are still prevalent throughout the country. Despite bans meant to

https://lithub.com/on-the-aftermath-of-conversion-therapy/

New York Pastoral: Sitting Outside and Inside With Eileen Myles

(date: 2026-05-07)

Sitting outside in America is an Eileen Myles pursuit. Every time I do it I think of an Eileen Myles poem—from throwing open “all the doors in my home” because “There’s a pulse outside I want to hear” in “Immanence”

https://lithub.com/new-york-pastoral-sitting-outside-and-inside-with-eileen-myles/

Pluralistic: Bubbles are REALLY evil (07 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links Bubbles are REALLY evil: Bernie Ebbers got what was coming to him. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Mozilla v DHS wiretaps; Judge v FCC's internet wiretaps; Foxconn workers must promise not to kill themselves; "Shannon's Law"; How to password; Stimmies killed the McJob; "Little Bosses Everywhere." Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. Bubbles are REALLY evil (permalink) I am on record as saying that every economic bubble is terrible, but some bubbles do at least leave behind a salvageable productive residue while others leave behind nothing but ashes; indeed, this is the thesis of my next book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/ Here's a historical comparison that's illuminating: Enron vs Worldcom. Both were monumental frauds, the CEOs of both companies died shortly after the frauds were discovered, but they have very different legacies. Enron – a scam that pretended to secure billions of dollars' worth of new efficiencies through "energy trading" but was actually just engineering rolling blackouts in order to jack up energy prices – left behind nothing. Well, not quite nothing. Enron did leave behind a little useful residue after it burned to the ground: a giant repository of emails. You see, after Enron went bust, it was sued by its creditors, who demanded access to relevant emails from the company's Outlook server. But the company execs decided they didn't want to spend the money to weed out the irrelevant emails before the court-mandated disclosure, so instead they published all the emails ever sent or received by anyone at Enron, including tons of extremely private, personal, sensitive information relating to Enron's employees and customers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_Corpus This became the "Enron Corpus" and it was the first large tranche of emails that were in the public domain and available to researchers. As a result, it became the gold standard dataset for researchers investigating social graphs, natural language, and many other subjects that subsequently became very important computer science fields and commercial applications. As legacies go, the Enron Corpus is pretty small ball, and even so, it is decidedly mixed, both because the Enron Corpus constitutes a gross, ongoing privacy violation for a huge number of people; and because a lot of that social graph and natural language work that it jumpstarted has been put to deeply shitty purposes. Then there's Worldcom: also a gigantic fraud, Worldcom falsified billions of dollars' worth of orders for new fiber optic lines, and it then dug up streets all over the world and installed them. When Worldcom went bankrupt, all that fiber stayed in the ground, and many people are still using it today. My home in Burbank has a 2GB symmetrical fiber connection through AT&T that runs on old Worldcom fiber that AT&T bought up for pennies on the dollar. So while you have to squint really hard to find any benefit that can be salvaged from Enron, it's really easy to point at Worldcom's productive residue – it's a ton of fiber and conduit running under the streets of major cities around the world, ready to be lit up and bring the people nearby into the 21st century. Fiber, after all, is amazing, literally thousands of times better than copper or 5G or Starlink: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/07/swisscom/#stacked Even though Enron's CEO Ken Lay and Worldcom's CEO Bernie Ebbers both received prison sentences after their fraud was revealed, the bubbles never stopped, and indeed, they only got worse. AI is the biggest bubble in human history, worse even than the South Sea Bubble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company And like those earlier bubbles, some of our modern bubbles will leave behind nothing, while others will leave behind some productive residue. Take the cryptocurrency bubble. Crypto will go to zero, and when it does, all it will leave behind is shitty monkey JPEGs and even worse Austrian economics: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/ As with Enron, you can find some productive residue from cryptocurrency if you look hard enough. A lot of programmers have had a heavily subsidized education in Rust programming and cryptographic fundamentals, both of which are unalloyed goods in our otherwise very insecure digital world. Some of the underlying mechanisms from crypto are useful, even without blockchains. Take Metalabel, a system that lets collaborators on creative projects automate how they handle revenues from those projects by plugging DAO-like logic into traditional, dollar-based bank accounts. They're recycling some of the tooling from the crypto bubble to create a very useful utility, without the crypto: https://www.metalabel.com/ But, as with the Enron Corpus, this is pretty small ball. The world has flushed away hundreds of billions to get paltry millions' worth of value out of crypto – the rest of that value disappeared into the pockets of crooked insiders who defrauded the public into parting with their savings. If crypto will be Enron-like in its post-bubble life, what about AI? I think AI is more like Worldcom: there's a bunch of useful stuff that AI can do, after all. Take away the bubble and we'd call the things AI can do "plug-ins" and some people would use them, and others wouldn't, and some of those uses would be productive, and others would be foolish, but we wouldn't bet the world's economy on them, nor would we squander our last dribbles of potable water to cool their data centers. After the AI bubble pops, there will be a lot of durable residue. The data centers will still stand. The GPUs will still be there, and if we don't "sweat the assets" by running them as hot and hard as they can tolerate, they won't burn out in 2-3 years. There will be lots of applied statisticians, skilled data-labelers, etc, looking for work. And there will be lots of open source models that have barely been optimized (why make an open source model more efficient when you're raising capital based on the promise of outspending everyone else in order to dominate a world of ubiquitous, pluripotent, winner-take-all centralized AI?): https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/16/post-ai-ai/#productive-residue That's a situation not unlike the post-dotcom bubble of the early 2000s. Almost overnight, the legion of humanities undergrads who'd been treated to subsidized training in perl, Python and HTML found themselves looking for work. Servers could be purchased in bulk for pennies on the dollar (with user data still on them!). I bought a "dining room set" of six $1,000+ fancy office chairs for $50 each (still wrapped in plastic!) from a dotcom founder who was selling them on the sidewalk out front of his failed startup's office in the Mission. He offered to sell me ten lifetime's supply of branded t-shirts for $20. I turned him down. That was the birth of Web 2.0. All of a sudden, people who wanted to make real things that were good could do so, because they could find skilled workers, hardware, and office space at such knock-down prices that they could be funded out of pocket or put on a credit card. People got to pursue the web they wanted, free from asshole bosses and VCs. Not everything that got built in those heady days was good, but many good things got built. I can easily imagine that the post-bubble AI scene will produce benefits comparable to Web 2.0 – projects built by and for people who want to do useful and fun things, without being distracted by the mirage of illusory billions promised by the stock swindlers who created the bubble. I can easily imagine that I will find some of those post-bubble tools useful, and that in 20 years I will still be using them, just as today, I am still using some of those early post-dotcom bubble services and tools. And despite all that, IT IS NOT WORTH IT. The residue that is left behind by every bubble is subsidized, but that subsidy doesn't come from the deep-pocketed investors who are gripped by "irrational exuberance." It comes from mom-and-pop, normie, retail investors who have been tricked into giving their money to the insiders who inflated the bubble. From Worldcom to Enron, from crypto to AI, the point of the bubble wasn't ever the residue or lack thereof – it was a transfer from working people to crooks. Bubbles are a system for moving the painfully sequestered life's savings of people who do things to people who steal things. Since the Carter years, workers have been forced to flush their savings into the stock market, after the traditional "defined benefits pension" (that guarantees you an inflation-adjusted sum every month until you die) was replaced with 401(k)s and other "market-based pensions" (where you only get to survive after retirement if you bet correctly on the movement of stocks): https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/29/against-cozy-catastrophies/ Despite this having all the appearances of a rigged game – finance industry insiders are always going to be better at betting on stocks than teachers, nurses, janitors and other productive workers – proponents of this system always insisted that workers weren't really the suckers at the table. But the stock market is like Kalshi or Polymarket in that one bettor's losses are another bettor's gains, and in those markets, nearly all the money is harvested by less than 1% of bettors: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/04/29/a-tiny-group-is-winning-on-polymarket-as-under-1-of-wallets-take-half-the-profits Somehow, supposedly, we could beat those insiders and survive into our old age without having to eat dog food or become a burden on our kids by betting on the whole market, through index-tracker funds: https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/17/shareholder-socialism/#asset-manager-capitalism Supposedly, this would "diversify" our portfolios, which would insulate us from risks we could not understand, much less estimate. But thanks to private equity and the AI bubble, betting on "the whole market" is basically "betting on AI." 35% of the S&P 500 is tied up in seven AI companies, who are engaged in the obviously fraudulent (and Worldcom-adjacent) practice of passing the same $100b IOU around really quickly and pretending it's in all their bank accounts at once: https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/11/05/ai-growth-stocks-is-there-still-room-to-run/ When the AI bubble pops, it will vaporize (at least) 35% of the US stock market and wipe out everyday savers who have been swindled into betting their futures on AI, based on the fraudulent representations of AI pitchmen. Millions of people who worked hard all their lives and deprived themselves of small comforts in order to save for their retirement will be wiped out. They will be made dependent on the Social Security system that Republicans are determined to starve into bankruptcy and then turn into (yet another) "market based system" that you will be required to convert into chips at the stock market casino where you're up against professional players who hold all the cards: https://www.newsweek.com/major-social-security-change-proposed-to-build-wealth-11727844 Annihilating a third of the stock market will have severe knock-on effects, even though the median US worker only has $955 saved for retirement: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/955-saved-for-retirement-millions-are-in-that-boat-150003868.html Because wiping out the life's savings of everyone else will tank consumption for a generation. Retirees who have to sell their family homes to pay their medical bills won't be buying breakfast at the local diner or catching a Tuesday night movie. They won't be indulging their grandkids with nice birthday presents or helping their own kids buy their first home. Worse still: the only thing our society knows how to do about economic catastrophe (for now, anyway) is to impose brutal austerity, and austerity drives voters into the arms of fascist strongmen, who blame all their woes on a scapegoated minority in order to win office, and then steal everything that's not nailed down: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/12/always-great/#our-nhs Which is all to say, there's a world of difference between recognizing that the AI bubble is the superior sort of bubble in that it will leave a productive residue, and endorsing the AI bubble as a productive or morally acceptable way to produce that residue. It's one thing to anticipate salvaging something useful out of a catastrophe, and another thing altogether to deliberately induce or prolong that catastrophe so as to maximize the amount of salvage. The swindlers who created this bubble are crooks who have set out to destroy the futures of a generation of savers. They are monsters, and their bubble needs to be popped as quickly as possible. Hey look at this (permalink) Appearing Productive in The Workplace https://nooneshappy.com/article/appearing-productive-in-the-workplace/ Unsolicited https://www.jennyvolvovski.com/category/unsolicited Half of Labour’s Voters Set to Abandon Party in England as Keir Starmer’s ‘London Wall’ Crumbles https://bylinetimes.com/2026/05/06/exclusive-poll-half-of-labours-voters-set-to-abandon-party-in-england-as-keir-starmers-london-wall-crumbles/ Am I Meant To Be Impressed? https://www.wheresyoured.at/am-i-meant-to-be-impressed/ Froth is a small live lexical language for programmable devices https://frothlang.org/ Object permanence (permalink) #20yrsago Judge mocks FCC’s legal argument for wiretapping VoIP https://web.archive.org/web/20060512141440/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004638.php #20yrsago Podcasting saved from the UN — for now https://web.archive.org/web/20060603152220/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004637.php #15yrsago Two billion people and the royal wedding: pretty damned unlikely https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2011/05/06/2-billion-viewers/ #15yrsago Mozilla tells DHS: we won’t help you censor the Internet https://torrentfreak.com/homeland-security-wants-mozilla-to-pull-domain-seizure-add-on-110505/ #15yrsago Foxconn workers forced to sign promise not to commit suicide due to working conditions https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/05/foxconn-workers-forced-to-sign-promise-not-to-commit-suicide-due-to-working-conditions/ #15yrsago Shannon’s Law: a story about bridging Faerie and the mundane world with TCP-over-magic https://reactormag.com/shannons-law/ #15yrsago Green Army men with PTSD https://www.wearedorothy.com/collections/artworks/products/casualties-of-war #10yrsago Deep Insert skimmers: undetectable, disposable short-lived ATM skimmers https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/05/crooks-go-deep-with-deep-insert-skimmers/ #10yrsago How standardizing DRM will make us all less secure https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/standardized-drm-will-make-us-less-safe #10yrsago Excellent advice for generating and maintaining your passwords https://www.wired.com/2016/05/password-tips-experts/ #10yrsago Amid education funding emergency, Washington State gives Boeing, Microsoft $1B in tax breaks https://jeffreifman.com/2016/05/05/forget-boeing-microsofts-tax-break-costs-776-million/ #5yrsago MRNA vaccines and Clarke's Law https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/05/clarkes-third-law/#indistinguishable-from-magic #5yrsago Stimmies killed the McJob https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/05/clarkes-third-law/#precariat-nostalgia #1yrago Bridget Read's 'Little Bosses Everywhere' https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/05/free-enterprise-system/#amway-or-the-highway Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/07/dump-the-pumpers/

