Doc Searls's Blog

Your kids have a new god

I didn't know Ms. Rachel was a real thing until I read this Onion story.

Let the Games Continue

I didn't know what Figma was until I heard that Danila Poyarkov created an alternative called OpenPencil, explained here. 

This news came in a thread where I gave my wish list for old-app resurrection by Muggles using AI. Here it is:

Raise MORE from the dead. MORE was the best writing tool ever invented. It ran only on Macs and died around the turn of the 90s, but I continued using it into the late 90s. I still miss it every day.

Raise Phase One Media Pro, formerly Microsoft Expressions, originally iView Media Pro, from the dead. I explain here how it was, for me, the best workflow software ever made for photography.

Raise Adobe GoLive from the dead. It was a great WYSIWYG HTML editor. I don't need something that complex, but I miss writing with it.

Hell, combine #1 and #3. I don't care.

God (now with AI!) help us all.

I always hated time as a measure of work. I sucked at keeping time sheets, and even screwed up punch/time clocks before that: for example when, in the late '60s, I made 60¢ an hour in the Guilford College kitchen, and 83¢ an hour delivering food and washing dishes at Wesley Long Hospital. Both still exist: the places, that is, not the pay scales and systems. Anyway, toward life after all that, Joe Mandese writes, Billable Hours Are Dead, AI Killed Them, Here's How To Survive. Of course, AI helped Joe write it.

Seriously. Read them both.

Connect these dots—

Jordan Klemperer:  Moltbook's alleged AI civilization is just a massive void of bloated bot traffic.

Tim O'Reilly: A Conversation About What I Lack or: Why AI Needs You.

Moving on

Jeffrey Epstein is a black hole topic: a gravity well of human interest and consequence into which everyone with a connection to him falls and no light escapes. Joi Ito is one of those people. In hope of shedding light, Joi has issued a public statement describing how he used Epstein to raise funds for the MIT Media Lab. Joi is an old friend. I thought (Epstein aside) that he did a great job with the Media Lab when he ran it. While I also don't think anyone with connections to Epstein (and no connections were good ones) will ever fully recover, I hope that Joi, like everyone else, can get on with a productive and happy life.

We won’t have better news until we have better ways of paying for it. EmanciPay is one we thought up at ProjectVRM almost twenty years ago. Maybe the time is finally ripe for it.

I learned that a small plane landed on the Hudson near Newburgh, NY* from a notification on my laptop that said the story was from WNYC. So I went there. Found nothing. Then I went to Google News and searched for plane+hudson. Wanting to give some linklove to one of the local news (formerly newspaper) outlets, I went to the Times-Union, which accused me of blocking ads (which I don’t: I block tracking) and tried to shake me down for a subscription, which I don’t want because I don’t live there. But (this is key) I am glad to pay a small amount using EmanciPay. which doesn’t yet exist, but should.

I make the case for EmanciPay in many places, the most recent being The New News Business.

Bear this in mind: the Web is all hypertext. Files on it are meant to be linked. When you defeat that purpose, you defeat the Web itself.

Stop now and read The Longing, one of David Weinberger‘s chapters in The Cluetrain Manifesto. David wrote it in 1999, or maybe earlier. But it’s still spot-on about what the Web is, and what we risk by losing it. Excerpts:

There are many ways to look at what’s drawing us to the Web: access to information, connection to other people, entrance to communities, the ability to broadcast ideas. None of these are wrong perspectives. But they all come back to the promise of voice and thus of authentic self…

The voice that the Web gives us is not the ability to post pictures of our cat and our guesses at how the next episode of The X-Files will end. It is the granting of a place in which we can be who we are (and even who we aren’t, if that’s the voice we’ve chosen).

It is a public place. That is crucial. Having a voice doesn’t mean being able to sing in the shower. It means presenting oneself to others. The Web provides a place like we’ve never seen before.

We are losing that place today. Google is doing it by turning search from a librarian to a “helpful assistant” who forgets what’s in the library. News outlets large and small are fighting the Web’s library by putting a paywall in front of every different periodical in the Web’s Reference section.

Maybe the way to save both the Web and these periodicals is to come up with a better way for people to pay what they like, in countless small amounts, like we have with the convention called tip jars.

