Anybody got a good ethical domain name registrar? I’ve been using Gandi.net since it was founded 25 years ago, but it got acquired by your.online in 2023. For a while nothing much changed except for they tried to upsell me to some stuff i didn’t want. But now i’m noticing that they’re getting noticeably less reliable. Updating name and nameserver records isn’t reliable, paying for things fails more often, their web interface has bugs. Basically they’re letting gandi die as they try and upsell people to their crap Total Webhosting Solutions stuff. So, what ethical registrars are there?

So apparently Elon has sold Twitter to himself, well xAI has acquired X. Once you have tons of money and power there is so much you can do to keep and expand it. https://www.axios.com/2025/03/28/musk-x-xai

I had an interesting conversation at a friend’s birthday party with a few folks who were professionals but had been unemployed and looking for work for a while. I pointed out that with AI rapidly improving, many of the jobs that have been cut likely aren’t coming back. They dismissed AI entirely as just a cheap imitation. Their experience was limited to trying ChatGPT over a year ago and seeing some clumsy early attempts by the New Zealand government to use AI. For them, that was enough evidence to label the whole field as an overhyped, short-lived scam. It shocked me because, from my perspective, AI has been advancing incredibly quickly. I use these tools regularly in my work, and with a bit of focus on learning them properly, these emerging large language models (LLMs) are truly transformational. On top of that, innovation is accelerating rapidly, making AI both smarter and more accessible. I’m not sure if we’ll reach AGI or ASI anytime soon, but it’s clear to me that society and our economy will be fundamentally transformed by AI. This conversation reminded me just how much of a bubble technologists can live in. We see AI’s potential clearly and understand how quickly things can spread once they reach a tipping point. But most people probably won’t believe this transformation is real until it’s already underway. Instead of traditional economic institutions adapting their ways of working to integrate AI, we’ll likely see new institutions and methods emerge to replace the legacy systems entirely. I’m genuinely concerned about how our economy will cope with the decoupling of work from primary economic systems. And when I think about how to spend my time while waiting for even more powerful AI tools—beyond just experimenting in my own work—I’m uncertain. Part of the answer seems to be designing new systems from the ground up around AI, and also continuing to tell people that AI isn’t just a passing trend. This situation isn’t fundamentally different from what happened with Web 2.0 platforms like Twitter. The core human needs remained the same, but new technologies changed how we fulfilled those needs. Twitter didn’t replace our desire to stay connected with friends; it just made it faster and broadened our definition of who could be a “friend.” So, looking forward, I think we need to ask ourselves: what would an AI-native version of everything we currently use look like? Most people and institutions won’t adapt—they’ll more likely be replaced. Does that mean we should just rush headlong into replacing everything with AI-driven alternatives?

Wellington New Zealand continues its weird queer celebration of street art. I love it. #cubadupa #wellington #newzealand #aotearoa

What starts with vulnerable immigrants and people on temporary visas will not stop there. The US is increasingly like Hungary and Turkey. Don’t look the past century to understand what this authoritarianism looks like. We have the models they’re using in countries right now today. View quoted note →

This past weekend was the first ATprotocol conference. Lots of interesting stuff came up. @Laurens wrote up a good summary which i’m reposting here and then there’s two techcrunch articles:

TechCrunch

A world without Caesars: How the ATProto community is rebuilding the web to return power to the people | TechCrunch

The first in-person gathering devoted to those building with the AT Protocol — which powers Bluesky — was held in Seattle.

TechCrunch

What's next for ATProto, the protocol powering Bluesky and other apps | TechCrunch

It's getting easier to build new applications on ATProto, the protocol that powers Bluesky's social network and a growing number of other...

Although the user communities are very different and the way the they’re being built out is different, on some ways Nostr and ATprotocol are sister protocols, more similar to each other than anything else. So it’s useful to know what’s going on over there. View quoted note →

Turns out that inviting the right JG in to your group chat is really important. This is why we need other kinds of credentials and attestation that we can connect to our accounts. View quoted note →

OpenAI’s updated their image generation models and i wanted to try out something to see how it handles logos and text… It’s pretty neat.

Looks like I’m going to get a whole row in my flight back to Aotearoa New Zealand.

If this is true it’s a massive OPSEC failure at the White House and also an example of how important having better contact verification for secure systems.

The Atlantic

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bo...

This floor is cool.

Lots is happening in the Nostr ecosystem! View quoted note →

From the Bluesky #ATconference showing they really are chasing fully automated luxury gay space communism.

There’s a lot of interesting things in the Bluesky ecosystem but the third party dev ecosystem is really struggling because they have nothing like @OpenSats which is funding a robust diverse ecosystem.

This is important when we design systems. Understand that systems are all designed to serve a specific purpose. https://www.anildash.com/2024/05/29/systems-the-purpose-of-a-system/

Live stream of the ATprotocol Bluesky developer conference. Learn what folks are doing in a very similar ecosystem to Nostr.

@atprotocol.dev's livestream on Streamplace

ATProto NYC Community Hack - Early Presos

This clearly is Trump’s rambling speculation not a policy, as such, but Trump’s suggesting that people convicted of anti-tesla vandalism be sent to El Salvadorian force labor camps created to in prison suspected gang members. The idea of removing Americans from the jurisdiction of the American legal system as part of their punishment for political protest and civil disobedience is really dangerous. If Trump and the government wants to charge people committing anti-tesla vandalism, they should do it with local police, prosecutors, and judges. https://archive.is/5q8wP

Hungary passes law banning LGBTQIA+ pride events and implementing automated facial recognition to fine anyone who does attend a protest. This won’t just happen in Hungary and is a major threat to civil rights. https://truthout.org/articles/hungary-bans-lgbtq-pride-events-approves-facial-recognition-to-track-attendees/

19 years ago today this happened.

X (formerly Twitter)

rabble (@rabble) on X

So @jack's first tweet is for sale as an NFT... I've got one too, want to buy the NFT of a tweet from Twitter's founding? https://t.co/RDbyUSOecc ...

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.