Office Hours: Who Should Be the Democratic Presidential Candidate in 2028 (Part III)?

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-18)

Friends,

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-who-should-be-the-democratic-fcc

Prolost Watches

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-06)

Prolost Watches and a Heuer Solunar, a weird and cool watch from the 1970s that tracks 14 days of high and low tides.

After my experience being rejected from the App Store, I was left with an unscratched itch to ship a native iPhone app. Staying well away from my day-job turf of tools for motion artists, I created an app to support a hobby I fell into.

Prolost Watches is an iPhone app for managing your watch collection. It’s part database, part journal; designed for the detail-obsessed mind of the watch fanatic. As you log each day’s choice of watch, insights are revealed. Wear logs trace a path on the map. Events from the past are resurfaced at opportune times. Finances mange themselves as you buy and sell. Your entire collection lives in your pocket, and you get to enjoy all your watches, even the ones you’re not wearing.

Vibe-coding is starting to get a bit of a reputation as just more AI slop, and it’s not totally undeserved. You see daily breathless AI-bro posts declaring an entire industry “cooked” because of something built with “a single prompt.” This would be easy to dismiss as pure hype if it wasn’t so harmful to, well, everything.

But I also see daily feed of people laboring with care and craft on apps designed to solve niche problems. My mission with Prolost Watches is to create one of these counter-examples: a luxurious, native iPhone experience. I’ve responded to user feedback from dozens of active beta testers, added creature comforts and Easter eggs, optimized performance and squashed bugs, and packed as much “it just works” in as I can. I’ve also said “no” a few times, just for good measure. Prolost Watches is my first app, and I’m proud to release it on the App Store.

Prolost Watches is a one-time purchase. There’s no subscription, no ads, no account, and no server. Your data is secure and private, and never leaves your device. Pre-order now for US$14.99, with expected release on June 16 at US$19.99.

Learn more Get Prolost Watches

Making Prolost Watches with Bitrig

Bitrig has changed a lot since I used the iPhone client to create the ill-fated version of Drinking Buddy. It’s now a native Mac app that allows prompt-base creation of native SwiftUI apps for iPhone, as well as iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. It has a built-in simulator, and can preview your apps on your device as well. If Lovable (which I used to create the shipping version of Drinking Buddy) is at one end of the spectrum — easy for anyone to use with little experience, and Claude Code running in the terminal is at the other, Bitrig is in a sweet spot right in the middle: a little nerdy, but with some well-considered creature comforts that, in my case, made it mostly a delight to craft and refine a complex app.

I am very polite when correcting the robot. I’ve seen The Terminator too many times.

We’re not quite at the point where domain knowledge is all you need. It’s actually refreshing to me that there’s still a place in vibe-coding for nerding out about data formats, performance, user-experience models, and how things function under the hood. But on a good day, working with Bitrig feels creatively empowering in a way AI very often doesn’t for me. Prolost Watches wouldn’t exist without it.

https://prolost.com/blog/prolostwatches

If you’re voting in local elections in England today, don’t forget to bring your photo ID. And when you get to the polling station, don’t forget to make a formal complaint about having to bring your photo ID.

(date: 2026-05-07)

If you’re voting in local elections in England today, don’t forget to bring your photo ID. And when you get to the polling station, don’t forget to make a formal complaint about having to bring your photo ID.

https://adactio.com/notes/22557

Trump’s Perverted Justice

(date: 2026-05-07)

Has Trump corrupted our justice system beyond repair? The latest indictment of former FBI Director James Comey is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of damage that this administration has done. This week, Alex speaks to former US Attorney Mike Gordon about the purging of staff who investigated Trump or January 6th and the appointment of unqualified attorneys at every level. Then she speaks to Strict Scrutiny host Kate Shaw about the seashell indictment, the huge number of pardons already issued by Trump, and what steps will have to be taken to revive American justice.

https://audioboom.com/posts/8900329

Google’s Prompt API

(date: 2026-05-07)

No web standard should require you to agree to an advertising company’s “terms of use.”

I’m genuinely disheartened and angry that the Google Chrome team have done this. Never assume good faith from them again.

