We should assume that our source code is being examined closely, and we should specifically pentest against AI vulnerability scanning.
"Bug bounties were built for a world where discovery was relatively scarce. AI is pushing us into a world where discovery is abundant."
Why Discourse is not going closed source: blog.discourse.org/2026/04/disc...
Closing source code does not make it more secure, even in an age where AI hacking tools make searching for vulnerabilities cheap and easy.
The hackerspace movement took off in Germany with Chaos Computer Club (www.
ccc.de/en/) — debatable — but has spread across the world. They often have open nights, and there may be one not too far from you!
At its most utopian, a hackerspace can be a grassroots alternative to academic institutions and a playground for pushing the boundaries of technology.
At its least utopian, it's like a coworking space.
In this regard, hackerspaces can vary quite a lot.
Technology which empowers: a definition of decent software.
technostructures.org/en/fronts/te...
"For a software to be considered decent it must be Free, but being free alone is not sufficient to make it decent."
For the unitiated, itch.io is a website for publishing indie games. Many of them are free and more than a little rough around the edges, e.g. if they are made in a weekend game-jam. There are also commercial games there.
A set of region tag instructions are displayed in an overlay window with the control options: "Generate" and "Random". In the background there is a hexagon map I made which defines the land and water boundaries for the map. The full set of tag options are as follows: barren, chaotic, civilized, difficult, evil, good, highland, lawful, lowland, perilous, safe, wetland, woodland. I selected chaotic, and perilous.
A procedurally generated map, made from my options. The land borders are natural looking and rivers have been generated. A compass is shown in the corner, giving the impression of an old map. A few towns have been generated, named Monté, Darkbridge, Brightpoint, Deep Beach and Hotpine. A dark forest dominates the centre of the map, and there is a mountain range named Freeridge. There are also some places labelled with skulls, to suggest they are dangerous. These are named "Den of Baeth", and "Timeless Library"
Came across this procedural map generation tool on itch.io. Very easy to use, I made this example in about 30 seconds. It could be a nice tool for someone's D&D session(s). Right click on the main image to get started.
watabou.itch.io/perilous-sho...
It's free to re-use, but not open-source.
I think this article is a great example of how non-fiction can be beautifully written: newdesigncongress.org/en/pub/who-w...
It's a review of the social context of mainstream technology today, told through the perspective and personal experiences of the author (Cade Diehm)
“The fundamental task is to achieve smallness within large organisation.” - E.F. Schumacher, Small is beautiful
Even global efforts centre around ourselves and our direct relationships.
“Ask not what you can do for the commons, but what the commons can do for you.”
Coined by social.coop/@smallcircles
If we incentivise people to contribute to the commons because it fulfills their needs directly, we can scale pro-social technology to the point where it effects societal change.
Solidarity for Freelancers in 2026
1. Collaboration over Competition
2. Networking over Not Working
3. Solidarity over Solitude
blog.weareopen.coop/solidarity-f...
Written by social.coop/@epilepticra...
A line chart plots global capacity of solar power measured in gigawatts. From 2010 capacity starts to grow exponentially, way beyond a series of predictions drawn as lines in yellow. Actual installations have been more than 3x higher than their five year forecasts.
The world’s solar capacity reached 1,419 gigawatts in 2023, way beyond any predictions. 1 gigawatt = power for a medium sized city.
