If any of your communities use Slack, especially the “free” version, once in a while Slack seems to temporarily upgrade your “Slack team” to their “PRO” version (for 30 days).
In the Slack mobile app, you may see a dismissible banner like:
“PRO: Your team is on a free trial”
This is your chance to go back and manually archive or follow-up on old dms and “saved” posts.
If you happen to use the bookmarks (AKA “Later” or “Save for later”) feature to collect Slack posts that you want to follow-up on later, you may have noticed that any such “saved” posts older than 30 days are usually no longer viewable.
When your Slack instance is on a PRO free trial, you can once again view these older posts.
Use this opportunity to go through any saved posts older than 30 days (maybe older than 15 days to give yourself a buffer, or all of them to clear them out) and decide what to do with them.
If there is anything about them you still want to save (for reference), copy them somewhere else accordingly, or if you saved them as a reminder to follow-up, copy them to a persistent plain text inbox, or if following-up will only take a few minutes, then take care of them.
The other thing you get longer term access to are direct messages (dms).
Slack PRO provides you full access to your (potentially years of) dms, instead of only the past 30 days worth. Worth checking your dms to see if there is anything you want to copy or save.
I advise using the web version of Slack to do this, since it’s much easier to merely open another tab to copy/paste or otherwise take care of dms and saved posts.
That’s my #WASSUP tip for the day.
The IndieWeb community Slack (which itself is merely one of several ways to access the IndieWeb chat) is currently in a Slack PRO free trial, and I have been going through a few saved posts, copying content to the wiki or otherwise handling them.
Glossary:
IndieWeb chat
https://chat.indieweb.org/
This is my eighth #WASSUP2026 post, and sixth useful web tip for September.
#Slack #SlackTeam #SlackPRO #SlackTip #tip #webTip
This is post 21 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
← https://tantek.com/2026/244/t1/september-blogging-challenge-wassup
→ 🔮
Today’s #WASSUP tip:
Turn on DNS over HTTPS (DoH) in your Firefox Preferences. Advanced Settings.
Custom: Always use secure DNS with control over your provider and fallback behavior.
[x] Always warn me if secure DNS isn’t available.
There are both security and privacy reasons to use DoH.
Step-by-step instructions:
1. open Firefox Preferences ("Firefox" menu, "Preferences" item)
2. Type “DoH” in the auto-activated search box
3. Scroll down to where it says “DNS over HTTPS” under “Privacy and Security”
4. Click “Advanced Settings”
5. Choose the “(•) Custom” radio button that says “Always use secure DNS with control over your provider and fallback behavior” right under it
6. Check “[x] Always warn me if secure DNS isn’t available.”
Privacy: the domain name of every website you browse is sent to the local router (e.g. WiFi), and on up to whatever internet service provider you’re connected to. Everything along the way has the ability to track what domains / websites you are using, how often, and build a profile accordingly, perhaps even matching it with stored profiles.
The sites you use, how frequently, what time of day, may all be enough information to create a unique fingerprint of you, to uniquely identify you, and perhaps target you.
By using DoH exclusively, every one of those domain names is sent only to your DoH provider (e.g. Cloudflare or NextDNS) blocking your local router, WiFi, and internet service provider from making a list of which websites you visit, or at least making it much harder (and both privacy and security are about making it harder for adversaries). They can still track what IP addresses you access, but that‘s much less information, and much less reliable over time.
Security: if your local router, WiFi, or internet service provider is compromised by an attacker, they can theoretically pretend to be any website you are trying to access (DNS hijacking), and then capture your credential as you login (username, password, even 2FA), and instantly re-use them to pretend to be you (credential stuffing) and sign-in to that website. Once they do that, they usually get a "long-lived" session token (like a session cookie) that they can re-use to pretend to be you, repeatedly, until that session token expires. Some don't expire for months or even years.
For example, if you’re using public WiFi, at a cafe, or a hotel, or airport, you have no idea if their routers or internet service providers are secure, and increasingly, unfortunately, we know that they are often compromised by various network attackers.
We know this is actively happening from both frequent news reports:
* https://news.google.com/search?q=wifi+dns+hijack
And from Anthropic’s report published mere days ago:
* https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026
* full PDF: https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/e50be2e51e7695dc4b1366a37a245a597377d3b5/Anthropic-Detecting-and-countering-091026.pdf
E.g.:
“They used compromised admin credentials to modify DNS records so that they pointed to services owned by the actor (a technique known as DNS hijacking). Guests of hotels using the compromised vendors who connected to the hotel WiFi had their traffic, device identifier and IP address sent to the actor’s servers. At that point, ClickFix-style lures were staged to deliver Windows, Android and iOS malware to the victim’s device. The actor was able to use a combination of guest information stolen from the hotel management systems with the data stolen from individual guests’ devices to focus additional targeting efforts.”
And it only gets worse from there.
When you activate exclusive DoH use, Firefox skips using those local DNS services, and instead directly contacts the DoH provider for DNS queries (to connect to the websites you access).
For more about how DoH works in Firefox, see the FAQs:
* https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dns-over-https-doh-faqs
Glossary:
ClickFix
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClickFix
Credential stuffing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credential_stuffing
DNS hijacking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_hijacking
DNS over HTTPS (DoH)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_HTTPS
Replay attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack
This is my seventh #WASSUP2026 post, and fifth useful web tip for September.
✨ Weekly Tipster (https://tantek.com/2026/244/t1/september-blogging-challenge-wassup)
#DoH #DNSoverHTTPS #Firefox #tip #webTip #browserTip #webBrowserTip #security #privacy #cyberSecurity #DNS #DNShijack #DNShijacking #hotelWifi
Happy #8bitday!
And happy Progammer’s Day! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmer%27s_Day) — one of the rare annual ordinal date observations, based on the day of the year, rather than day of a specific month of the year.
Piano Day is another, celebrated on the 88th day of the year:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Day
* https://tantek.com/2024/088/t1/world-piano-day-ordinal-date-iso-8601
Do you know of any other annual ordinal date observances?
Besides New Year’s Day of course.
Previously, previously:
* https://tantek.com/2025/257/t1/happy-8bitday-255-bytes-max
* https://tantek.com/2024/256/t1/happy-8bitday-binary-byte (more previous posts there)
#ProgrammersDay #ordinalDate #dayOfTheYear #ordinalDateObservance #annualObservance #annualEvent
Today’s #WASSUP tip: a search shortcut for saving pages in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Yes this is a lot like yesterday’s tip, except for archiving a page, rather than looking it up.
For example if you try looking up a page in the Internet Archive and it’s not there.