So far, I haven’t seen anything better than EmanciPay for doing that. Because only EmanciPay starts by giving readers their own way to pay whatever they like, wherever they like, automatically and with minimal friction. Installing mechanisms and valves on the sell side alone works for a few large publication, but fails for all the rest of them.

We need solutions that start on the readers’ side. EmanciPay is one of them.

*Credit where due: that link goes to the Mid Hudson News, and reported by Hank Gross, who founded it. It has no paywall. Hats off.

We’ll never have civilized life in the digital world while people have no way of their own to signal and enforce their privacy preferences and requirements, as they do in the natural world with what we call manners and clothing. In the absence of personal agency over privacy, adtech has normalized violating privacy by building a vast surveillance fecosystem. MyTerms will obsolesce that fecosystem. But it won’t start there. It will start where adtech’s moon don’t shine: with sites and services that don’t depend on adtech and surveillance. There are millions of those. Hi, guys!

MyTerms is Status Go toward markets based on full personal agency. Adtech is a $trillion Status Quo based on full agency for corporate entities alone and full subordination of the persons who depend on them: a one-sided power asymmetry manifest in every cookie notice.

But, while it is easy to characterize MyTerms as a way to flip the script on cookie notices, and to imagine hordes of people fed up with surveillance storming the walls of Business-as-Usual, the smarter and simpler approach for MyTerms is to start with websites and services that aren’t part of the Ye Olde Fecosystem. There are a lot of those:

Meanwhile, on the regulatory front, officials concerned about personal privacy and mindful of the consent system’s failures, typically continue to look for ways to fix things from the corporate side, because that’s where all the power is. It is hard to imagine that people are more than “data subjects,” and can be just as capable as companies to act as first parties in privacy agreements.

So we have two challenges on our hands. One is to get MyTerms implemented where the surveillance fecosystem doesn’t operate. The other is to remind regulators that contracts are laws that any two parties can make for themselves. And that enforcement can happen inside the framework of plain old contract law (plus plain new ODR—Online Dispute Resolution).

We don’t need a fix for consent that strengthens the status quo and prevents MyTerms from making operative Art. 6 GDPR 1.(b), which specifies contract as one of six grounds for lawful processing of personal data.

Bonus link: The Case for MyTerms.

____________________________

In case you’re wondering about the title image, it contains an improvement on this seat I’ll bet is the oldest and most isolated privy in Wyoming. It was built in the very early 1900s by John Love, whose pioneering is immortalized in John McPhee‘s Rising From the Plains (best read as a chapter of the Pulitzer-winning Annals of the Former World). I write more about Love Ranch here.

Here in Bloomington, Indiana, we have a lot of these large-eyed, big-eared roaming free-range cattle that seem not to care much about the two-legged kind and are mindful of traffic. For example, I was headed east on Howe the other day, approaching Euclid, and spotted these two girls on the sidewalk:

After walking to the corner, this one looks first back up Howe behind my car:

Note that her left and right ears are up and down the cross street, which is Euclid. She’s on Howe. Next, she looks straight north up Euclid:

Note that her ears are still trained in both directions. Next, she looks to the right, down Euclid to the south:

Again, ears in both directions. Don’t you wish your dog could do that? (Cats can. Watch for it.)

After that, I kept driving east on Howe, and saw both these girls in my rear view mirror crossing Euclid. Didn’t get a picture, but I did notice them ignoring a two-legged pedestrian nearby.

Jeremiah Johnson is correct: We are ruled by underpants gnomes.

Luke Kornet has a blog on Medium. And he's strong with it.

An on-point Marketoonist cartoon.

Eve Maler has a book on identity coming out. It'll be great. Eve is an IIW veteran who has earned many battle ribbons in the Identity Wars.

The Onion: Anyone Else Have Those Weird Dreams Where Sobbing Future Generations Beg You To Change Course?, by Sam Altman. Also Casey Newton: What is OpenAI going to do when the truth comes out? — Sam Altman’s deal with the Pentagon seems too good to be true. What happens when the public realizes that?

My sister Jan and I, aged 3 (her) and 5 (me), at our neighborhood park in Maywood, New Jersey. We loved that place. Can we create the same kinds of places on the Net? Eli Pariser thinks so.