This is, hands-down, the most insultingly transparent attempt at web standards bullying I’ve ever seen, including past ones from Google, which is — and I cannot stress this point enough — a company that sells advertisements. This is miles more eyeroll-worthy than AMP, where you’ll recall that a legion of tight-smiling dorks wearing Alphabet lanyards tried to assure us that the only means of survival for the web itself was to funnel all of it through Google’s servers, and only use their very good advertisements instead of those bad other ones.

adactio.com/links/22556

https://wil.to/posts/googles-prompt-api/

Three stable kernel updates

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-10)

The7.0.4,6.18.27, and6.12.86 stable kernels have been released; each contains another set of important fixes.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071568/

It Has Indeed Been A While

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-27)

Thirteen things this Thursday that I have read, watched, listened to or otherwise found noteworthy.

https://www.carolinecrampton.com/it-has-indeed-been-a-while/

May 6, 2026

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-13)

It has not been a banner day for members of the Trump administration.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-6-2026

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for May 7, 2026

(date: 2026-05-07, updated: 2026-05-10)

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Front: LLMs and security; restartable sequences and TCMalloc; Fedora and GNOME bug reports; Prolly trees; Arm on s390.
Briefs: NHS open source; Alpine outage; GCC 16.1; Incus 7.0 LTS; NetHack 5.0.0; PHP license; Quotes; ...
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1070466/

Automations, rebuilt

(date: 2026-05-07)

One-to-many actions, a dedicated settings page, richer analytics, and previews that let you see how an automation would have performed in the past.

https://buttondown.com/blog/2026-05-07-automations-rebuild

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-19)

Starting on the final boss of the AnimationTree.

Just recycling the SwiftUI views from the previous one is paying off, but it will need a lot of tuning:

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116529944511169114

Last Call - Tonight, 7pm ET - Our Weekly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-18)

Welcome new subscribers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/last-call-tonight-7pm-et-our-weekly-025

Les invités moins attendus en temps de deuil [en]

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-18)

[en] Voilà, il est là. Il est là, le soulagement. Je savais qu’il serait là. C’est normal, après des années de soins, d’inquiétude, de peur de ce qui allait arriver. C’est normal d’être soulagé de ne plus porter ce poids. Il est arrivé plutôt rapidement, le soulagement. Mais je n’ai pas fini d’être triste. Je … Continue reading "Les invités moins attendus en temps de deuil [en]"

https://climbtothestars.org/archives/2026/05/06/les-invites-moins-attendus-en-temps-de-deuil/

Deep Dive episode: Political scientists were right about Trump

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

A conversation with political scientist Seth Masket to talk about Trump, the Constitution, the limits of Bidenomics as a political strategy, and why proportional representation keeps looking better

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/deep-dive-episode-political-scientists

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-13)

Zelensky announces plan to establish private military companies in Ukraine.

https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-announces-plan-to-establish-private-military-companies-in-ukraine/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Historian Phillips O'Brien Talks Ukraine, Iran And "Taking The Initiative" In War

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-17)

Excited to share this timely and deeply informative conversation with you.....

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/historian-phillips-obrien-talks-ukraine

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-18)

I am addicted to rewriting these UIs in SwiftUI.

Next victim, the AnimationStateMachine.

The main driver was just killing the select/add/connect modal system, that feels like using VI on a UI - but while I was working on it, decided to tune up a little the UI.

When you tap on a wire, you get a popup to configure the transition, which you have to preselect in the original:

The original Godot, my version.

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116529435909604675

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-13)

No one owns it. #amen

https://www.terrygodier.com/the-boring-internet/ascii

Whensday

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-12)

All the way down, but not out This visit to an abandoned radio station speaks volumes about what remains of the industry. The station is WACQ/580 in Tuskegee, Alabama. I’m listening to the online stream right now, and it sounds like a working local station, with live talent and lots of ads by local sponsors. […]

https://doc.searls.com/2026/05/06/whensday/

99 percent Utopia and money

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

For full happiness is possible only in stagnation.

https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/99-percent-utopia-and-money

iOS 27: Custom Wallet Passes

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-26)

Alen Todorov (via Hacker News, MacRumors): After 14 years of waiting on developers to ship Wallet support, Apple is letting users do it themselves. Here is what Bloomberg is reporting, how the new flow works, and what it means for third-party tools like WalletWallet. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported on Monday that iOS 27 will add […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/06/ios-27-custom-wallet-passes/

Delayed Siri Features Settlement

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-26)

Juli Clover (Slashdot, Hacker News): Apple will pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing it of false advertising and unfair competition after the personalized Siri features it promoted when launching the iPhone 16 were delayed. A smarter, Apple Intelligence version of Siri was shown off at WWDC 2024, and then promoted in […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/06/delayed-siri-features-settlement/

Software Brain

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-26)

Nilay Patel (Hacker News): It’s a way of thinking that basically created our modern world. Marc Andreessen, the literal embodiment of software brain, called it in 2011 when he wrote the piece “Why software is eating the world” as an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. But software thinking has been turbocharged by AI in […]

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2026/05/06/software-brain/

This Week In The Big Picture

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

Last night, Republican voters in Indiana went to the polls and sent an unmistakable message: Donald Trump is still very much the king—and queen—maker in the Republican Party.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/week-big-picture-may-6

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-13)

Joel Embiid out for Game 2 vs. Knicks.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/76ers-joel-embiid-injury-update-knicks-nba-playoffs-game-2/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-11)

The Iran War May Be the Beginning of the End of Fossil Fuel Dominance.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/the-iran-war-may-be-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-fossil-fuel-dominance

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-11)

Ted Turner, CNN founder who pioneered cable TV news, dies at 87.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/06/us/ted-turner-death

LibreOffice at the Augsburger Linux-Infotag 2026

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

Most of the work in the LibreOffice project takes place online – in our Git repository, on mailing lists, on IRC and other places. But where possible, we like to meet in-person as well, at events around the world! Last weekend, for instance, we were at the Augsburger Linux-Infotag in

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/05/06/libreoffice-at-the-augsburger-linux-infotag-2026/

@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-18)

This has got to be one of Peter Girnus’ best pieces:

https://xcancel.com/gothburz/status/2052011313249890375?s=46

https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/116528526837290406

The Birthday Gift: el peso de la memoria histórica

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-22)

Dirección: Arianna Ortiz. Guion: Stephanie Alison Walker, basado en su obra de teatro The Abuelas. Elenco: Cruz González-Cadel, Paula Pizzi, Ignacio Serricchio, Nate Santana, Margarita Lamas, Marcelo Tubert. País: Estados Unidos. Más información del cortometraje: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36535221 Arianna Ortiz, actriz estadounidense de origen peruano se prueba tras la cámara por primera vez con el cortometraje The Birthday Gift. […]

La entrada The Birthday Gift: el peso de la memoria histórica se publicó primero en Palomita de maíz.

https://www.palomitademaiz.net/resenas-the-birthday-gift/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=resenas-the-birthday-gift

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-21)

New on the blog: MANTO announces regular public data releases https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/manto-announces-regular-public-data-releases

> Pleiades partner MANTO (the digital dataset of Greek myth), is now releasing of all their data under open license.

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116528325199116783

MANTO announces regular public data releases

(date: 2026-05-06)

Pleiades partner MANTO (the digital dataset of Greek myth), is now releasing of all their data under open license.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/manto-announces-regular-public-data-releases

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-20)

As I get deeper into the Claude-O-Verse, I get that it doesn't remember anything about the code. The code actually serves as its memory. There are comments in the code of course, put there by Claude. Managing my own memory when I've got so many different bits of software is the bain of my existence, esp as I get older and memory becomes more iffy. But I'll turn it all over to Claude as fast as I can, to relieve me of the responsibility to remember all that stuff. Its brain works much better at this, it's really amazing. I can conceive of things worth doing. And I know how to build the features, but I don't have the skill of immediately understanding some code by reading it not top down but all the lines at the same freaking time. If this isn't us learning how to work with an aliens species, it's a pretty good imitation.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/06.html#a151246

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-20)

There’s going to be a lot of new web software in the coming months. The competition changes from managing complexity to who sees the best way to remix the web. There are a lot ways to do it.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/06.html#a145718

[$] LLM-driven security reports disrupt coordinated disclosure

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-10)

Predictions that LLM tools would cause a surge in reports of security vulnerabilities have, unquestionably, borne out. As expected, maintainers are having to wade through more security reports than ever before; in addition, LLM tools are disrupting traditional-coordinated disclosure practices as well. The method of Copy Fail's disclosure, in particular, left vendors, projects, and users scrambling. In addition, maintainers are seeing parallel discovery of the same security flaws within the embargo window. Both of these developments mean that coordinated security disclosures may become a thing of the past.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1070698/

Become Easy to Work With

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

Why low-friction people win.

https://guykawasaki.substack.com/p/become-easy-to-work-with

Putin Breaks a Ceasefire, Trump Stumbles and Retreats in the Gulf, Democrats Overperform in a Special Election (Again)

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-16)

Dr. Phillips O'Brien joins us live at 2pm ET today to talk Ukraine, Iran and more.....