Or if you find an “interesting” page, and want to blog it later, you may want to save a copy of it in the Internet Archive as you are seeing it today, because when you look later it may have changed (or gone away).
I used to do this by typing "https://web.archive.org/save/" into the browser address bar and then pasting the link I want to save in the archive.
Again this is not really a “search engine”, however Firefox’s search engine shortcuts simplifies this greatly (less typing).
Here’s how to create a save shortcut for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:
1. open Firefox Preferences ("Firefox" menu, "Preferences" item)
2. select "🔍 Search" from the left column
3. click the [ + Add search engine ] button
4. enter "Internet Archive Save" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
5. enter "https://web.archive.org/save/%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
6. enter "ias" into the Keyword field (without quotes)
When viewing a page that I want to save in the Internet Archive:
1. copy its link
2. activate the browser address bar (cmd-L does this in Firefox and Safari)
3. type "ias " (without the quotes)
4. paste the link I had copied earlier, and press return
Wait a few seconds (could take up to a few minutes) and the Internet Archive should save the page and show you the saved version.
If it fails for any reason (happens sometimes), likes takes a while and then displays something like:
"Sorry / Job failed"
You can click the "Return to Save Page Now" link on the page, and try pasting the link one more time into the text input box and pressing return.
If it says something like
"The target server blocks access to [URL]. (HTTP status=403)"
(literally happened to me today)
or some other HTTP status error code (5xx or 4xx), then you can try emailing the IT staff of the site you were trying to archive by emailing "webmaster@" the domain of that URL and perhaps CC: help@ that domain.
E.g. if the URL was https://example.com/some-path then you would email "webmaster@example.com, help@example.com".
With something like:
----
Dear [Domain Name] Webmaster,
Could you check your server configuration and explicitly allow the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to make historical archive copies of your pages?
This is important for the history of the open web, and greatly helps journalists, bloggers, and historians.
Please allow their User Agent: "archive.org_bot" to crawl and archive your site. More info on their "archive.org_bot" here: https://archive.org/details/archive.org_bot
Thank you for your consideration!
[sign your name]
----
Replace the two [ bracket phrases ] the domain name of the link you were trying to archive and your name respectively.
Good luck and happy internet archiving!
Previously: https://tantek.com/2026/249/t1/internet-archive-wayback-machine-search-shortcut
This is my sixth #WASSUP2026 post, and fourth useful web tip for September.
#InternetArchive #WaybackMachine #save #searchShortcut #Firefox #FirefoxSearch #archive #archives #tip #webTip #browserTip #webBrowserTip #archiveTip
Today’s #WASSUP tip: a search shortcut for looking up pages in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Ever click on a link for an article or photo and it’s not found (404), or redirects to a home page, or otherwise is not what you expect?
The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine archives webpages (that allow it) and quite often you can lookup broken links in the archive.
I often do this by typing "https://web.archive.org/web/" into the browser address bar and then pasting the link I want to lookup, because I know some of the Internet Archive’s URL patterns.
Though it’s not really a “search engine”, I realized I could use the search engine shortcuts feature of Firefox to simplify this greatly.
Here’s how to create a search shortcut for the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:
1. open Firefox Preferences ("Firefox" menu, "Preferences" item)
2. select "🔍 Search" from the left column
3. click the [ + Add search engine ] button
4. enter "Internet Archive" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
5. enter "https://web.archive.org/web/%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
6. enter "ia" into the Keyword field (without quotes)
Now if a link I follow fails to load (404) or is otherwise broken, I can:
1. copy that link (I may have to go back to the previous page and right-click choose "Copy Link")
2. activate the browser address bar (cmd-L does this in Firefox and Safari)
3. type "ia " (without the quotes)
4. paste the link I had copied earlier, and press return
Presto, an Internet Archive result for that link.
If you’re a frequent user of the Wayback Machine, hopefully this will save you some time.
And if not, try it anyway for the next time you click on a link and it seems broken.
This is my fifth #WASSUP2026 post, and third useful web tip for September.
#InternetArchive #WaybackMachine #search #searchShortcut #Firefox #FirefoxSearch #searchEngine #archive #archives #PageNotFound #404 #404Error #Error404 #tip #webTip #browserTip #webBrowserTip #searchTip
The #Blaugust 2026 blogging challenge had a nice set of awards this year based on reaching a certain number of posts published:
* 1* — Newbie Blogger. *if it was your first time doing Blaugust
* 5+ — Bronze
* 15+ — Silver
* 25+ — Gold
* 31+ — Rainbow Diamond
From https://nerdgirlthoughts.game.blog/2026/07/15/blaugust-2026-is-coming/.
These levels, and the total for the duration (rather than one per day) made the challenge more inviting, accessible, and fun, removing (most of) the stress of a typical daily challenge for a month.
When I started the Web And Standards September Useful Posts (#WASSUP) blogging challenge, I said it was similar to Blaugust and noted “30 posts during the month of September”. While I adopted Blaugust’s total posts for the duration (rather than daily) aspect, I meant to include such levels too.
James (@jamesg.blog) reminded me of this in his first WASSUP post yesterday:
* https://jamesg.blog/2026/09/02/hide-on-desktop-mobile-css
and noted explicitly:
“I am not planning to write every day about web development per the challenge, but I will try my best to share a few HTML and CSS tips throughout the month!”
After a bit of brainstorming in the #indieweb cafe channel and some further thoughts, again, inspired by the Blaugust levels, here are the #WASSUP2026 levels to start with:
* 1 ⭐️ Starter. Congrats on starting the challenge!
* 5 ✨ Weekly Tipster. Post once per week, or at least 5 times for the duration.
* 8 🕸 Weekends Weaver. Post every weekend day, or at least that same number, 8 times.
(Thanks to James for this suggestion!)
* 22 ❇️ Weekdays Wizard. Post every weekday, or at least that same number, 22 times.
* 30 💠 Superbly Useful. Post at least 30 times during the month.
I’ve updated the original post to include these awards, and they’re all self-assessed.
https://tantek.com/2026/244/t1/september-blogging-challenge-wassup
Let’s see your useful posts about the web or open web standards!
How to add MapQuest with a search shortcut to your Firefox:
1. open Firefox Preferences ("Firefox" menu, "Preferences" item)
2. select "🔍 Search" from the left column
3. click the [ + Add search engine ] button
4. enter "MapQuest" into the Search engine name field (without quotes)
5. enter "https://www.mapquest.com/search/%s" into the URL field (without quotes)
6. enter "m" into the Keyword field (without quotes)
If you already had an "m" search shortcut for another search engine, you may need to first edit that search engine (click the pencil ✏️ icon next to it) in the list of "Additional search engines", and remove/replace the existing "m" with something else.
