iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026

The human face of the Autistici/Inventati affair, “Canceling Emilyh”: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… “The wastrels in Washington can reach across the ocean and silence a Canadian creator on an Italian website. With no prior […] [Original post on cosocial.ca]

Canadian eco-social practice artist Emily van Lidth de Jeude in her studio, 2023, working on a series about wildfires. Beside her on the floor stands a portrait of her Ukrainian grandmother.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 07/09/2026

Petition to block MAGA PE scum from owning crucial Canadian payment infrastructure, namely Moneris: www.ourcommons.ca/Petitions/en/Peti…

ourcommons.ca

Petition e-7712 - Petitions

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Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

In which I fix a straightforward concurrency problem in my Go code, with multiple side-trips: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #software #concurrency #Golang

I just landed a PR that fixed a nasty data race in Quamina. Which shouldn’t have been technically challenging, but I took side-trips into Erlang, unit test footguns, whether or not I should go on accepting LLM-generated PRs, and programming while aging.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 30/08/2026

There's a whole “Americana” sub-sub-culture out there. Check out Sierra Ferrell, Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull. But for my money Billy is the biggest deal.

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Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026

Hmm, the Linux Foundation has a thing at x402.org, payment infrastructure using the HTTP "402 PAYMENT REQUIRED" status code that: 1. Is said to "empower agentic payments at scale", 2. Specifically lists as an advantage that you can ignore Know-Your-Customer legislation, 3. Accomplishes […]

cosocial.ca

Original post on cosocial.ca

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 25/08/2026

Hmm I think that's not what the Nature paper I linked said, but I'm out of touch with current LLM implementation details.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026

In which I try to clarify the issues around #GenAI watermarking its text output without requiring readers to be computer professionals: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202…

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about the GenAI giants “watermarking” their output, which to say inserting data so you can tell that it’s been generated by ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude or whatever. The technology for watermarking images is as old as dirt, works as advertised, and doesn’t affect image quality. What’s new and controversial is a claim that they can watermark text output cheaply, simply, and without harming the quality of the text.
I was curious how they did this so I dug in a bit. I’m mostly convinced that it works and is pretty clever. However, all the explanations are full of Computer-Science jargon that you need to be a professional developer to understand. So here’s an attempt to explain to non-insiders and then, indirectly, opinions on whether it’s good and what it means and doesn’t mean.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2026

In which I spend a week engaged and immersed in music, learn a new instrument and genre, am made full of joy. And suggest that some of you should do this too. www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #music

WCAMS 43rd Summer Music Camp 2026

A drawing of three sea creatures performing on musical instruments.

WCAMS

WEST COAST AMATEUR MUSICIANS SOCIETY

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Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026

I frequently find myself explaining, often to people I don’t know, why it is that my online home is on #Mastodon, why I’m putting time and effort into building and running an instance, and why those are the best choices. So here’s my latest effort to pull all the arguments I use together in a […]

cosocial.ca

Original post on cosocial.ca

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

In which I write about the costs & benefits of making automata deterministic, with graphs and tables, and assistance from bluesman Willie Dixon: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #automata #software

Bluesman WIllie Dixon (1915-1992), composer of "Built For Comfort."

Graph of the event-matching performance of a deterministic finite automaton. Events/second vs number of patterns. As the number increases, the E/s is initially disorderly but settles into a more or less horizontal shape.

Graph of the cost of adding a Pattern to an automaton in the case where the automata are nondeterministic. The increase in cost is unruly and jagged but more or less linear in the number of patterns.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 16/06/2026

Good piece! I think the focus on retaining agency is spot on. I was at AWS for 5½ years & came away with strong opinions about customers retaining agency, see www.tbray.org/ongoing/When... - in the long run, teaching the customers might do as much good as trying to influence the provider landscape.

tbray.org

Lock-in and Multi-Cloud

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 26/05/2026

You could go to Afra on Main and bring home a selection of breads and dips, there are also some protein-heavy main course-ish things. All good.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 06/05/2026

“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 […] [Original post on cosocial.ca]

Graph from Oxfam showing % of global wealth held by the richest 1% vs the other 99% between 2010 and 2015. In 2015 the lines cross.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 27/04/2026

I read the 2¼ novels making up the new series “The Captive’s War” by “James S.A. Corey” i.e. Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. They’re most famous for “The Expanse” and while so far I’m not enjoying this series as much, I think it’s on a good trajectory. More […]

cosocial.ca

Original post on cosocial.ca

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 16/04/2026

In which I grab a camera and go for a walk at dusk and try to convince you to do the same: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #photography

At dusk, a scattering of toys on grass next to a tree trunk

In a shop window, three mannequins are garishly dressed in bright colors.

Fruit-ptree blossoms (small and white with a touch of pink) on a branch (old and black with lichen)

A plant with glossy green leaves and intense yellow-orange stalks.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 10/04/2026

In which I think out loud about Password Managers and take a closer look at 1Password and Bitwarden: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #security

tbray.org

Password Manager Angst

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Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2026

“Recently I read Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch and Algospeak by Adam Aleksic. The language we speak (and text) to each other is at the core of who and what we are, and the Internet is the strongest among the forces that channel and fertilize its growth […] [Original post on cosocial.ca]

The covers of "Because Internet" by Gretchen Mcculloch and "Algospeak" by Adam Aleksic.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 17/02/2026

1/2 Two new blog pieces. In which I have opinions about GenAI and open-source: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #GenAI #opensource

tbray.org

Open Source and GenAI?