From vis.social/@infobeautiful (Mastodon)
A computer monitor displaying the presentation slide titled: "what hype does". The centre of the slide is a statue of the Buddha, a hover car is photoshopped to be in the palm of his hand. Around him is the cycle of hype: 1. Uncertainty 2. Storytelling & Simplification 3. Legitimacy, Trust 4. Excitement & Fomo 5. Sense of Belonging 6. Attention, Investment 7. Acceleration, Commitment 8. Normalises Power 9. Disillusionment, Renewal 10. Uncertainty (we have returned to step 1) Each point on the cycle is connected by arrows, and each arrow has some more text which denotes some phenomena associated with each transition. 1. Uncertainty becomes simplification with exaggeration 2. Simplification becomes trust with the illusion of understanding 3. Trust becomes fomo with the myth of progress, and faith 4. Fomo becomes a sense of belonging with inclusion/exclusion and the silencing of alternatives 5. Sense of belonging becomes investment with media attention and urgency to act 6. Investment becomes commitment with the misallocation of resources and mainstream investment 7. Commitment normalises power with "unavoidable futures and desire" 8. Disillusionment and renewal is characteristed by an undermining of trust in science 9. And we return to the beginning of the cycle with "purge, loss and concentration"
"Hype studies", a conference in Barcelona which took place last year, organised by a group of researchers exploring hype as a force that acts in the world.
This slide depicts the cycle of hype.
hypestudies.org/conference
Yeah that would be nice! Send me a DM for when you're available :)
The Godot 4.6 IDE is gorgeous :-)
A screenshot from the music-map site. Text is allayed on the page canvas, Johnny Cash (the search term) is in the centre. Queens of the Stone Age appears close to Johnny Cash, representing a high score. Many other artists are nearby, including the Foo Fighters, Kyuss and Fu manchu. Elvis Presely is on the map, towards the periphery where some artists like Neil Young and Ray Charles are also featured.
The result is that Johnny Cash might send you to listen to Queens Of The Stone Age before Elvis Presley.
The image is from https://
music-map.com/, built on Gnoosic. It's a map of taste, I suppose.
Gnoosic (www.
gnoosic.com/) is a site which generates music recommendations. It's not an LLM, it's trained by people using it.
You enter three bands and it has a go, then you give it a thumb up, neutral or thumb down (which helps train it).
LLM chatbots pose a threat to the availability and quality of public "informations commons". They may represent a move to enclosure.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
The graph plots a rapid rise of Stack Overflow questions leading up to the 2010s, then a slight decline until just after 2020.
A concerning graph. Since 2020 the number of Stack Overflow questions asked has been declining rapidly, and in 2026 the count is near levels from the early 2000s.
data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflo...
I'm good thanks!
Taking the opportunity to share what I'm up to, I suppose I would highlight Games Commons (@gamescommons.bsky.social), gamescommons.com
How are things with you?
I discovered listmonk, free and open-source email newsletter software, self-hosted. Looks pretty nice! listmonk.app
Like so much else, this aspect of technology is alienated from us in a capitalist economy, and it is to our peril.
This perspective on technology is encompassed by the term "social technics" (coined by Murray Bookchin), and has its origins in Aristotle's concept of "technique" (the root of English "technology", τέχνη).
The most important part of any technology is its deployment, how it is mobilised throughout society in conjunction with its social context and with organisational techniques.
Hello! :)
Hyphanet is a P2P alternative to the World Wide Web, and it's hilarious:
"In Hyphanet, no one knows who inserted the file, who requested the file, or where the file is stored. Therefore, it is very difficult to censor."
"The only way to delete something in Hyphanet is not to search for it"
The Algorithmic Anarchist (2023). Available for free: hughbarnard.org/the-algorith...
It's an informal book about social technics, it reads like an A-Z tour of brief thoughts on a range of topics, like lots of little opportunities to find inspiration. Also available in German and French.
If you have a private server, you can also configure it to dedicate a small piece of your bandwidth as a Tor Snowflake proxy. Doug Belshaw's blog includes some information on how to do that: blog.dougbelshaw.com/tor-snowflak...
It uses WebRTC, the same protocol used by Google Meet or Jitsi. From the network perspective, it looks like the Snowflake user is having a routine phone call, when in fact you are tunneling them into the Tor network
A pink snowflake icon transfixed over a square grid, with a large purple background
Tor Snowflake is a plugin which runs in your browser and helps people to circumvent censorship in countries where Tor is blocked (an increasingly common occurrence in our surveillance-obsessed world)
snowflake.torproject.org