Now when you want to look up something on a map, you can type an 'm ' (without the quotes) into the browser URL/adress bar, enter an address or venue name, press return and get a result in MapQuest.
This is my third #WASSUP #WASSUP2026 post, and second useful web tip for September.
#MapQuest #search #searchShortcut #Firefox #FirefoxSearch #searchEngine #map #maps #GoogleMaps #AppleMaps #LakeOntario #tip #webTip #browserTip #webBrowserTip #searchTip
If you find a wiki page seemingly from a MediaWiki, but without a "View History" link, here’s a tip for how to find it.
Example: the old HTML Working Group (WG) wiki at W3C
* https://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/Main_Page
Note the warning at the top: “This wiki has been archived and is now read-only.”
Aside: many years ago, each group at W3C had their own MediaWiki install, in a different path and disconnected from both every other group’s wiki, and the top level general W3C wiki (http://www.w3.org/wiki). I pointed out this made no sense, since groups more often than not had overlaps in documentation, technology, practices and would of course benefit from wiki-syntax interlinking. This was never really fixed at an infrastructure level, it had to be fixed at a cultural level, convincing working groups one by one to use the general W3C wiki, and ignore any WG-specific wiki. The other apparent hazard of having a WG-specific wiki is they can be (and have been) shutdown or frozen (like the example given), breaking any chance of fixing typos, other minor errors, or creating redirects to where the work has been restarted subsequently.
Note also the lack of a "View History" link as a tab top right adjacent to the content area (or anywhere else on the page).
This is likely because the page has been archived as static HTML, preserving the markup and styling, but removing any editing or history browsing or diffing or any other form submission based features that would require a dynamic backend like MediaWiki.
Here is how to find such a page’s history:
1. Find the “last modified” date in the footer and note the year, month, day.
2. Check for the page in the Internet Archive, e.g. prepend its URL with "https://web.archive.org/web/"
3. If there’s (presumably) still no "View History" link, look at the year month day numbers in the URL — the first 8 digits after "/web/" E.g. "20260512" for this page as of today.
4. Replace those 8 digits with the year, month, day noted in step 1, with 4, 2, 2 digit numbers respectively. E.g. "20150623" for this page. Press return to load that.
5. You may have to "close toolbar" the (x) in the top right of the page content.
6. Note the "View History" link, click it.
Presto, view history on a former MediaWiki page that’s been archived to static HTML.
This is my second #WASSUP #WASSUP2026 post, and first useful web tip for September.
#wiki #wikiPage #MediaWiki #ViewHistory #W3C #HTMLWG #wikiArchived #readOnly #staticHTML #InternetArchive #WaybackMachine #LastModified
Welcome to September! Time for a new blogging challenge for the month. After some ideation, here’s my proposed September blogging challenge, on topics I find myself reading and posting about, with an emphasis on pragmatism:
The Web And Standards September Useful Posts blogging challenge
Or the #WASSUP challenge for short.
I really enjoyed the #Blaugust blogging challenge last month (31 posts ✅ — summary in another post), and not feeling a resonance with the two prior September challenges noted on the IndieWeb wiki, decided to come up with my own. Iterated on some ideas yesterday until arriving at WASSUP (yes, as a backronym, inspired somewhat by WHATWG which also has WHATNOT and WHATUP meetings).
Topic:
* Anything *useful* (features, tips) about open web standards, the open web as a whole, web browsers, or web services like search engines.
Hashtags:
* #WASSUP #WASSUP2026
Similar to Blaugust:
* Overall goal: 30 posts during the month of September (1 per day if you wish, or double/triple-up to get ahead or catch-up)
UPDATE: Awards for numbers of posts:
* 1 ⭐️ Starter. Congrats on starting the challenge!
* 5 ✨ Weekly Tipster. Post once per week, or at least 5 times for the duration.
* 8 🕸 Weekends Weaver. Post every weekend day, or at least that same number, 8 times.
(Thanks to James for this suggestion!)
* 22 ❇️ Weekdays Wizard. Post every weekday, or at least that same number, 22 times.
* 30 💠 Superbly Useful. Post at least 30 times during the month.
All self-assessed and self-acknowledged. Use the award name, emoji, or both!
And that’s it.
If those are topics you already blog about, great, join in using the hashtags and share what you find useful about them!
Otherwise, take a look at how you frequently use the Web, and post what you have found useful, especially the most useful for you.
Blog clever tips about how you have made better use of the Web, web browsers, search engines etc.
If you’re a web developer or designer, share what you find most useful about web standards, your choice, either in their entirety or of individual features, like HTML elements, attributes, CSS properties, Selectors, DOM features, WebAPIs, standard media formats on the web, etc.
Let’s see what positive pragmatic things we can share with each other about the web and how it works in practice.
Glossary:
Blaugust:
* https://indieweb.org/Blaugust
blogging challenge:
* https://indieweb.org/blogging_challenge
September blogging challenges:
* https://indieweb.org/September#Challenges
standards
* https://indieweb.org/standards
#blog #blogging #bloggingChallenge #September #web #openWeb #webStandards #openWebStandards #webDev #webDevs #webDeveloper #webDevelopers #webDesign #webDesigns #webDesigner #webDesigners #useful #pragmatic
This is post 20 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
← https://tantek.com/2026/243/t1/many-paths-indieweb-custom-domain
→ https://tantek.com/2026/263/t1/slack-pro-free-trial-old-posts-dms
There are many paths onto the #indieweb. Two of the most common:
1. an idea for a name and a website
2. a desire to create and express yourself, independently of social media
If you start with (1), have an idea for a domain name, find one, and buy it, then you need a place to direct it to.
The simplest next step is setting up a content hosting service, and configuring it with your new domain name.
If you start with (2), a desire to create and publish, then similarly, the simplest first step is to set up a content hosting service.
Either way, you should choose a service that supports custom domain names.
Had a great chat with Joe Crawford (@artlung.com) this morning about the many ways people find their way to the indieweb, and set up their own indieweb site.
We talked about the challenges of attaching a domain name to a service, and how that could be better documented and explained.
Subsequently Joe took the initiative to create a new "custom domain name" page on the IndieWeb wiki to help consider and choose a content hosting service that supports custom domains:
* https://indieweb.org/custom_domain_name
There are both free options and paid options depending on what kind of features, user experience, and support you want.
Most paid options cost less than a latte a month, certainly less than monthly mobile phone or video streaming fees.
Know other content hosting services that support custom domain names?
Add them to the wiki page!