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/putin-breaks-a-ceasefire-trump-stumbles

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-19)

Export Updates 2026-05-06:

Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places

6 updated places.

https://www.clf.org/blog/new-england-industrial-facilities-can-run-on-electricity/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-england-industrial-facilities-can-run-on-electricity

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

"main" branch:

11ee6a03 - updated json

no change: rdf/ttl

30bdff74 - updated gis package

433dc949 - updated data quality

a78d9d5d - updated bibliography

81826373 - updated indexes

no change: sidebar

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

6910535b - updated geojson and names index

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

1b20f059 - updated pleiades wikidata

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116528072875955187

Can New England Industrial Facilities Run on Electricity? Yes.

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-21)

It’s not only possible, but critical to upgrade these facilities to electricity so our neighbors don’t live in their polluting shadows.

The post Can New England Industrial Facilities Run on Electricity? Yes. appeared first on Conservation Law Foundation.

Incus 7.0 LTS released

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-10)

Version
7.0 of the Incus container and virtual-machine management system has been released. Notable changes in this release include the inclusion of a low-level backup API, the addition
of basic S3 operations directly in Incus to replace the now-unmaintained MinIO project, as well as the removal of support for cgroups v1 and xtables (iptables/ip6tables/ebtables). This is a long-term-support (LTS) release, with support through June 2031.

The first 2 years will feature bug and security fixes as well as minor usability improvements, delivered through occasional point releases (7.0.x). After that initial two years, Incus 7.0 LTS will move to security only maintenance for the remaining of its 5 years of support.

A total of 204 individuals contributed to Incus between the 6.0 LTS and 7.0 LTS releases with 45 contributing between the 6.23 and 7.0 LTS releases.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071469/

@Pleiades STOA at hcommons.socal

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-18)

New documentation: The Pleiades managing editor uses the HTTP Request Header User-Agent string "Pleiades Linked Data Sidebar Fetcher (+ https://pleiades.stoa.org/docs/pleiades-linked-data-sidebar-fetcher)" for fetching data export files and accessing APIs provided by third parties when updating information for the Pleiades Linked Data Sidebar, which creates links from Pleiades place pages back to the third-party website. Various tools and scripts are used for this purpose, including curl. See the doc for more details, like web-fetching behaviors.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/docs/pleiades-linked-data-sidebar-fetcher

https://hcommons.social/@pleiades_gazetteer/116527961665941796

Disney Not Yet In Talks With NFL About Rights Renewal, CFO Hugh Johnston Says, But “Not Dogmatic About The Process”

(date: 2026-05-06)

Unlike some other media partners with the NFL, Disney is not yet negotiating with the league for a renewal of its long-term rights deal. CFO Hugh Johnston delivered that update during the media giant’s quarterly earnings call Wednesday. The league, whose games continue to be massively important strategic pillars for media companies and streamers, is […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/disney-nfl-rights-negotiations-1236882735/

The schedule for UX London 2026

(date: 2026-05-06)

There’s just under a month to go until UX London 2026—exciting!

You can peruse the full schedule if you need to decide wether you’re coming for just one day or for all three. The event is designed to flow together, from discovery day to design day to delivery day, but each individual day is also designed to be a standalone experience by itself.

Day one on Tuesday, June 2nd has a focus on research:

Maria Isachenko will talk about how You don’t need more research time: You need a system that keeps research in product decisions.
Melin Edomwonyi covers Validation as a UX superpower.
Marley Dizney Swanson will present From insight to impact: A hypothesis-driven framework for product teams.
Luisa Berta will be talking about Turning failure into opportunity.

Day two on Wednesday, June 3rd is all about the nitty-gritty details of design:

Julia Petretta kicks things off with From onboarding to “a-ha!”: Designing the moments that really matter.
Andrea Grigsby has a case study called Why must things be this way? Designing with intention.
Piccia Neri puts a positive spin on accessibility with her talk, The best creative brief.
Hidde de Vries will explain why The future of UX is green: On the Web Sustainability Guidelines.

Day three on Thursday, June 4th will cover collaboration and design systems:

Ben Callahan will impart Wisdom from the trees.
Lucy Blackwell and Alex Edwards will give a case study on Putting the user at the centre of your design system.
Rachel Ilan Simpson will take us From 0 to scale: Building and transforming design at startups & scale-ups.
Matt LeMay will cover why The communication of the thing IS the thing

And those are just the morning talks!

On each day you’ll have your choice of workshop for the afternoon.

Feyikemi Akinwolemiwa will cover Future friction: Horizon scanning for UX.
Natasha den Dekker will help you answer the question How well do you know your users? Exploring assumptions through play
Chris How’s workshop is Yippee IA: Information architecture for digital designers
Oore Babatunde will help you put together UX practitioner’s code of ethics.
Lucrezia Ponzano will take you From chaos to clarity: A tactical workshop for real alignment.
Ben Callahan will guide you through Assessing organisational culture.

After your afternoon workshop there’ll be one final closing talk at the end of each day before we head to the bar. I haven’t announced those speakers yet, but believe me when I say they’re going to be quite special!

UX London 2026 is shaping up to be an excellent three days of design. Get your ticket now if you haven’t already got one.

(And just between you and me, you can use the discount code JOIN_JEREMY to get a whopping 20% off any ticket price!)

https://adactio.com/journal/22554

William Baldwin & Leo Gregory Board Jane Spencer’s Road Movie ‘The Road To Nevermore’

(date: 2026-05-06)

William Baldwin and Leo Gregory have signed on to The Road to Nevermore, a new feature written and directed by Jane Spencer (Little Noises). The film is said to follow “two delusional Irish poets who ditch their stalker-fan and blow her life savings on a road trip to the Swiss Alps in search of spiritual […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/william-baldwin-leo-gregory-the-road-to-nevermore-1236882737/

Distributions quote of the week

(date: 2026-05-06)

2,442 days is a fair amount of time, and that's how long I had been on the openSUSE Board as its chair when I started this note.

That journey began on August 19th, 2019, and it ends today as I am stepping down as chair of the openSUSE Board.

It's been an intense time for most of it — just a bit calm the last year and a half. A time of joy and frustration, anger occasionally and rewarding more often than that.

During those years we have seen SUSE and openSUSE carve out from Micro Focus (escalations on the IT side included); a global pandemic; SUSE go public and return to private; the arrival of Rancher, NeuVector, and Losant; four CIOs and four (and de facto more) General Managers for Linux at SUSE; repeated discussions on the logo and name of our project; the creation of Geeko Foundation; people move on and others step up; seven board elections; board meetings become public; passionate debates and growing pains; web site refreshes; the number of distros and tooling around them grow and evolve; and quite a bit more.

If I can leave one piece of advice, it is to embrace open, non-violent communication and trust — both given and received.

I encourage more lateral sharing (of accomplishments, changes, challenges, calls for collaboration) between the cells and bodies that make up openSUSE, and above all applying the PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY. That is, giving others the benefit of the doubt, assuming good intentions, and looking for real value in their perspectives.

Does that always come easy? Absolutely not.

Does it make a difference? A lot.

— Gerald
Pfeifer

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071468/

WHILE STOCK TRADERS ARE OVER THE MOON, BOND TRADERS ARE FREAKING OUT

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-21)

Something very interesting has been happening for the past several weeks: while stock traders and investors’ sentiment is beyond euphoric, bond traders and investors are freaking out. Please take a look at this chart that includes the 10-year government bond yields of major countries and the VIX. I believe some...

