← Feed

Posts

• View post

  I miss the old-fashioned FOSS drama, where if you knew someone’s three-letter initials and they were an asshole, you just called them an asshole or ignored them, and didn’t worry that (1) they were a vengeful billionaire and/or (2) that they represented the pending downfall of democracy

• View post

  New post: Wikipedia and friends: learning through code https://lu.is/2026/08/wikipedia-and-friends/ #llm #wikipedia #wikidata #opensource #harness #openknowledge #commons #glam

• View post

  The new Montmartre finish of the Tour de France is maybe the greatest spectacle in sports? Utterly wild. (And I had to leave Paris yesterday. Only a little bitter about that.)

• View post

  Everyone is talking this summer about @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social ’s Odyssey — and you should read it! it is excellent! — but let me also put in a pitch for ​Zachary Mason’s Lost Books of the Odyssey. https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lost-books-of-the-odyssey-a-novel-zachary-mason/a56a409fbc4c6bbd

• View post

  I love this. https://snac.la10cy.net/amilatled/p/1785084885.088923

• View post

  Hrm. Some intrepid SF geoguesser has to be able to figure out which Mission alley this is? https://mastodon.ozioso.online/@DorotheaLange/116995343749765008

• View post

  I use anecdotal stories about AlphaFold’s impact, alongside astronomy after the printing press, as an example of how new tech can change the day-to-day of research. In the wake of AF’s shutdown, I did a mini lit review: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaFold#Reception_and_adoption

• View post

  I’d love a good think piece from one of the Wikimedia organizational sociologists on why/how the only “thank” button *that requires confirmation* is on Wikipedia, a site that nominally loves pro-social behavior.

• View post

  Spicy take: if your law firm has picked A Single AI Tool, and you can’t articulate why it was selected over other alternatives, you’re in violation of the Bar’s ethical requirement to understand the technology you use.

• View post

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@creativecommons/116953726213855230 If you need me this week in Paris odds are I’ll be wearing CC swag.

• View post

  Me during the “smart contracts” craze: guys, keeping track of what contract you signed is not the hard part Tesla: hold my bible https://electrek.co/2026/07/23/tesla-solar-lease-contract-book-of-enoch/

• View post

  today in “traffic shit between my cafe and the local park”: a *city* truck run a stop sign, after honking repeatedly for the car in front of it to go. The car in front of it was not going, and getting honked at, *because it was waiting for 20 toddlers to cross in the crosswalk*.

• View post

  The best time for a European organization to start building an independent European mirror of Wikipedia, not reliant on the US or WMF, was in December 2016. The second-best time is today.

• View post

  "We estimate the supply-side value of widely-used OSS is $4.15 billion, but that the demand-side value [replacement value for each firm that uses the software] is much larger at $8.8 trillion. We find that firms would need to spend 3.5 times more on software than they currently do if OSS did not exist." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4693148

• View post

  So who has a list of the *types* of human-governance systems in FOSS? Among others (and to help show the breadth of what I mean): - the obvious one: each project with >1 contributor is a governance system even if the governance is “don’t be a dick” - product management at GitHub, via the product features that constrain (govern) collaboration there - the license community (including drafting, interpretation, and enforcement/scanning) I assume someone has a list?

• View post

  I have closed up openml.fyi! Open is still very relevant for LLM, and vice-versa. But the changes LLM is wreaking are so seismic that my theorizing feels rudderless to me. So I’m taking a break, to reground my compass in the work. Read more about why in the post: https://www.openml.fyi/openish-is-dead-long-live-openish/

• View post

  Do you need a Little Guy in your life? (Hint: You do!) Highly recommend these Little Guys. From: @moonrabbit https://sunny.garden/@moonrabbit/116482706364417112

• View post

  Welp just got into a screaming match with a Tesla driver who was violating several traffic laws at once, including a high-speed blind pass around two cars and some mid-street curbs, directly at me in the crosswalk. With a kid in his back seat. In front of a playground.

• View post

  This seems like a pretty good starting list. Original post: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xhqy3k3huardpoxy7p6srekf/post/3mknslnmcwk2s

• View post

  New post: Collaboration: a Confused Story in Five Graphs https://lu.is/2026/04/web-collaboration-five-graphs/ #opensource #wikipedia #llm #collaboration

• View post

  RE: https://climatejustice.social/@ketan/116491773998685906 #sharegoodnewstoo

• View post

  squeeeee That is all.

• View post

  Always enjoy showing close neighbors that our streets are shaped the way they are because it used to have a street car line. In this case, the gradual curve necessary for trains means cars take it at high speed. https://www.opensfhistory.org/Display/wnp14.1512.jpg

• View post

  New post: Wikipedia's traffic drop: more on languages and freshness https://lu.is/2026/04/wikipedia-decline-by-topic/ #wikipedia #wikimedia #llm

• View post

  @pinakographos my kingdom for more history books to include maps

• View post

  I am not sure how you draw a policy line here that protects the LWNs/OSMs/WMFs of the world without making it impossible to do socially-beneficial extraction of data from our data monopolist overlords. But someone needs to be thinking about that, very hard. https://social.kernel.org/objects/97b630d4-c31a-4596-9821-6beca6363857

• View post

  Good time to remind people that bookshop.org now has ebooks, they’re fairly priced, and the app works nicely on Android-powered e-ink devices like Boox and Daylight. Original post: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:7keeiuhmqfxim42c6tibwvzw/post/3lno3f2czos2y

• View post

  Kudos to Software Freedom Conservancy for optimistically engaging with a new generation of people potentially empowered by software. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2026/apr/15/eternal-november-generative-ai-llm/

• View post

  “Tyranny of Agent Structurelessness” Is this a thing? I am afraid that by thinking it it will manifest somehow

• View post

  RE: https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/116424709251813699 literally, not all free software people. But ... yeah way too many.