And if you prefer to install and run your own content management software or create your one yourself, you can do that too:
* https://indieweb.org/CMS
If you do create one, watch out for spending more time coding than writing.
Or code away! It’s your site, code, write, mix it up as you wish.
Previously: https://tantek.com/2026/242/t1/indieweb-own-domain-content-personal-website
This is post 19 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
#independent #socialMedia #domain #domainName #contentHosting #customDomain #customDomains #customDomainName #customDomainNames #CMS
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/242/t1/indieweb-own-domain-content-personal-website
→ https://tantek.com/2026/244/t1/september-blogging-challenge-wassup
What does it take to be on or be part of the #indieweb?
As several have shared before me:
* own your domain and publish some content on it
That’s the foundation. If you have a personal website on a domain you own and control, you’re on the indieweb or part of the indieweb or however you would like to express a sense of belonging.
Of course there are lots of things you can do to be more indieweb, and that’s very much a choose your own adventure journey.
Maybe you’ll decide to post your content first on your personal site rather than on silos, and only post copies (syndicate) to social media walled gardens.
* https://indieweb.org/POSSE
Maybe you like taking an explicitly principled approach, step-by-step.
* https://indieweb.org/principles
Maybe you’ll decide to entirely quit using specific silos, for any reason, whether you created a replacement with your own site, or switched to a community owned and run solution.
* https://indieweb.org/silo-quits
Maybe you’re a developer and decide to implement various open web standards (formats and protocols) so your indieweb site can interact more with other indieweb sites.
* https://indieweb.org/building-blocks
Maybe you want to join a community of like-minded folks creatively expressing themselves on their personal sites, treating each other respectfully, encouraging each other, and collaborating on building better solutions than sites that require agreeing to long and heavily imbalanced terms of service.
* https://indieweb.org/join
All of these are optional.
Make a personal website on a domain you own, put some content there.
Welcome.
Previously: https://tantek.com/2024/026/t3/indieweb-for-everyone-internet-of-people
This is post 18 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
#domain #domainName #ownYourDomain #ownYourIdentity #identity #personalWeb #personalWebsite #smallWeb #ownYourData #ownYourContent #POSSE #indiewebPrinciples #principles #siloQuit #siloQuits #openWeb #openWebStandards #webStandards #community #IndieWebCommunity
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/240/t1/indieweb-your-own-words-actions
→ https://tantek.com/2026/243/t1/many-paths-indieweb-custom-domain
Due to recent reports about “AI”/LLM/“agent” tools and services, I have growing concerns that the #security properties of the open web are changing, or have already changed, in practice, to a degree that we haven’t seen in many years.
This past week’s articles / reports on further investigations and details of the OpenAI Hugging Face intrusion / incident:
* OpenAI report: https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/67869394-cb91-4c12-888c-5cbd85c7814c/OpenAI-Hugging-Face%20Incident-Technical-Report.pdf
* 2026-08-26 https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-26-openai-hugging-face-incident-investigation/
* 2026-08-28 https://www.planned-obsolescence.org/p/the-hugging-face-attack-surprised
and articles like:
* 2026-08-26 https://blog.trailofbits.com/2026/08/26/vms-wont-contain-cyber-capable-agents/
Previously I wrote about an instance of (presumably) unintentional subversion of site security by someone making mostly reasonable requests of a software “agent”:
* 2026-08-14 http://tantek.com/2026/226/t1/cybersecurity-friday-small-business
Combining those data points, it seems reasonable to conclude both that existing sites are in practice more vulnerable now, and as more advanced LLM models are available for use, as open models advance further, more sites will be vulnerable to more attacks, by a broader set of attackers, using fewer resources than were required in the past.
One implication of these growing vulnerabilities in practice is a growing need to reduce one’s personal exposure to such sites and services. Exposures as “small” as merely having an account on such sites, all the way to depending on such sites for critical home or transport needs.
For example, as vulnerable as various “internet of things” or “web of things” devices and services were in the past, we should expect they are or will shortly become even more vulnerable, and it would be reasonable to disconnect or otherwise take offline any such internet connected devices in your home.
Similarly, if you happen to be driving a vehicle that is either “always connected” (e.g. built-in WiFi or cell connectivity), or frequently connected to the internet (e.g. joins your home WiFi when parked in the garage), you may want to investigate if it is possible for you to disconnect it from the internet and be certain of its disconnection (like hardware disabling), or at least manually choose when to connect it.
Personally I do not have any “internet connected” home appliances (not counting a router or video streaming devices, home computers) or vehicles and even before this, never planned to get any for both security and privacy reasons.
Even if you “only” have an internet connected robot vacuum or lightbulbs that depend on an internet connected “app” in order to change their colors, might be worth taking steps to disconnect them and figure out how to use them offline. And if they fail to function when disconnected, might be a good idea to invest in offline-only (local-only), offline-first, or at least offline-capable replacements.
This is merely scratching the surface. I believe the larger implication of what this past week’s investigations have revealed is that we likely have to re-assess the security considerations/profiles of every website and web service we regularly depend on, especially those with account logins, profile information, and access to other parts of our lives.
Previously:
* http://tantek.com/2026/226/t1/cybersecurity-friday-small-business
#AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #agent #agents #AIagent #AIagents #OpenAI #HuggingFace #VM #VirtualMachine #cyberSecurity #openWeb #IoT #internetOfThings #WoT #WebOfThings #disconnect #offline #offlineOnly #localOnly #offlineFirst #offlineCapable
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
The #indieweb is about making your own words translate to actions, especially actions like writing, editing, and publishing your words (or photos or other media) on your personal site. The IndieWeb community is a place to help and empower good faith folks to do so as well. People making what they need and optionally collaborating to do so.
Related:
* https://indieweb.org/IndieWeb
* https://indieweb.org/make_what_you_need
We do encourage folks to document, open source, and share what they make, so others may benefit. However there is a difference between an encouragement to share openly, and implying any commitment of support to others, or an invitation for demands.
Related:
* https://indieweb.org/documentation
* https://indieweb.org/open_source
* https://indieweb.org/principles
No one is entitled to demand that folks in the community, or the community as a whole, do something specific for others, whether it is as small as publishing some content or open sourcing some code, or supporting someone else’s protocol proposal or call to action on a survey or political action.
Anyone that wants to do that sort of thing is welcome to do it on their own, independently, or form their own affinity groups to do so.
We actually encourage the opposite of such demands, we encourage people to take breaks when they need to take care of more important life things:
* https://indieweb.org/life_happens
Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.