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 17/02/2026

I leave the video on for hours sometimes

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 15/02/2026

In which Claude Opus invades my open-source hobby project. The experience was… surprising. Fairly raw anecdata here, analysis and reactions still to come: www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #GenAI #claude

tbray.org

Quamina + Claude, Case 1

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 04/02/2026

“Welcome to the first Long Links of this so-far-pretty-lousy 2026. I can’t imagine that anyone will have time to take in all of these, but there’s a good chance one or two might brighten your day.” www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… This time out, featuring lots of […]

cosocial.ca

Original post on cosocial.ca

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 03/02/2026

Holy crap we have that in our powder room too! Where does one get the apron?

powder room with lurid floral-against-black wallpaper.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 28/01/2026

I assume there are how-to-migrate-to-Blacksky docs somewhere? First step: Move PDS, right?

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 21/01/2026

It took a year, but Quamina now has a full regular-expression capability, so I released 2.0.0. www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… #Golang #automata #opensource

tbray.org

Quamina v2.0.0

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 17/01/2026

Huh, @icegov.bsky.social is an interesting case. In the Fediverse, most instances probably wouldn’t host that account, but some would. The account would be broadly blocked, and some instances would probably block the hosting instance. Some folks would migrate between servers based on these choices.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 15/01/2026

Also, I've been told that the Enterprise AI stream is less cluttered and easier to parse and consume, without all the HTML & JS apparatus that come with regular Wikipedia access.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 13/01/2026

It's just that when I find myself using a valuable service that is expensive to run, and not paying for it, my flesh starts to crawl a little.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 12/01/2026

Interestingly, I see no fundraising efforts in my Bluesky feed. Over on the Fediverse, it's very common to see instance operators asking for contributions via Patreon or whatever to support their instance. While we lose instances, it's usually due to operator fatigue rather than money.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 12/01/2026

I like Bluesky and hope it finds a way to keep working on the problem and eventually show that the ATmasphere can decentralize in practice not just in theory. Just as the Fediverse already has.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 12/01/2026

as noted, am very dubious about VC investment in general and Bsky corp's investors in particular. Maybe there's a path to true decentralization… but right now in 2026, the Fediverse is de facto decentralized in a low-rent, VC-uninvestable, resilient way. Having said that…

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 12/01/2026

I don't think the technology or the protocol is a big issue. We could make either AT or ActivityPub work at the required scale. My problem is that I don't think Bluesky or the ATProto ecosystem could survive if Bsky corp gets into trouble, and I have no notion of its business model and…

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 03/01/2026

January 3, 2025: Start of the Epstein Files War.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 31/12/2025

I thought the video was very clear and made some important points, in particular its conclusion, but there's no requirement that your take-away be the same as mine. If it's not for you it's not for you.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 31/12/2025

Try watching the video.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 20/12/2025

“What happened was, a faucet started dripping. And then I managed to route around the malignant machineries of late-stage capitalism. These days, that’s almost always a story worth telling.” www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202…

tbray.org

Humanist Plumbing

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 14/12/2025

Deeply-flawed-but-still-great stretches back in history from Lost through Herman Melville and Herodotus.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 10/12/2025

˚The GenAI bubble is going to pop. Everyone knows that. To me, the urgent and interesting questions are how widespread the damage will be and what the hangover will feel like.” www.tbray.org/ongoing/When...

tbray.org

After the Bubble

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Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 06/12/2025

Tracy Numbers: “Here’s a story about African rhythms and cancer and combinatorics.” www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/202… (Also #caturday)

A black cat with a colorful collar is examining a Gankoquim a dual-cowbell instrument from Ghana.

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Reposted by Tim Bray

Tim Bray 🇨🇦 @timbray.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy · 26/11/2025

In which I write about the pretty-awesome experience of attending the MLS quarter-final game with my son and 53,095 other good friends, and how getting interested in fútbol has had the side-effect that I’ve lost most of my interest in football (as in NFL) […] [Original post on cosocial.ca]

Whitecaps fans gather in a nearby pub before the game.

A portion of a large crowd at an indoor stadium, displaying a huge banner. Left of the banner is text “fire that burns”, center is a vaguely Tolkienesque photo of scary reptilian eyes, right is text "blue melts gold"

Whitecaps fans parade cheerfully down Granville, singing dopey songs and chanting dopey chants.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 18/11/2025

There are powerful older politicians who are gay? I'm shocked… shocked.

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 14/11/2025

I thought the @sarahkendzior.bsky.social suspension was an interestingly nontrivial moderation scenario. I wrote up a little case study/explainer on how it might have been handled on Mastodon. Probably only for people who care about moderation nitty-gritty. www.tbray.org/ongoing/When...

Actions available to a Mastodon moderator

More actions available to a Mastodon moderator

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 13/11/2025

“permanent” and “irrevocable” is just not correct. Which server was that, btw?

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 12/11/2025

Dear World: Now is a good time to get off social media that’s becoming any combination of “less useful”, “less safe”, or “less fun”. I’ve been on Mastodon for 3 years and am convinced that right now, in late 2025, it’s the best place to go. Come join me. Here’s why. www.tbray.org/ongoing/When...

tbray.org

Time to Migrate

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Elad Nehorai @eladn.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Reinstate Sarah Kendzior

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Tim Bray @tbray.org · 12/11/2025

Ok, it was just a guess; the only thing I found in recent newsletters (which she said she'd been posting excerpts of) that might set off a moderation tripwire). Been wrong before, will be again.

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