I think we’re seeing the beginning of the end of international professional conferences in the US. It doesn’t take that many people being denied or detained for people to start refusing to attend conferences in the US. Canada and Mexico are probably the biggest beneficiaries of this shift. If you combine this with the cutting of research funding and making it harder for academics and entrepreneurs to come to the US, it’s like the current administration is doing its best to sabotage the country’s future.

Boycott IETF 127

The IETF LLC has decided to continue to hold meetings in the US. Voice your disagreement with this decision here.

The state of US politics is disturbing. Trump is going after people in a cruel and vindictive way that authoritarians do when they think they’re invincible. Yet the Democrats, especially Chuck Schumer can’t figure out what to do about it. They’re not even a loyal opposition. Instead they’re standing on the sidelines watching the American system of separation of powers get replaced with a unitary power of the executive. Despite this being the fundamental justification of legitimacy for the while government. I recommend folks read this essay by @Cathy Gellis calling on Schumer to resign. It’s compelling argument.

Techdirt

Step Aside, Schumer. The Nation Can’t Survive With You In Charge.

Dear Senator Schumer: There is no question that you are a dedicated public servant. You believe in our democracy. You believe in the norms that mai...

OPSEC should be for everyone. View quoted note →

I’m heading to the first ATprotocol conference in Seattle this weekend. I’m really curious what they’ve been up to over in Bluesky land. I think it’s important to know what other protocols are doing. They’ve got some things really right, they’ve had tremendous growth in users and use. There are experiments in groups, alt apps, etc….

ATProtocol Dev

ATmosphere Conference

ATmosphereConf landing page for Seattle, now updated with pointers to Vancouver in March 2026.

This week’s @Nostr Recap is out. Lots happening. View quoted note →

The stories of people caught in the kafkaesque American immigration system are horrifying. This is an example of an unaccountable state with blatant disregard for people’s humanity. https://medium.com/@jasminemooney/youre-not-a-criminal-but-you-re-going-to-jail-my-ice-detention-story-as-a-canadian-citizen-08b4fa77a15c

Interesting, the French government released an open source Notion competitor.

Docs

Docs: Your new companion to collaborate on documents efficiently, intuitively, and securely.

Crime has gotten so bad in Wellington that some residents are considering locking their doors! Not everyone of course but some people no longer feel comfortable with the idea of never locking their doors. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/545122/residents-lock-doors-amid-police-hunt-over-wellington-home-invasion In all seriousness, it is very sad for the people who were assaulted, but the nature of how safe it is that it’s national news that some people feel the need to lock the doors of their homes.

Holy shit, if you do LLM coding, try Claude Code, it’s a whole step beyond aider and cursor.

A bill has been introduced to the US congress, H.R.1161, to rename Greenland to Red, White, and Blueland. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1161

Want to watch episode 2 of the CNN twitter documentary, it’s about to start airing and here’s the stream: https://turnerlive.warnermediacdn.com/hls/live/586495/cnngo/cnn_slate/VIDEO_4_1064000.m3u8 Use VLC or some browsers to watch it.

Here’s a version of the segment of me talking about twitter on CNN recorded on a phone. Hopefully somebody got a better clip, but this is good enough for folks who want to see it right away. The documentary airs at 10pm ET/PT.

Going on in 2 minutes View quoted note →

So I’m going live in cnn in an hour, at 6:45pm ET. I’ve been prepping but we’ll see how it goes. Someone record it please:)

“So are we the bad guys?” -me View quoted note →

Amazon is going to start sending all Alexa recordings to the cloud for processing. So much for privacy. View quoted note →

@New_ Public discusses and debates if government should control social media?

who should control social media?

A recording from New_ Public's live video

COLUMBIA HEARS PLEA FOR EXPELLED STUDENT; Burke and Two Other Speakers Demand His Reinstatement at Gathering of 500. Sept. 25, 1936 Three members of the American Student Union, including Robert Burke, who was expelled in June for leading the anti-Nazi demonstration last May, addressed a gathering of 500 students of the college and the various schools of Columbia University in front of Hamilton Hall yesterday noon, appealing to them to support the youth in his fight for reinstatement.

COLUMBIA HEARS PLEA FOR EXPELLED STUDENT; Burke and Two Other Speakers Demand His Reinstatement at Gathering of 500. (Published 1936)

Columbia Univ painters employed as regular maintenance force strike

A Columbia University graduate student and greencard holder faces deportation simply for organizing a protest against Israel's Gaza campaign. ICE is aggressively moving to revoke his permanent residency based solely on his peaceful protest. Even more disturbing, Trump has threatened to strip citizenship from others. This outrageous assault on fundamental rights should terrify anyone who values free speech in America!

The attacks on free speech should terrify us all

+ Pipe Rock Theory, Beta babies, the toy collectible boom, re-buttonification, a Portnoy memoir, and Ye Squad vs the Bruzz House