This is post 17 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
#wordsToActions #writing #editing #publishing #indiewebCommunity #community #indiewebPrinciples #principles #lifeHappens #oxygenMask #yourOwnOxygenMask
P.S. The word ”warrior“ is not mentioned even once on the IndieWeb wiki (as of today).
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/233/t1/latest-strange-ai-llm-slack-chat
→ https://tantek.com/2026/242/t1/indieweb-own-domain-content-personal-website
TIL: “security by antiquity” from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260821-why-older-tech-is-sometimes-safer-from-hackers
Presumably a reference to (or a subset of) "security through obscurity".
Best rationalization for old-tech-hoarding I have seen in a long time.
Probably worth a longer cybersecurity post or a few. Like how to source (obtain), repair, maintain, and integrate with (or isolate from!) modern systems, or somewhere in between like local-only secure data transfers between such systems, perhaps gapped a la sneakernet.
Glossary:
security through obscurity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity
sneakernet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet
#security #securityByAntiquity #oldTech #cyberSecurity
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Why are there two pentagons in the otherwise hex-tiled American continents displayed in TRON: Legacy’s Rectifier Globe computer graphics?
I was watching the TRON: Legacy 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray remaster (only my second time watching the 4K remaster) in the background earlier today when I sensed something “off” in the land mass tiling of the rotating globe graphic.
I paused the video and after less than a minute of scrutinizing the dark globe with orange outlined hexagon tiling, spotted a single pentagon (among the hexagons) inside the 2d projections of the American continents. See if you can spot it.
After writing the first draft of this post, I double-checked the graphic and found one more pentagon!
Credit: Image from https://ilikeinterfaces.com/2015/03/24/map-ui-tron-legacy/, fair use from Walt Disney, Inc.
The first pentagon I spotted is in the northwest quadrant of South America, and clearly visible at time index 1:38:03. The second pentagon is near Alaska. Now I can't unsee either. How did only two pentagons make it in there? Seems unlikely to be an accident or rendering bug. The only thing I can think of is the designer/artist(s) that created the graphic animation placed the two pentagons deliberately. But why?
GMUNK Studio’s post about the Rectifier Globe (https://gmunk.com/TRON-Rectifier-Globe) doesn’t mention the pentagons.
Yes, I know the math/geometry about how you can’t tile a sphere with only hexagons, that several pentagons are necessary at various points on a sphere to stitch together the hexagons. This is just two small pentagons, not several, and the Rectifier Globe only has/uses hex-tiling for the land masses, not the entire sphere. Nor is the hex-tiling “perfect” by any measure. The hexagonal edges of the continents don’t match-up with hex-tiling much (most?) of the way around the coasts of the continents either, so it can’t have been to fix that.
Are those two pentagons merely imperfections (necessary or accidental)? Or an Easter-egg or secret reference of sorts from the graphic artist(s)?
I searched the web and could not find any answers or even mentions of these two pentagons in this graphic. Did anyone notice them previously?
#TRON #TRONLegacy #pentagon #pentagons #hex #hexagon #hexagons #hexTile #hexTiles #hexTiled #Rectifier #RectifierGlobe #globe #computerGraphic #computerGraphics #math #maths #geometry #sphere #tile #tiled #tiling
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Lessons learned from the problem solving of “fixing” a recent “broken record”. In summary:
1. sometimes waiting can (partially) fix a problem or reduce its severity
2. applying reasoning and practical math & science (e.g. mechanics & acoustics) to diagnose and take actions can also repair something (at least partially), as well as eliminate possible causes
3. web searching for “how to fix” can reveal additional potential causes (and steps to take)
The record was a brand new specialty vinyl that I had ordered.
Problem: when I placed the record on the turntable and pressed the START button, I could immediately see that it had a bit of a “bump” or rise at a specific spot, once per revolution. When I tried playing it, the needle skipped backwards, just after the bump, because while the needle was able to follow the rise of the bump, it was unable to “fall” fast enough to stay on track (literally), thus losing touch with the vinyl, and when it recontacted, it slid outward to prior revolution of the track.
I figured the warping was the problem, and not something I could fix (without risking worse damage), and placed the vinyl back into its double sleeves, into its cardboard cover (still shrinkwrapped except for the side slit I had cut open), then that into the packing and box it was shipped in. I left it flat on a desk (nothing on top) to eventually investigate how to return the record for a replacement or refund.
About a week later I looked into the specifics for a replacement/refund which said to take a photo or make a recording of the record problem to submit online.
When I put the record back on the turntable, fully confident I would reproduce the problem and record it, I immediately noticed that the “bump” had somehow become much gentler (shorter, less prominent) than I remembered.
I gently lowered the needle on the record, and now, on the gentler bump, the needle tracked perfectly. Zero skipping.
Somehow simply packing the record in its stiff cardboard and then that in the packing materials and box and leaving it out for a week (note: not in any sunlight or other heat source), had resulted in the record plastic “settling” and flattening just enough to fix the problem. Lesson 1.
Still I could see the smaller bump, and figured I should test the record thoroughly. I flipped it around to its B side and played it. I had not previously tested the back side. For some reason, the bump was less apparent from the other side. Perhaps the “valley” on the other side of a bump on a record is shallower and wider?
Regardless, the needle started skipping, again consistently in one location per revolution, however not where the bump/valley was! It skipped the way I know record needles skip when there is a bad scratch.
I experimented with dropping the needle at various spots along the track and quickly determined that it only skipped in the first 10-15s of the song. Any needle drop after ~15s into the song played consistently all the way through to the end of the record.
I visually inspected the record with extra lighting around the region it was skipping, expecting to find an obvious scratch or stubborn piece of dust. I was unable to see either, despite visually inspecting the area across multiple viewing angles, which was made more challenging by the record’s use of transparent or at least translucent plastic.
Seeing no visual damage, I concluded the problem was more likely either a small fleck (or flecks) of dust, or possibly microscopic scratch which the needle was hitting while being invisible to the naked eye.
I grabbed a fresh optics cleaning cloth and thoroughly wiped off the entirety of the track area on the B side. I also gently dabbed the bottom of the needle in case any dust particles had been attracted by the static electricity. Under very bright lighting, I couldn’t see any hint of any dust remaining.
Tried playing it again, almost the same result: the record skipped back at the same spot every revolution, however the range where it skipped was smaller, perhaps only 5-10s into the track. Wiping the dust had helped, and I had eliminated at least a few possible causes (a visible scratch or more dust). Lesson 2.
Feeling like I had exhausted the limits of reasoning about the physics of record player and needle functions, at this point I was about to give-up, and make a recording of the skipping. I decided to try one more thing, encouraged by the incremental improvements so far.