The post WHILE STOCK TRADERS ARE OVER THE MOON, BOND TRADERS ARE FREAKING OUT appeared first on JustDario.

https://justdario.com/2026/05/while-stock-traders-are-over-the-moon-bond-traders-are-freaking-out/

‘Every Brilliant Thing’ Recoups $5.75M Broadway Capitalization

(date: 2026-05-06)

Every Brilliant Thing, the Tony-nominated revival featuring Daniel Radcliffe (and soon to star Mariska Hargitay in her Broadway debut), has recouped its $5.75 million capitalization, producers announced today. Producers Second Half Productions, Seaview, and Gavin Kalin Productions said the recoupment came with the performance week ending on May 3. (The solo show grossed $1,718,476 that […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/every-brilliant-thing-broadway-recoups-1236882710/

Pussy Riot & FEMEN Storm Russian Pavilion At Venice Biennale

(date: 2026-05-06)

More than 50 members of anti-Putin activist group Pussy Riot stormed the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition on Wednesday in their first-ever joint protest with Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN. The action comes amid a backlash against a decision by the Venice Biennale – which also oversees the Venice Film Festival in […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/pussy-riot-femen-storm-russian-pavilion-venice-biennale-1236882706/

‘Everytime’ Clip: Sandra Wollner’s Tale Of Loss Debuts In Cannes Un Certain Regard With Charades Handling Sales

(date: 2026-05-06)

EXCLUSIVE: Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner’s third feature Everytime world premieres in Cannes Un Certain Regard this year, and Deadline can reveal a clip setting-up the premise for the tale of a family coming to terms with a tragic loss. On the eve of a family vacation, the eldest daughter sneaks out to see her boyfriend. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/everytime-clip-sandra-wollner-cannes-charades-sales-1236882659/

Security updates for Wednesday

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-10)

Security updates have been issued by AlmaLinux (corosync, dovecot, image-builder, python-tornado, resource-agents, and systemd), Debian (openjdk-11, openjdk-17, and pyjwt), Fedora (pdns, pyOpenSSL, and squid), Slackware (hunspell), SUSE (alloy, avahi, bubblewrap, cmctl, coredns, curl, dpkg, firefox, golang-github-prometheus-prometheus, grafana, libpng12, PackageKit, sed, and xen), and Ubuntu (docker.io-app, nghttp2, python-django, and python-mako).

https://lwn.net/Articles/1071466/

Tubi Taps Former TikTok & CBC Exec Gave Lindo As Its First General Manager For Canada

(date: 2026-05-06)

EXCLUSIVE: Gave Lindo has been appointed Tubi’s first General Manager for Canada. The former TikTok and CBC exec has joined the free streamer and will work out of its newly-opened Toronto office. Lindo brings considerable digital experience to Fox-owned Tubi. He was Executive Director of OTT Programming at pubcaster CBC, where he oversaw digital platforms […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tubi-hires-former-tiktok-cbc-exec-gave-lindo-as-canada-boss-1236882614/

Made By All Launches New Venture Made By Us Studios AS Tanya Cohen Joins Leanne Perice As Co-CEO

(date: 2026-05-06)

EXCLUSIVE: Digital management company Made By All is launching Made By Us Studios, evolving from a social-first marketing agency into a premium studio built for the creator economy and in the process tapping former Range Partner Tanya Cohen as Co-CEO. Cohen will lead the new studio alongside Co-CEO Leanne Perice and President of Production Nic Stanish. […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/made-by-all-made-by-us-studios-tanya-cohen-1236881020/

TV & Tech Veterans Form Vertical Video Maker RoseBerry Media With Deals In Place To Repurpose Distributor Library Content

(date: 2026-05-06)

The latest player in the vertical video game production world has come to the table, and it marks a significant moment for television’s international program distributors. A group of seasoned TV, tech and investment executives, including Abot Hameiri founder Guy Hamieri, have formed RoseBerry Media. Also part of the RoseBerry founding team is ex-Amagi executive […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/vertical-video-roseberry-media-launch-tv-distributor-deals-1236881381/

Scott Adkins Making Directorial Debut On ‘Brawler’ With Lewis Tan Co-Starring — Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-06)

EXCLUSIVE: Action vet Scott Adkins (The Rip) is making his directorial debut with action-thriller Brawler, which he also stars in alongside Lewis Tan (Mortal Kombat). Currently shooting in the UK, Capture is launching sales on the movie ahead of the Cannes market. Above is a first look. In Brawler, “a disgraced MMA champion is pulled […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/scott-adkins-brawler-lewis-tan-directorial-debut-1236882702/

@Dave Winer's Scripting News

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-20)

I was disappointed Automattic didn't do their project in RSS first. Two-way, full fidelity, open to all feed readers not just Automattic's. That would rock the world, in a good way.

http://scripting.com/2026/05/06.html#a125359

Most vibe-coded tools are not for you

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-12)

AI is inflicting a proliferation of tools, in the utensils’ sense. Folks are conjuring all sorts of programs out of thin air, unrestrained. Someone confessed on Hacker News to having created a hundred custom utilities. Linked to this increase is the promotional noise: Not a day passes without someone claiming they’ve made a tool to solve a fundamentally silly problem in some subreddit thanks to something they vibe coded overnight.

https://passo.uno/tools-slop-is-a-problem/

‘Yaga’: HBO Max Europe, Foxtel & Sky New Zealand Are Latest Buyers Of Crave Drama Series

(date: 2026-05-06)

EXCLUSIVE: The buyers keep lining up for Yaga, the upcoming Canadian drama series featuring Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams. HBO Max in Europe (excluding the UK and Ireland), Foxtel in Australia and Sky New Zealand have acquired the Crave series from distributor Sphere Abacus. The deals closely follow AMC Global Media snapping up U.S. rights […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/yaga-crave-drama-hbo-max-foxtel-sky-buyers-1236881548/

@Dave Winer's linkblog

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-11)

When ChatGPT learned they had cancer, it started treating them very strangely.

https://slate.com/technology/2026/05/artificial-intelligence-chatgpt-cancer-diagnosis.html?via=rss

‘The Sun Never Sets’, Starring Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson & Cory Michael Smith, Heads To Cannes Market

(date: 2026-05-06)

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the Cannes market Capture Entertainment has acquired international sales rights to romance drama The Sun Never Sets, which recently premiered at SXSW. Written and directed by Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies) the film stars Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson and Cory Michael Smith, alongside Debby Ryan, Anna Konkle, Lamorne Morris and Karley Sciortino. Johnson, […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/sun-never-sets-dakota-fanning-cannes-market-capture-1236882638/

‘Fast & Furious’ 25th Anniversary Could Rev Up In Cannes: The Dish — UPDATE Midnight Screening & Talent Now Confirmed By Festival

(date: 2026-05-06)

UPDATE: 4.03am PST: The festival has now officially confirmed our earlier scoop. On Wednesday, May 13, at the Grand Lumière Theatre of the Palais des Festivals, there will be a Midnight Screening of the original movie, attended by stars Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster, producer Neal H. Mortiz, and Meadow Walker, the daughter of the film’s […]

https://deadline.com/2026/05/fast-and-the-furious-25th-anniversary-cannes-1236882469/

This is why Republicans won't break with Trump on policy

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

Most are from uncompetitive districts or simply ignore public opinion, and Tuesday's primary wins for Trump's allies only incentivize further entrenchment

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-05-06-indiana-primaries-trump-grip

Is Trump Like Napoleon?

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

Yes, but not that Napoleon.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/is-trump-like-napoleon

The Rent Guidelines Board as Tenant Organizing Infrastructure

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-26)

As New York's Rent Guidelines Board weighs a possible rent freeze, the real significance of its annual hearings lies beyond the final vote. These public proceedings serve as a crucial engine for tenant organizing, building the collective power needed to overcome the real estate industry’s next wave of opposition.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/the-rent-guidelines-board-as-tenant-organizing-infrastructure/

Solod v0.1: Go ergonomics, practical stdlib, native C interop

(date: 2026-05-06)

A system-level language with Go syntax and zero runtime.

https://antonz.org/solod-v0-1/

Rowhammer Attack Against NVIDIA Chips

(date: 2026-05-06)

A new rowhammer attack gives complete control of NVIDIA CPUs.

On Thursday, two research teams, working independently of each other, demonstrated attacks against two cards from Nvidia’s Ampere generation that take GPU rowhammering into new—and potentially much more consequential—territory: GDDR bitflips that give adversaries full control of CPU memory, resulting in full system compromise of the host machine. For the attack to work, IOMMU memory management must be disabled, as is the default in BIOS settings.

“Our work shows that Rowhammer, which is well-studied on CPUs, is a serious threat on GPUs as well,” said Andrew Kwong, co-author of one of the papers. “...

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/05/rowhammer-attack-against-nvidia-chips.html

MAGA Will Kill Many Americans

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-20)

Greed, willful ignorance and mortality

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/maga-will-kill-many-americans

Lit Hub Daily: May 6, 2026

(date: 2026-05-06)

Juliet Faithfull remembers having “no frame of reference for free speech” while growing up in the 60s and 70s under Brazil’s military dictatorship. | Lit Hub Politics Ayana Elizabeth Johnson meditates on the necessity of hope in the fight against

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-may-6-2026/

How dare you point out that Sam Alito is a partisan hack!

