Notices by Tim Bray (timbray@cosocial.ca), page 2

I’m pretty sure that some flavors of #GenAI will find wholesome uses in the post-bubble future, but for the moment I feel a wave of revulsion every time I encounter AI cheerleading because it never NEVER acknowledges the force-field of greed and fear under the overhang of the multi-trillion-dollar bet being made by people I loathe who are oblivious to the oncoming financial and social wreckage they are facilitating.

#uspol #worldcup

Aaaaand we're off. #worldcup

@jwz It was a standstill for hours, they just got going again like 45 min ago.

Why yes, I am watching the Kennedy Center livestream. If I were in DC I'd be there. And I'm not even American. #USpol

@evan We currently say nothing about how far a post might travel, because the nature of the federation protocol means it's an insanely complex. People should really assume that anything they post will be, in effect, public. The degree to which running a relay changes that would require a thousand-word essay which would probably have to omit some of the finer points.

More #Google layoffs today. Some senior people, 15+ years tenure.

@evan Yo! #hnom

TAB TRICK: A person watching over my shoulder asked “How are you switching around so fast?” and I realized that while most readers here know this trick, some may not, and it’s awfully useful:
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2026/05/24/Tab-Lore

[This is an update to an earlier version from 2012. Most people already know the trick, but I keep encountering people who don’t, so here you go.]

In which I don’t accept an invitation to a high-prestige unconference. “I declined, because it’s in the USA”: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2026/05/19/Declining-America

#USpol

Hey, I asked @douglascrockford and he confirmed my impression: This year (last month, actually) is JSON’s 25th birthday.

{ "greeting": "Happy birthday!"}

#json

@evan Turns out that this varies widely from sport to sport. I seem to recall that baseball has a relatively high level of randomness and tennis low, but they're the only ones I remember.

Spring comes. Feline guardian of the garden is fiercely alert!

#caturday

Spring storm on the prairie. Power out.

#skstorm

Idly wondering how badly it stresses the Fediverse fabric when someone with a lot of followers uploads a 75M video.

“Photographer Spends Night on Freezing Mountain to Capture Rare Triple Galaxy Arch” - astonishing photo and interesting how-it-was-done narrative.

https://petapixel.com/2026/05/08/photographer-spends-night-on-freezing-mountain-to-capture-rare-triple-galaxy-arch/

#Photography

“War is bad. Don’t start one. But we’re already in a class war and we’re losing. Where by “we” I mean most people; the winning side comprises, roughly, the richest 0.1% of the population, who are morphing into a hereditary aristocracy. So, what to do in a war one didn’t choose?”: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2026/05/03/Life-During-Class-Wartime

#USpol #cdnpoli

This is the first litigation of this particular flavor that I remember seeing. Feels to me like Google might be in dangerous territory.

Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac sues Google over alleged defamation | CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cape-breton-fiddler-ashley-macisaac-lawsuit-against-google-9.7187490

This is outrageous. Per Matt Levine “Musk saved about $143 million by illegally waiting to disclose his purchases [of Twitter shares] so he could buy more in secret.”https://newsletterhunt.com/emails/282521

But, who exactly did he illegally extract (let's just say “steal”) that money from? The stock market makes it difficult to identify victims.

If I stole 143 *thousand*, no matter from who, my ass would be in prison. Also, $143M is pocket change to this guy.

So, this calls for a prison sentence. No?

@cwebber What's a "slashdot", Grandmaw?