Eli Pariser is one of my heroes. There are many reasons, but the most operative one is for writing The Filter Bubble in time for me to source it in The Intention Economy. The former came out in 2011 and the latter in 2012. Both were ahead of their time, which is either now or soon.

One thing I cited from The Filter Bubble was a subchapter that Eli titled “A Bad Theory of You.” Those five words nailed what the whole surveillance fecosystem was already based on back then. That was before it got worse, then much worse. And is now it’s more personalized than ever, thanks to Big AI.

But that’s not what Eli is coming here (Indiana, the National Football Champion University) to talk about this Thursday. (Though I’m sure it’ll come up.) The title of his talk is What Might “Public Parks of the Internet” Look Like?

This is one of the outcomes Eli and his team at New_ Public are working toward. You can find out more at that link, at the New Public Substack, and with what they’re doing with Roundabout. Eli will also give us a tour of some local public spaces already forming on the Net through that work.

I wanted Eli for our After Analog series—

—because New_ Public is working to bring something that works in the natural world into the digital one. Which is not easy. For one thing, we’ve had the analog world since the Big Bang, and we’ve had the digital one for decades at most—and it will be with us for millennia to come. It ain’t civilized yet, and won’t be until it has public spaces.

Please come. If you can’t make it to Room 008 in Balantine Hall at IU, the Zoom link will be up soon here, where you can also register to attend in the meantime.

Not quite finally, my thanks to the Ostrom Workshop and the Hamilton Lugar School for co-organizing the whole Beyond the Web series, now in its fourth year here. If it’s not yet one of our local public parks, it’s coming closer.

Some reading for today:::

War is a dirty business, by Scott Bateman MBE, on X. HT to Tanya Weiman for her comment here.

Catch the lunar eclipse on Tuesday. In case I don’t remind you. Or me.

A thank you to Brian Linse for his kind words on Bluesky. Fact: one of the best parties I’ve ever attended was at Brian’s house in Laurel Canyon, back in blogging’s most golden age. At the party, it seemed everybody was talking about this one blogger, Tony Pierce. I hadn’t met Tony yet, so I assumed that a sort of familiar-looking smart-sounding guy hanging in the kitchen must be Tony, since he seemed to have accreted some fans and well-wishers. So I asked somebody who had been talking about Tony if that guy was him. “No,” they said. “That’s Warren Zevon.” I’m a fan, so I should have known. This was also not long before Warren’s ride arrived. These days Tony blogs at Hear in LA. More about Brian here.

Thanks to Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (who was also at Brian’s party) for this amazing piece of music on an instrument he describes as a “Nick Benjamin custom semi-baritone hybrid guitar. Designed to be 1/3 Bass, 1/3 guitar, and 1/3 slide. It’s constructed largely from sustainable maple, with separate pickups for the bass strings, and banjo tuners for the top strings.1/3 Bass, 1/3 guitar, and 1/3 slide. It’s constructed largely from sustainable maple, with separate pickups for the bass strings, and banjo tuners for the top strings.” I didn’t want it to end.

While out running errands, I listened on SiriusXM to the Knicks creaming the Spurs at the Garden this afternoon. Broke the Spurs’ eleven-game streak and proved again that the Knicks can beat anybody. Very reassuring.

Law360: Are New Police Drone Programs A Big Help Or Big Brother? Before even reading it, I would have said the latter. Once drones become as common as guns (which outnumber people in the US), and some become armed to kill (whether for law enforcement or bad guys), just the sound of one will creep the shit out of people.

Teaching Dialogic Intelligence with AI, by Rupert Wegerif. Pull quote: “Skeptics insist AI can’t be a true dialogue partner because it lacks empathy. Yet its very other-ness lets it serve as education’s outside voice—embodying everything ever said in a field and inviting students into that living conversation. From there it can prod them to leap beyond inherited ideas and co-create tomorrow’s knowledge.” That’s how I learn from (and presumably with) it. HT to David Weinberger for the pointer.

