@Mike Olson
Ex-Illustra, Sleepycat, Cloudera. Currently: Board member at Cityside. Working on: Climate. Politics.
Not a tech bro.
Relays (1)
- wss://relay.ditto.pub – read & write
Recent Notes
I am resolutely in favor of Councilmember Kesarwani's plan described in this article:
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2026/07/27/hopkins-bike-lane-project-berkeley-city-council
I got hit by a truck while riding my bicycle in West Berkeley on June 10. Fractured rib, facial lacerations, extensive road rash and bruising. Bad as it was, it could have been much worse. Safety matters.
I plan to attend tonight's Council meeting.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2026/07/27/hopkins-bike-lane-project-berkeley-city-council
I got hit by a truck while riding my bicycle in West Berkeley on June 10. Fractured rib, facial lacerations, extensive road rash and bruising. Bad as it was, it could have been much worse. Safety matters.
I plan to attend tonight's Council meeting.
Excellent piece by @nprofile1q...:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/28/hitl-ers/#ai-ai-oh
If a human domain expert asks an AI agent a question about that domain, he or she can get a fast response, and then decide whether or not it makes sense. Good deal! Every really interesting use case for LLMs that I've seen matches this pattern.
And every instance where a non-expert chooses to trust an LLM's output is a mistake.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/28/hitl-ers/#ai-ai-oh
If a human domain expert asks an AI agent a question about that domain, he or she can get a fast response, and then decide whether or not it makes sense. Good deal! Every really interesting use case for LLMs that I've seen matches this pattern.
And every instance where a non-expert chooses to trust an LLM's output is a mistake.
This very good thing happened in the midst of all the doom: The Federal Trade Commission extracted a settlement from John Deere that gives farmers the right to repair the machines that they buy from the company.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/07/ftc-states-secure-settlement-deere-company-advancing-farmers-right-repair
If you can't fix it, you don't own it.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/07/ftc-states-secure-settlement-deere-company-advancing-farmers-right-repair
If you can't fix it, you don't own it.
You're probably seeing a lot of messages like this one in your feed today, but it's important to me to pile on.
Google Search has been climbing the pile of enshittification for some years now. The new policy announced at I/O, to present search results from a bot that digests web content (and hallucinates) rather than to direct traffic to the sites that create and host content, is the latest large lump to appear.
Remember "Don't be evil?" Hah! Good days, good days.
1/2
Google Search has been climbing the pile of enshittification for some years now. The new policy announced at I/O, to present search results from a bot that digests web content (and hallucinates) rather than to direct traffic to the sites that create and host content, is the latest large lump to appear.
Remember "Don't be evil?" Hah! Good days, good days.
1/2
Jorge Luis Borges wrote a pretty good story called "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertuis." It has sort of come true, thanks to the folks at Halupedia:
https://halupedia.com/
Link via @nprofile1q...'s Linkfest.
https://halupedia.com/
Link via @nprofile1q...'s Linkfest.
@nprofile1q... Elder abuse via online or text message scams is common, effective and hugely embarrassing to the folks who are victimized by it. I wish that we had more cops working on it, and stiffer penalties for the perpetrators.
@nprofile1q... We saw this in the Serengeti: Acacia trees had dense and active ant populations. You mostly had to look close to see them, but if you disturbed the foliage, they boiled out of their hiding places. Our naturalist guide told us that they were a huge deterrent to giraffes who would otherwise feed on the leaves.
Ecosystems and evolution and the evolution of ecosystems are just breathtaking.
Ecosystems and evolution and the evolution of ecosystems are just breathtaking.
Cory Doctorow @nprofile1q... has a longish piece in today's newsletter about the practical effects of the Trump administration's energy and technology policies:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration
The European energy crisis created by Putin's accelerated invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is an excellent analogy for what's driving solar adoption in Trump 2. My nerd friends in Europe are working hard to wean themselves and their governments from US big tech dependence.
Watch this space.
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration
The European energy crisis created by Putin's accelerated invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is an excellent analogy for what's driving solar adoption in Trump 2. My nerd friends in Europe are working hard to wean themselves and their governments from US big tech dependence.
Watch this space.
Small dose of hope from @nprofile1q... this morning:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#this-too-shall-pass
https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/contingency/#this-too-shall-pass
Another excellent roundup of cryptocurrency news and events by @nprofile1q...
https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-97/
https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-97/