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-26)

A hit dog will holler.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/alito-callais

Pluralistic: In praise of vultures (06 May 2026)

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

Today's links In praise of vultures: They screw you because they can. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Linus v MSFT; Argentina v MSFT; Danny Hillis on theme parks v games; Smartfilter v Distributed Boing Boing; Rental laptops filled with spyware; Torture didn't help capture bin Laden; Massively parallel Apple //e; Stephen Harper v election law; John Deere v Iowa cartoonist; Qualia. Upcoming appearances: Guelph, Barcelona, Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, London, NYC, Edinburgh. 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. In praise of vultures (permalink) One of my bedrock beliefs is that capitalists really hate capitalism. They may name their beloved institutes after the likes of Adam Smith, but they ignore everything Smith had to say about the necessity of competition to keep markets from turning into monopolies: https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/09/commissar-merck/#price-giver The theory of capitalism holds that markets are a kind of distributed computer that aggregates trillions of decisions from billions of market participants in order to optimize production and distribution of goods and services, creating a "Pareto-optimal" world where no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. Whether or not you believe that this computer exists and functions as predicted, one indisputable fact about it is that it requires the freedom to choose in order to work. The point of market-as-computer is that it aggregates decisions, so it can only work if everyone is as free as possible to decide. But that's not the world capitalists want. For capitalists, the point is to restrict other people's choices in order to maximize your own freedom. That's how we get economic doctrines like "revealed preferences": the idea that if a person says they want one thing, but does another thing, then you can tell what they really prefer by looking at the latter and disregarding the former. This is the kind of doctrine you can only fully embrace after sustaining the kind of highly specific neurological injury that is induced by taking an economics degree, an injury that makes you incapable of perceiving or reasoning about power. Under the doctrine of revealed preferences, someone who sells their kidney to make the rent has a revealed preference for only having one kidney: https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/30/players-of-games/#know-when-to-fold-em Capitalism is supposed to run on risk: the risk of being overtaken by a competitor drives businesses to deliver better services more efficiently, thus producing a bounty for all. But capitalists really hate risk, hence the drive to monopoly: Mark Zuckerberg admitted, in writing, that he only bought Instagram so that he wouldn't have to compete with it ("It is better to buy than to compete" -M. Zuckerberg): https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/20/if-you-wanted-to-get-there/#i-wouldnt-start-from-here Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Feudalism is like capitalism, in that you have a ruling class that creams off the surplus generated by labor; but under feudalism, society is organized to protect rents (money you get from owning stuff) over profits (money you get from doing stuff). The beauty of rents is that they are insulated from risk: if you own a coffee shop, you're in constant danger of being put out of business by a better coffee shop. But if you own the building and your coffee shop tenant goes under, well, you've still got the building, and hey, now it's on the same hot block as the amazing new cafe that's driving its competitors out of business: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital Douglas Rushkoff calls this "going meta": don't drive a taxi, rent a medallion to a taxi driver. Don't rent a medallion, start a ride-hailing app company. Don't start a ride-hailing company, invest in the company. Don't invest in the company, buy options on the company's shares. Each layer of indirection takes you further from the delivery of a useful service – and insulates you further from risk: https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn Monopoly is to capitalism as gerrymandering is to democracy, a way to strip out any meaningful choice. Think of the two giant packaged goods companies that fill your grocery aisles: Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Practically everything on your grocer's shelves is made by a division of one of these two massive conglomerates. If you try to "vote with your wallet" by buying a low-packaging version of a product, it's going to be sold to you by the same company that sells the high-packaging version. If you switch to an artisanal brand of cookies made by a local family business, Unilever or P&G will buy that company and issue a press release declaring that they made the acquisition because they know "their customers value choice": https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/18/market-discipline/#too-big-to-care Gerrymandering strips your vote of any impact on political outcomes. Monopoly strips your purchases of any ability to influence economic outcomes. Wrap both of them in "revealed preferences" and you get a system that endlessly narrates its ability to deliver choice, and then blames your misery on your having chosen badly. This is the method of the entire conservative project. As Dan Savage says: the thing that unites conservative assaults on voting, birth control, abortion and no-fault divorce is the stripping away of choice. Conservatives are trying to create a world populated by husbands you can't divorce, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, and politicians you can't vote out of office. Add to that Trump's assault on the National Labor Relations Board, his reversal of the FTC's ban on noncompetes, and his protection of "TRAP" agreements that force employees to pay thousands of dollars if they quit their jobs, and you get "jobs you can't quit": https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/09/germanium-valley/#i-cant-quit-you Conservative strongmen like Trump and Musk exalt the value of self-determination – for themselves, at everyone else's expense. Trump's ability to stiff the contractors that built his hotels and Musk's ability to rain flaming rocket debris down on the people who live near his company town require that everyone else be stripped of protections. They get to determine their own course in life by taking away your ability to determine your own. Their right to swing their fists ends two inches past your nose: https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/21/torment-nexusism/#marching-to-pretoria Cheaters and bullies hate the rule of law, hence Trump's endless repetition of Nixon's mantra: "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal." But not everyone can be president, and the world is full of would-be Trumps in positions of power who would like to be able to commit crimes without fear of legal repercussions. For these people, we have something called "binding arbitration." "Binding arbitration" is a widely used contractual term that forces you to surrender your right to sue a company that wrongs you. Instead of suing, binding arbitration forces you to take your case to an "arbitrator"; that is, a lawyer who is paid by the company that cheated you or maimed you or killed your loved one. The arbitrator decides whether their client is guilty, and, if so, how much that client owes you. The entire process is confidential and it is non-precedential, meaning that if a company rips off millions of people in the same way, each of them has to arbitrate their claims separately, and people who are successful can't share their tactical notes with the people who are next in line to plead for justice. That makes binding arbitration another key weapon in the conservative movement's war on choice: not just jobs you can't quit and politicians you can't vote out of office, but also companies you can't sue. Binding arbitration is a creation of the Federalist Society and their champion Antonin Scalia, who authored a series of Supreme Court dissents and (ultimately) decisions that opened the door for binding arbitration everywhere: https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/27/shit-shack/#binding-arbitration Given the Fedsoc's role in shoving binding arbitration down every worker and shopper's throat, it's decidedly odd that they invited Ashley Keller to be their keynote debater in 2021, where he argued that "concentrated corporate power is a greater threat than government power": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY5MrHGjVT8 Keller is a powerhouse lawyer, and an avowed conservative, who has pioneered many tactics for overcoming binding arbitration clauses. He helped create "mass arbitration," bringing thousands of arbitration cases on behalf of Uber drivers who'd had their wages stolen by the company. Since Uber has to pay the arbitrators in each of those cases, they faced a much larger bill than they would face in any possible class action suit: https://www.reuters.com/article/otc-uber-frankel-idUKKCN1P42OH/ Mass arbitration cases spread to all kinds of large firms that used petty grifts to steal from thousands or even millions of people, like Intuit, who deceive – and rip off – millions of Americans every year with their fake Turbotax "free file" system: https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/uber-for-arbitration/#nibbled-to-death-by-ducks Mass arbitration worked so well that Amazon actually revised its terms of service to remove binding arbitration from their terms of service, because they realized that they'd be better off facing class action suits: https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/02/arbitrary-arbitration/#petard Of course, the point of binding arbitration was never to create a streamlined system of justice – it was to bring about a world of no justice, where you have no right to sue. It's part of the decades-old "tort reform" movement that the business lobby has used to take away your right to sue altogether. Any time you hear about a seemingly crazy lawsuit (like the urban legends about the McDonald's "hot coffee" case), you're being propagandized for a world without legal consequences for companies that defraud you, steal from you, injure you, or kill you: https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico That's why companies (like Bluesky) are now trying terms of service that also ban you from mass arbitration, while retaining the right to consolidate claims into a mass arbitration