I just learned about the Heilmeier Catechism. Here is how I would have answered its questions for The Cluetrain Manifesto, The Intention Economy, and MyTerms:

What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon. Make good trouble.How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice? It isn’t, except where it happens in nature. And there are no limits.What is new in your approach, and why do you think it will be successful? Talk and write about it. Because it has to happen eventually anyway, and talking and writing about it might make it happen sooner.Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make? Nobody does yet, but some will, and the difference will be everything.What are the risks? That it will take longer than I’d like.How much will it cost? Nothing.How long will it take? EnoughWhat are the mid-term and final “exams” to check for success? Imagine asking that question of speech, writing, printing, clothing, the Internet, the Web, or other inventions.

Still, good questions.

This blog post from March of 2020 is getting visits for some reason. Interesting to read it again. I wrote it before the virus became known best as Covid.

It’s great to see Bob Frankston mull out loud about AI and programming. One pull-quote: “Perhaps more to the point is that the current tools have been trained on corporate programming dogma, so they developed all sorts of what I consider are bad practices while others see this as the best of breed. This is not an intrinsic flaw but a teething problem.”

Outstanding last words from Eric Dane. HT to sister Jan.

The front page of today’s Los Angeles Times. I can read it, because I subscribe. I also recommend that everyone subscribe to newspapers, because facts still matter to those troubled entities, regardless of how screwed their business is.

You may have noticed there is a war going on. I’m not here to cover it. I’m here to cover, or at least visit, stories about it.

See, stories themselves are a problem, both in human nature (we love and live stories) and in journalism, which feeds and is fed on the human appetite for stories, all of which have three elements:

Character—a person, country, cause, team, player, whatever, that one might have feelings about (love, hate, anything but disinterest or indifference)Problem—a situation that causes or is comprised of conflict or struggleMovement—whether forward, backward, or sideways, it must maintain interest and at least hint toward a conclusion, even if one never comes

War cranks all that stuff up to eleven. As General Patton put it, “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so.” (Bonus link.)

I’ve written about the story’s problem for journalism in all of these:

On two story businesses (January 30, 2008)Story vs. Reality (May 5, 2008)The story none dare tell (May 7, 2008)Where Journalism Fails (July 23, 2019)Stories vs. Facts (October 12, 2023)This Thing is Bigger Than Journalsim (April 20, 2024)A Better Way to Do News (August 15, 2024)What are Stories? (January 11, 2025)How Facts Matter (January 14, 2025)The Blame Game (January 19, 2025)Total News (March 1, 2025)

Among other places. A common thread: facts, while good to have, aren’t required. In fact, a story might be more compelling if it’s just about your most or least favorite character, or characters. For maximum engagement, it might be best not to use facts at all. Or to use fake ones. As Scott Adams put it, “Facts don’t matter. What matters is how much we hate the person talking.” Daniel Kahnemann agreed: “Facts don’t matter, or they matter much less than people think.”

With those framings in mind, here are some sources you might want to visit:

Reuters/WorldAPnews.comWall Street JournalNew York TimesWashington PostHaaretzAlJazeeraBBCWiredFox NewsNPRMSNowCNNDemocracyNow!Bluesky: q=iranThreads: q=iranX (née Twitter): q=iranInstagram: q=iranFacebook: q=iran

And some stories:

Wired: X Is Drowning in Disinformation Following US and Israeli Attack on IranWBUR: Fresh, stale, or politics? The Melania documentary’s Rotten Tomatoes score, explained. Relevance: Melania gets 11% (very bad) on the Tomatometer (critics) and 98% on the Popcornmeter (audience). See the #1 story element above.WSJ: What’s Really at Stake in the Fight Between Anthropic and the Pentagon

Some of the above involve paywalls. I apologize on their behalf. Bonus link, from Dan Gillmor, long ago.

Apple's Mail.app sucks. I could give reasons, but it would only make me more tired than I already am from dealing with my storage issues. I just downloaded and set up Thunderbird for my Searls.com address to see if that works better. I've stayed away from Thunderbird since 2013, when it did real damage somehow. Things have changed. It looks a lot better now. [Later: but it crashed. Hmm.]

June Kim has a new post called The New Ad Layer. It's original and interesting. Give it a read.

Dario says AI is in its adolescence. I think it's more like infancy, and will be until we get our own. I also like most of what Matt Shumer says about it in Something Big Is Happening.

Richard M. Stallman gave a talk at Georgia Tech in January. Hard to make out what he's saying since it's recorded from the audience rather than the stage. Is there a better source of audio for it? Maybe one or more of you knows.