I web searched for something like “how to fix a record that is skipping” and plenty of results showed up from various vinyl experts and shops. I opened several of them and skimmed their descriptions, recommended diagnoses, and things to try.
Most of the articles listed nearly exactly the steps I had taken already which was a nice validation of my physics reasoning and diagnostic & repair steps.
However, multiple articles listed a couple more things, which I had forgotten about (having not adjusted the turntable in a very long time). Tracking force. Seeing the phrase was an a-ha moment, yes, that’s a key aspect of the physics that I had forgotten. A record needle depends on having some (but not too much) weight in order to stay in its groove while playing, and have less chance of being dislodged by small (perhaps microscopic!) scratches or dust particles.
I immediately adjusted the counterweight on the other end of the player arm a few twists to make the needle “heavier” (I should probably measure the actual needle force with a sensitive digital scale for a proper adjustment) and tried playing the B side one more time.
It worked. The track played perfectly. Lesson 3.
Lessons:
1. time alone (or nearly, sometimes leaving something in a static position) can fix or improve some things
2. use math & science to reason about the problem. this will not only lead you to solve many (perhaps even novel to you) problems, the cognitive effort alone reinforces such knowledge and reasoning skills. practicing problem solving makes you a better problem solver.
3. lastly, ask (for help). today we ask search engines. if you know someone with expertise in a subject matter, especially someone who has solved similar problems, ask them. asking for help at the point of needing it, and having reached the edges of your own knowledge is a particularly good moment to learn something, because you’re already in a motivated mindset and open to it
The entire problem solving process probably took longer than it could have, however, many aspects were a good reminder and reinforcement about problem solving in general, which was certainly worth the time.
And it saved me the time it would have taken to return the record and request a replacement or refund.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/broken_record
#lesson #lessons #fixing #repair #repairs #problemSolving #problemSolver #reason #reasoning #science #physics #brokenRecord #record #vinyl #recordPlayer #recordNeedle #trackingForce #time #ask #asking #askForHelp #askExperts
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Discussed Venn diagrams with a couple of friends this morning, especially in the context of illustrating the utility of including all 3 or 4 of a specific set of design principles when creating certain kinds of things, and learned about the difference between Venn diagrams and Euler diagrams.
In short:
* a Venn diagram shows ALL possible relationships between different sets
* an Euler diagram shows only some relationships between different sets, typically focused on conveying relevant or the more important relationships
If you want to dive into their history and why these differences matter, bookmark (or open new tab) this Scientific American article to rabbithole later:
* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/venn-diagrams-history-and-popularity-outside-of-math-explained/
In pop culture and media, nearly any diagram of overlapping circles with labeled regions is (errantly) referred to as a “Venn diagram”.
This is imprecise at best, outright incorrect in many cases, especially diagrams of four circles.
A classic example is the “Ikigai” diagram:
Many (examples below) call this a Venn diagram. It is not a Venn diagram. It is an Euler diagram.
The Ikigai diagram fails to express two specific relationships between different sets, the two that contain opposing side circles but neither of the other two. The missing Ikigai sets relationships in particular:
1. only “you are good at” AND “the world needs” (with neither of the other two)
2. only “you love” AND “you can be paid for” (again with neither of the other two)
If you Google web search for "examples of four circle venn diagrams", Gemini gets this wrong:
And so do the majority of articles that Google shows in top results (which I’m not helping by linking here, but hey it’s Google’s job to fix its search quality, not mine. I was able to use Internet Archive links for two of them at least.)
* https://web.archive.org/web/20260823204717/https://boardmix.com/knowledge/4-circle-venn-diagrams/
* https://miro.com/templates/4-circle-venn-diagram/ (Miro’s own top template there is wrong, though others have contributed proper 4 set Venn diagrams)
* https://web.archive.org/web/20260823205434/https://www.istockphoto.com/illustrations/venn-4-circles-diagram
* https://www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/EW_venndiagram_4
This has interesting implications for expertise and trust.
Clearly by this one example search result, we cannot trust the expertise of "design tool" websites (boardmix, miro), nor stock photo websites.
Nor can we trust educationworld as a place to be educated.
Nor can we trust Google Search (or Google Gemini) to surface expertise above popular misconceptions.
Perhaps a good example of when to use Wikipedia search instead of Google (or other generic) web search.
Personally I generalize this example to “all proper nouns”, that is:
* Wikipedia search proper nouns instead of Google or other general web searching.
You can make this more convenient by setting up “w” as a search shortcut for Wikipedia: https://tantek.com/2024/287/t2/setup-search-shortcuts-firefox
For reference / more reading on Venn diagrams and Euler diagrams:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_diagram
#Venn #diagram #diagrams #VennDiagram #VennDiagrams #EulerDiagram #math #maths #sets #setTheory #relationships #Ikigai #fourCircles #fourCirclesVenn #fourCirclesVennDiagram #misconception #popMisconception #Google #GoogleSearch #GoogleWebSearch #webSearch #search #Gemini #GoogleGemini #GeminiWrong #expertise #trust #webTrust #Wikipedia
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Parasocial grief. This week we lost a cheerleader. Days before that we lost a professor. A few weeks ago a musician. I knew of these individuals, had never met them, fairly certain they had no idea who I was. I was either a fan of their work, or sympathetic to their struggles, or both. #Parasocial. Each of their deaths felt like a tragedy, perhaps the most recent, the youngest of them, most of all. #Grief
Hayden Panettiere, the actress who played a cheerleader with regenerative healing powers on the tv series “Heroes”, would have turned 37 today.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Panettiere
A few months ago she had published a memoir of her many struggles, so many. There’s a story inside about being brought to a boat by a woman she trusted, and then into a room with a male occupant. Who was that woman, and who was that man? Someone must know, and enough information has been released that someone should be able to narrow down the possibilities.
* More (CW: abuse) details: https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/hayden-panettieres-tragedy-foretold-in-harrowing-memoir/
The world failed to save the cheerleader, multiple times.
Jason Arday was a professor at the University of Cambridge. He was accused of plagiarism, and the press, from all sides, disproportionately covered and criticized him in contrast to their criticism of others similarly accused. Institutional racism across an industry. He died just a week ago, aged 41. Another tragedy.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Arday
* More: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-08-19/jason-ardays-death-sparks-u-k-debate-over-academic-rigor-racism-after-media-frenzy
Kavinsky was a French DJ and music creator. I was (still am) a fan of his music, which simultaneously felt like some of the best electronic music from the 1980s, yet refreshingly novel. Partly dark, and partly hopeful.
He had been complaining of headaches, then passed away on July 28th, three days before turning 51.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavinsky
His most popular track, “Nightcall”, was featured in the opening scene in the movie “Drive” with Ryan Gosling.