case if that's advantageous to them: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/15/dogs-breakfast/#by-clicking-this-you-agree-on-behalf-of-your-employer-to-release-me-from-all-obligations-and-waivers-arising-from-any-and-all-NON-NEGOTIATED-agreements But Keller keeps finding creative ways around binding arbitration. He's currently bringing thousands of arbitration claims against Google, on behalf of advertisers whom Google stole from (Google is a thrice-convicted monopolist, and they lost a case last year over their monopolization of ad-tech, where they were found to have defrauded advertisers). He also just argued before the Supreme Court in a case against Monsanto over the company's attempt to escape liability for causing cancer in farmworkers with their Roundup pesticide: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/27/nx-s1-5793804/supreme-court-monsanto-roundup-arguments Keller appears in the latest episode of the Organized Money podcast, for a fascinating interview about his work and outlook, and how he reconciles his work fighting corporate power with his identity as a movement conservative: https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/the-conservative-who-torments-big Keller's first big, important point is that (basically), capitalists hate capitalism (see above). He cites Milton Friedman, who "always said that the tort system is the best way to ensure that companies behave and follow the rules." For Keller (and Friedman) the alternative to private litigation against bad businesses is "government regulation and the alphabet soup of Washington, DC agencies [that] try and police these companies." But, of course, the businesses that want binding arbitration and tort reform (so they can't be sued) also want to "dismantle the administrative state" (so they can't be regulated). They're the impunity movement, the "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal" movement, the "heads I win, tails you lose" movement. They're the caveat emptor movement, the "that makes me smart" movement: https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth They don't want efficient markets, with the ever-present threat of a better competitor putting them out of business. They want feudalism. They want to go meta. They want to have the kind of self-determination you can only achieve by taking away everyone else's self-determination. I was very struck by Keller's claim to be engaged in an exercise that Milton Friedman identified as the best one for making markets work. One of Keller's most forceful points is that class action suits are especially important for reining in petty, recurrent grifts, the junk fees that are the hallmark of enshittification. He quotes his old boss, the archconservative judge Richard Posner, who said "Only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $20." But if you multiply a $20 junk fee by ten million purchases, a company can use that fact to make hundreds of millions of dollars. That's real folding money, which is why every company has figured out a way to whack you for a $20 junk fee. There are two ways to end this racket: one is litigation, the other is regulation, and the capitalism-hating-capitalists who run the world want to kill both. That's why the business lobby smears lawyers like Keller as being "vultures." But as Matt Stoller says, "vultures look aggressive and whatnot, but when you actually get rid of vultures out of an ecosystem, all sorts of things go haywire." I love this point. Vultures live off the disgusting, rotting crap that would otherwise pile up around us, breeding disease and emitting an unbearable stench. If plaintiff-side, no-win/no-fee lawyers are vultures, then junk fees, wage theft, and the million petty frauds they fight are the disgusting, rotting crap that vultures feed off of – and the harder we make it for our noble vulture lawyers, the more disgusting, rotting crap we have to live with, hence the unbearable stench that is all around us. Listening to Keller was a fascinating exercise. I thoroughly disagree with him about many things – the way he characterized Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act couldn't have been more wrong – but it's quite bracing to hear a capitalist who doesn't hate capitalism defend it against the vast majority of capitalists, who hate capitalism more than any socialist ever did. Hey look at this (permalink) Why Reddit blocked my daily visit to its mobile website https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/05/why-reddit-blocked-my-daily-visit-to-its-mobile-website/ "The Score Is Four/and Next Time More" https://rickperlstein.substack.com/p/the-score-is-fourand-next-time-more Bodyform | Never Just a Period https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpFYcj2sJ3A Getting Digital Fairness Right: EFF's Recommendations for the EU's Digital Fairness Act https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/dos-and-donts-eus-digital-fairness-act-effs-recommendation-regulating-digital DHS Demanded Google Surrender Data on Canadian’s Activity, Location Over Anti-ICE Posts https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-demanded-google-surrender-data-on-canadians-activity-location-over-anti-ice-posts/ Object permanence (permalink) #25yrsago Torvalds responds to Microsoft's Craig Mundie https://web.archive.org/web/20011019132822/http://web.siliconvalley.com/content/sv/2001/05/03/opinion/dgillmor/weblog/torvalds.htm #25yrsago Bankrupt Argentina considers banning proprietary code and switching to free software https://web.archive.org/web/20010614131152/https://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,43529,00.html #20yrsago Danny Hillis on how games are(n’t) like a theme park https://web.archive.org/web/20060513182649/https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/disney.html #20yrsago Mission Impossible opening marked by anti-Scientology flyover https://web.archive.org/web/20060514000636/http://hailxenu.net/ #20yrsago SmartFilter targets Distributed Boing Boing – how to defeat it https://memex.craphound.com/2006/05/04/smartfilter-targets-distributed-boing-boing-how-to-defeat-it/ #15yrsago John Ashcroft assumes charge of “ethics and professionalism” for Blackwater https://web.archive.org/web/20110507103749/https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/blackwaters-new-ethics-chief-john-ashcroft/ #15yrsago Rumsfeld and other US officials say torture didn’t help catch bin Laden https://web.archive.org/web/20110505012303/https://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/surveillance-not-waterboarding-led-to-bin-laden/ #15yrsago Rental laptops equipped with spyware that can covertly activate the webcam and take screenshots https://web.archive.org/web/20110506130156/http://www.ajc.com/business/pa-suit-furniture-rental-933410.html #15yrsago Parallel machine made out of 17 stitched-together Apple //e’s https://web.archive.org/web/20110504194313/http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/AppleCrateII.html #15yrsago Sarah Palin and James Lankford: giving $4 billion of taxpayer money to oil companies doesn’t matter https://web.archive.org/web/20110505220640/https://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/03/palin-lankford-oil-subsidies/ #15yrsago Stephen Harper violated election laws https://web.archive.org/web/20110701000000*/http://www.examiner.com/canada-headlines-in-canada/stephen-harper-breaks-election-rules-campaigns-on-radio-on-election-day #15yrsago History and future of bin Ladenist extremism https://www.juancole.com/2011/05/obama-and-the-end-of-al-qaeda.html #10yrsago Belushi widow & Aykroyd produce Blues Brothers animated series https://deadline.com/2016/05/the-blues-brothers-animated-comedy-series-dan-aykroyd-1201748389/ #10yrsago Chinese censorship: arbitrary rule changes are a form of powerful intermittent reinforcement https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/04/why-growing-unpredictability-chinas-censorship-is-feature-not-bug/ #10yrsago US government and SCOTUS change cybercrime rules to let cops hack victims’ computers https://www.wired.com/2016/05/now-government-wants-hack-cybercrime-victims/ #10yrsago After advertiser complaints, Farm News fires editorial cartoonist who criticized John Deere & Monsanto https://web.archive.org/web/20160505042150/https://www.kcci.com/news/longtime-iowa-farm-cartoonist-fired-after-creating-this-cartoon/39337816 #10yrsago Outstanding rant about establishment pearl-clutching over Trump https://web.archive.org/web/20160505033357/https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/george-will-is-a-haughty-dipshit-1774449290 #10yrsago The Planet Remade: frank, clear-eyed book on geoengineering, climate disaster, & humanity’s future https://memex.craphound.com/2016/05/04/the-planet-remade-frank-clear-eyed-book-on-geoengineering-climate-disaster-humanitys-future/ #5yrsago Qualia https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/04/law-and-con/#law-n-econ #5yrsago Whales decry the casino economy https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/04/law-and-con/#all-bets-are-off Upcoming appearances (permalink) Guelph: Musagetes Lecture, May 8 https://riverrun.ca/whats-on/guelph-lecture-on-being-2026/ Barcelona: Internet no tiene que ser un vertedero (Global Digital Rights Forum), May 13 https://encuentroderechosdigitales.com/en/speakers/ Virtual: How to Disenshittify the Internet with Wendy Liu (EFF), May 14 https://www.eff.org/event/effecting-change-enshittification Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20 https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 18 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow-in-der-friesenstrasse-23-kreuzberg-praesentiert-von-otherland.html Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19 https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25 https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2 SXSW London, Jun 2 https://www.sxswlondon.com/session/how-big-tech-broke-the-internet-b3c4a901 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 Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales Recent appearances (permalink) Enshittification (99% Invisible) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/666-enshittification/ Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disruptor, with Astra Taylor and Yoshua Bengio (CBC Ideas) https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16210039-artificial-intelligence-the-ultimate-disruptor When Do Platforms Stop Innovating and Start Extracting? (InnovEU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccDR0YaMt8 Pete "Mayor" Buttigieg (No Gods No Mayors) https://www.patreon.com/posts/pete-mayor-with-155614612 The internet is getting worse (CBC The National) https://youtu.be/dCVUCdg3Uqc?si=FMcA0EI_Mi13Lw-P 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