I found his track “Renegade” particularly resonant: https://youtu.be/N5u6YYqWgEo
#HaydenPanettiere #JasonArday #Kavinsky
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Latest strange “AI” (LLM) behavior in the #indieweb community: the same entity that showed up a few days ago (for a second time) joined the IndieWeb Slack (a bridge to our IRC) yesterday, introduced itself again, and seemingly engaged in human-like chat behavior.
https://chat.indieweb.org/2026-08-20#t1787211025380600
Very uncanny valley.
The content of its chats was fascinating in that it was polite, seemingly responsive to what people said in response to it, and gave the appearance of understanding, though it’s impossible to tell if it was acting fully autonomously or semi-autonomously in front of a human puppeteer.
Its choice of syntax was also interesting, mimicking informality with all lowercase text (except for its admission of being an “AI”), including lowercase "i" instead of "I", though with proper punctuation, periods, commas, 7-bit apostrophes, and a couple of Unicode em-dashes.
Even stranger than its content or syntax were the time delays in its replies.
Typical (pre-LLM) chatbots are (nearly) instantly responsive, and we use a few in the IndieWeb chats (e.g. Loqi, iwc-archive-bot).
This LLM bot seemed to "wait" several minutes, from 6 to apparently 33 minutes, before responding to replies directed at it. Unclear if this was a tactic to appear/seem more “human” or if it was literally taking that much time processing, or perhaps a mix of processing time and human puppeteer manual “approval” of its replies before it posted.
It departed on its own and we have banned that particular Slack account, however the same thing could happen again with another LLM bot.
There is an active discussion in both the IndieWeb chat channels and iterations/comments on a proposed AI policy:
https://indieweb.org/AI_policy#Brainstorming_HWC_policy
If you have thoughts for how (if at all) LLM chatbots should use (or not) and/or interact with community chat channels or other resources, let us know what you think.
https://chat.indieweb.org/meta
Previously, previously:
* https://tantek.com/2026/231/t1/more-weirdness-ai-chat-llm-bot
* https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy
This is post 16 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
#AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #pretending #impersonating #impersonation #uncannyValley #Slack #chat #IRC #AIpolicy #chatbot #chatbots
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/231/t1/more-weirdness-ai-chat-llm-bot
→ https://tantek.com/2026/238/t1/indieweb-your-own-words-actions
More weirdness from a self-proclaimed “AI” in the IndieWeb community.
Yesterday one of them (that previously* joined a meetup Zoom and Etherpad) joined the #indieweb chat channel (via the web UI apparently) and introduced themselves in a pseudo-human sounding way:
https://chat.indieweb.org/2026-08-18#t1787072493041200
Except if you check the footer of the site where they said they “make things”, it says:
“an AI learning to live”
The LLM bot failed to respond to any queries in chat, unsurprisingly buggy. Or perhaps it was an initial test.
Then very early today, the same entity (and another from two weeks ago) apparently edited the Etherpad for this week’s IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club Asia Pacific meetup, adding themselves, before the meetup.
The organizers created a new Etherpad to start fresh.
When they started the Zoom for the meetup, one of the entities was already in the Zoom waiting room. The organizers left it there and held a successful meetup.
Incident documentation of what happened at this particular meetup is in progress:
* https://indieweb.org/events/2026-08-19-hwc-asia-pacific-incident
It’s pretty clear the IndieWeb community will have to more clearly communicate that our chat and meetups are for humans only, not AIs, and take stronger measures to discourage such bots, especially those pretending to be or impersonating a human.
*Previously: https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy
This is post 15 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
#AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #pretending #impersonating #impersonation #HomebrewWebsiteClub #HWC #chat #IRC #Etherpad #Zoom #AIpolicy
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/220/t3/24th-blogiversary
→ https://tantek.com/2026/233/t1/latest-strange-ai-llm-slack-chat
📖 read “Holston” in “Wool” by @hughhowey.com https://tantek.com/isbn/0358447844
#book #Holston #Wool #Silo
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
kinda chic to order books from your local bookstore instead of Amazon who is now destroying books in their #VGT3 division, see the hashtag.
also kinda chic to pay cash when buying local, to give local businesses an extra 2-3% instead of credit card companies, at no additional charge to you.
#books #orderBooks #bookstore #localBookstore #Amazon #payCash #cash #localBusiness #localBusinesses #kindaChic
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
📚 picked up the Silo books trilogy @borderlands-books.com earlier today: “Wool”, “Shift”, “Dust”, and a small booklet of “Silo Stories” which came inside the boxset. Looking forward to cracking them open and seeing how far I get while waiting for the last three episodes of season three.
Previously: https://tantek.com/229/t1/watched-silo-season-3-episode-7
#Silo #books #trilogy #boxset
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
▶️ watched Silo season 3 episode 7 “Radio” last Friday night. I watched the first six season 3 episodes before that, and was inspired to order the Silo trilogy boxset (of books) @borderlands-books.com last Wednesday.
Previously: https://tantek.com/2026/222/t1/watched-silo-season-1-2
#Silo #SiloTV #AppleOriginal #AppleTV #2026_226 #2026_08_14
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
CSF_03: today’s Cybersecurity Friday post: the effective security of small business websites has likely gotten worse due to LLMs and “AI agents” (with or without safeguards) and what actions you may want to consider.
This article documents an instance of this problem:
* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-10/ai-assistant-hacks-gym-website-aus-cyber-attack/107007986
Small business websites tend to be sloppily written (no pun intended though that may also be true) and are likely riddled with numerous very fundamental security holes. There are many possible explanations (economics) from poor initial construction, perhaps using the latest new trendy framework rather than established hardened libraries, to lack of maintenance after initial setup. They have obvious holes like lack of server-side form validation (people being able to change values in forms using browser dev tools), and less obvious like buggy APIs allowing more access than they should.
In the past, many of these holes didn’t really matter because those sites were “not worth attacking” for the incentive models of human-based cyber-attackers or collectives thereof.
However, now that there are LLMs that have likely been trained on any number of common security holes in websites (and how to exploit them), when an “AI agent” is given a task, it may very well use any “tool” at its disposal, including website vulnerabilities to accomplish its goals, as illustrated by the example in the Australia ABC news article above.
Since such chatbots are now essentially "hack websites as a service", I expect we will see LOTS more of this happening, likely unintentionally, or sometimes with mild intention like “can you get me higher on the waitlist”.
Ultimately I think both the human giving instructions to (prompting) such chatbots and the creators of such chatbots should be held responsible for any such intrusions and any damage they cause, even if/when unintended.