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/06/champerty-loves-company/

Quickshell: Build Your Own Desktop on Linux

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-09)

Quickshell: Build Your Own Desktop on Linux

Quickshell is a modern toolkit built with C++ for creating desktop interface components — bars, widgets, lock screens, launchers, and even complete environments — using QtQuick + QML.

It is not a “bar program”.
It is also not a complete, ready-made desktop.

It is a foundation for building a custom desktop, running alongside a compositor like Hyprland, Sway, or i3.

In practice, it replaces several pieces:

status bar
notifications
widgets
lockscreen
display manager
system controls

Example

Quickshell uses:

QtQuick (UI)
QML (configuration/programming)
Hot reload (save → instant update) ([Quickshell][2])

Simple example (bar):

PanelWindow {
  anchors {
    top: true
    left: true
    right: true
  }

  implicitHeight: 30

  Text {
    anchors.centerIn: parent
    text: "hello world"
  }
}

Native integrations:

One of its strengths is that it comes already integrated with the system:

Wayland + X11 (windowing)
Hyprland, i3, Sway (workspaces)
PipeWire (audio)
BlueZ (Bluetooth)
UPower (battery)
MPRIS (media players)
standard system tray

This eliminates a lot of boilerplate.

Installation

Arch Linux / EndeavourOS / Manjaro

yay -S quickshell
### Or
paru -S quickshell

Or build from scratch on any system:

Dependencies:

sudo apt install cmake ninja-build qt6-base-dev qt6-declarative-dev \
qt6-wayland wayland-protocols libpipewire-0.3-dev \
libdbus-1-dev libxkbcommon-dev

Clone:

git clone https://github.com/quickshell-mirror/quickshell.git
cd quickshell

Build:

cmake -B build -G Ninja
cmake --build build

Install:

sudo cmake --install build

Run:

quickshell

Configuration:

~/.config/quickshell/main.qml

Minimal example:

import QtQuick
import Quickshell

PanelWindow {
    anchors.top: true
    anchors.left: true
    anchors.right: true
    implicitHeight: 30

    Text {
        anchors.centerIn: parent
        text: "Quickshell is working"
    }
}

Works best on Wayland (Hyprland, Sway, etc.)
May be limited on X11
Still in development → bugs are normal
No config = blank screen

For more information, visit the repository.

Learn Qt

https://terminalroot.com.br/qt

Complete C++ Course

https://terminalroot.com.br/promo

https://terminalroot.com/quickshell-build-your-own-desktop-on-linux/

Meet this modern docking framework for JavaFX

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-09)

Meet this modern docking framework for JavaFX

SnapFX is a docking framework for JavaFX, focused on creating flexible interfaces in the style of:

IntelliJ / VS Code
IDEs in general
tools with multiple panels

Lightweight and modern, designed for dynamic and organized layouts, without you having to reinvent drag & drop for windows.

Installation

Via Gradle

implementation("org.snapfx:snapfx-core:<version>")

Build:

git clone https://github.com/Beowolve/SnapFX.git
./gradlew publishToMavenLocal

Simple Example:

import org.snapfx.SnapFX;
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.TextArea;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class SimpleDemo extends Application {
    @Override
    public void start(Stage stage) {
        SnapFX snapFX = new SnapFX();

        // Dock nodes
        snapFX.dock(new TextArea("Editor 1"), "Editor");
        snapFX.dock(new TextArea("Console"), "Console");

        // Build layout
        Scene scene = new Scene(snapFX.buildLayout(), 800, 600);

        stage.setScene(scene);
        snapFX.initialize(stage);
        // Optional: switch theme at runtime via named catalog entry
        // snapFX.setThemeStylesheet(SnapFX.getAvailableThemeStylesheets().get("Dark"));
        stage.show();
    }
}

For more information, visit the repository.

https://terminalroot.com/meet-this-modern-docking-framework-for-javafx/

Happiness is Within Reach! And Other Fragments of Ancient Greek Wisdom

(date: 2026-05-06)

In the 5th century AD, a father in the Balkan city of Stobi was educating his son. Stobaeus (as we now call him, “the man from Stobi”) compiled quotes from Greek texts to use as a teaching tool, drawing especially

https://lithub.com/happiness-is-within-reach-and-other-fragments-of-ancient-greek-wisdom/

The Power of the Stranger as Plot

(date: 2026-05-06)

We have two kinds of relationships with strangers. In one, we don’t talk to them, don’t trust them, don’t invite them in if they knock, don’t make eye contact, and don’t take online relationships into real life unless it’s in

https://lithub.com/the-power-of-the-stranger-as-plot/

“Mise en Abyme,” a Poem by Lisa Russ Spaar

(date: 2026-05-06)

Despite furnaced trees translating heaven, always it comes, kneeling to nothing: the angry, occult hoar of dread. My service is to pay it no mind, and pray that evil, like cold, if it exists, is just a bloodless absence of

https://lithub.com/mise-en-abyme-a-poem-by-lisa-russ-spaar/

“No One Talked.” On Growing Up Under Brazil’s Military Dictatorship

(date: 2026-05-06)

Growing up in Brazil in the 1960s and 70s, I had no frame of reference for free speech. My Spanish mother had grown up with Franco, so all we knew were dictatorships. We were careful with what we said as

https://lithub.com/no-one-talked-on-growing-up-under-brazils-military-dictatorship/

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on Moving From Resolve to Action, Addressing the Climate Crisis

(date: 2026-05-06)

People often say that hope is important as motivation to address the climate crisis. But I have something to admit: I have a tenuous relationship with hope. I don’t even like the word. It seems so passive, like wishful thinking.

https://lithub.com/ayana-elizabeth-johnson-on-moving-from-resolve-to-action-addressing-the-climate-crisis/

Thinking Inside the Box: How Constraints Can Make Us More Creative

(date: 2026-05-06)

Eighteen‑year‑old Vera Brandes had not intended to make music history on the night of January 24, 1975. She planned only to put on a sold‑out concert at the opera house in Cologne, Germany. Brandes had grown up in a house

https://lithub.com/thinking-inside-the-box-how-constraints-can-make-us-more-creative/

Violaine Huisman on Confronting a Father and Grandfather’s Legacy of Infidelity

(date: 2026-05-06)

My father described his infidelities “playfully, with only a dash of contrition.” That is a sentence I wrote in my novel The Monuments of Paris, and it is also, as closely as I can render it, something he actually said

https://lithub.com/violaine-huisman-on-confronting-a-father-and-grandfathers-legacy-of-infidelity/

What Objects Can—and Should—Reveal About Their Owners

(date: 2026-05-06)

Not long ago, I decided spur of the moment to attend an estate sale in my Washington, DC, neighborhood. As I walked the few blocks to the address I’d seen advertised, I admired the beauty of the late-nineteenth-century row houses

https://lithub.com/what-objects-can-and-should-reveal-about-their-owners/

One Leg on Earth

(date: 2026-05-06)

Miriam Aiki prayed for the fruit of the womb for thirteen years. Thirteen years of chafed knees: blood and shredded skin staining church altars, shrine altars, her bedside rug, her mother-in-law’s living room tiles. Thirteen years begging for a miracle,

https://lithub.com/one-leg-on-earth/

Raspberry Pi Connect: Device tags, required 2FA, and a mobile keyboard

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-27)

Tag and filter your devices, require two-factor authentication for your organisation, and type from a phone keyboard.

The post Raspberry Pi Connect: Device tags, required 2FA, and a mobile keyboard appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-connect-device-tags-required-2fa-and-a-mobile-keyboard/

Sergey Brin Is Making the Case for Why We Need a Wealth Tax

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-17)

He's convincing the public of the necessity of doing this

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sergey-brin-shows-why-we-must-have

Preserving the Web in the Age of AI

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-20)

As artificial intelligence reshapes how information is created, accessed, and controlled, a quieter crisis is emerging: the potential loss of the web’s historical record.

In this episode, tech writer Mike Masnick, Mark Graham of the Internet Archive, and public interest tech and media lawyer Kendra Albert come together for a timely conversation on what it means to preserve the web in the age of AI.

As publishers move to block AI scraping, they’re also increasingly restricting access to archiving tools like the Wayback Machine, raising urgent questions about who gets to access the past, and whether it will remain accessible at all. If preserving the web is increasingly treated as a threat, what happens to our collective memory? And what will it take to ensure that knowledge remains accessible in an AI-driven world?

This conversation was recorded on 4/28/2026. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/preserving-the-web-in-the-age-of-ai

Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge

https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge-episode-29

May 5, 2026

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-12)

Late yesterday, Republicans in the Senate released their funding request for the budget reconciliation bill.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-5-2026

From Digital Content to Academic Confidence: My Rhetorical Journey

(date: 2026-05-06, updated: 2026-05-19)

Rhetoric isn’t something that is just taught in schools. It can be discovered anywhere, like the experiences that shape us into who we are today. From this day on, it still surprises me that I did not realize this in a classroom but rather through a screen. I think back to the time I was [...]