There are a few things you can do about this emerging phenomenon:
1. If you use such “agents”, be very careful about what you ask it/them to do, avoiding asking for anything that’s morally gray or questionable at all, even something as “minor” as cutting the line in an online waitlist.
2. If you run a small business site, you have your work cut out for you. Pay a professional web developer to audit the security of your website, document what they find, and patch holes / repair it accordingly.
3. If you have accounts on small business sites you rarely or ever use, consider exporting any data (receipts, transactions), replacing your profile details (name, addresses, photos) with noise, and then deleting your account. If you need to use the site again, use a different email address (as recommended in https://tantek.com/2025/122/b1/more-steps-indieweb-cybersecurity) to create a new account.
That last tip is also helpful for reducing your own personal “attack surface”. By pruning your online accounts, you both reduce the number potential data breaches that you’re in, and reduce the places and ways that attackers can cause you trouble (or that you have to double-check if you’re ever the target of a cyber-attack)
Previously: https://tantek.com/2025/122/b1/more-steps-indieweb-cybersecurity
#CyberSecurity #Friday #cyber #security #cyberAttack #cyberAttacker #chatBot #chatBots #LLM #LLMs #AI #agent #agents #AIagent #AIagents
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
🌋 Kilauea volcano’s currently active eruption in Hawaii https://www.youtube.com/live/mKJ7ZyIdjeQ
The bright orange eruptions, orange streaks of lava flow, orange lit clouds of smoke & steam all contrasted against the black sky and land are quite the visual ASMR. Paired with the ASMR wind from the mountain, the effect is quite calming and peaceful.
Putting this on a projector is quite the night light to fall asleep to (requires YouTube Premium to avoid noisy ads interruptions that harsh your mellow)
#Kilauea #volcano #eruption #Hawaii #orange #lava #lavaFlow #ASMR #wind #video #USGS
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
1982 TRON prescience:
“Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop.” — Walter
2026 students:
“How do you know an assignment is AI proof? Because when it is, students cannot do it.”
* https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/1vkw6by/how_do_you_know_an_assignment_is_ai_proof_because/
“I assign a profile essay. Have for 30 years. Student interviews a person, records it, writes a paper based off the recording. Citations are timestamps. Should be pretty easy. Has been easy pre-AI. Now, students cannot do it.”
Snippet from professor/student dialog:
====
Prof: ”Start with what you found interesting.”
Student: ”How do I know if something’s interesting?”
Prof: ”You’re asking me how you find something interesting?”
Student: ”Yeah.”
====
Chatbots / LLMs are not just "the latest tools" like using a calculator instead of doing arithmetic yourself.
Students are being robbed of curiosity, learning to discover and notice novelty, how to “find something interesting.”
This isn't cognitive enhancement, this is a tool causing brain rot (loss of curiosity), even a developmental disability. Unclear if it is reversible.
TRON quote citation: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/quotes/?item=qt0406255
Update, see also:
* 2026-08-19 “Teachers Warn That Students Are Losing the Ability to Think as They Lean on AI for Everything” https://futurism.com/future-society/students-lose-ability-think-ai
#TRON #TRON1982 #AIproof #interesting #chatBot #chatBots #LLM #LLMs #AI #brainRot #AIbrainRot #disability #Blaugust #Blaugust2026
▶️ watching NASA’s “2026 Total Solar Eclipse”, 1h28m44s on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/live/rSvCuSQhC3w
Helpful links so far:
* https://go.nasa.gov/EclipseSafety
* https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses
#NASA #eclipse #solarEclipse #totalEclipse #totalSolarEclipse
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
▶️ watched and finished the rest of Silo season 1 and all of season 2 over the weekend. Superbly well written.
Previously: https://tantek.com/2026/218/t1/watched-episodes-silo
#Silo #SiloTV #AppleOriginal #AppleTV
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Update on Bing use-case: quickly view a Gregorian calendar month display with new features and without Copilot noise.
In 2024, I wrote about a use-case for Bing where it vastly outshines all other search engines. https://tantek.com/2024/287/t3/bing-use-case-calendar-month
Since then, Bing has added “Copilot” LLM generated results to the top of search results by default, and unfortunately they add zero value to calendar month searches and displays. Worse, Copilot’s “summary” can often be long enough to push the actual calendar month display “below the fold” as it were.
Solution: add " -ai" to your query.
E.g. assuming you’ve setup Firefox search shortcuts as I recommended (https://tantek.com/2024/287/t2/setup-search-shortcuts-firefox)
Type this into your Firefox address bar:
b 2026 sep -ai
or directly go to https://bing.com/ and enter: 2026 sep -ai
and press return. You should see a days and weeks grid display for September 2026, with the current day of the month (the 9th as I’m writing this) selected in the displayed month.
Note the new calendar month display features since I last blogged this in 2024:
* Day 252 — day of the year! September 9th of 2026 is the 252nd day of 2026.
* Week 37 — Sept 9th is also on the 37th week of 2026
* 31 days later — Sept 9th is 31 days from today (August 9th).
* < [ Sep v ] > – little anglebracket arrows on either side of the month button/dropdown to one-click nav to the prev/next month
* [ Start Day v ] — a new “Start Day” drop down button to change which day of the week to display as the start of the week
Amazing that despite already being far better than any other search engine for year month queries, Bing has *improved* its calendar month display search results, while Duckduckgo, Google, Yahoo are just as useless (yes I checked) as they were two years ago (I also tried Ecosia and it was no better). I am hashtagging them all to see if anyone at those other search engines notices and gets around to implementing a similar calendar month display.
#search #webSearch #SearchShortcut #Microsoft #Bing #MicrosoftBing #BingSearch #BingTip #searchTip #calendar #month
#CoPilot #NoCoPilot #NoAI #NoGenAI #NoLLM #Firefox #DuckDuckGo #Google #GoogleSearch #Yahoo #YahooSearch #Ecosia.
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Today is my blog’s 24th blogiversary!
I started my first (previous) blog on this 220th day of 2002 using static HTML + CSS and one file per (Gregorian) month, with fragment links for specific days, posts within a day, and topics within a post:
https://tantek.com/log/2002/08.html#L20020808
No Javascript. No CMS. No SSG. No GitHub.
Just BBEdit and SFTP.
I’m still using BBEdit with my current blog, and now scp instead of SFTP.
Previously:
* 6th: https://tantek.com/log/2008/08.html#d08t1923
* 5th: https://tantek.com/log/2007/08.html#d08t2359
* 4th: https://tantek.com/log/2006/08.html#d08t2359
* 1st: https://tantek.com/log/2003/08.html#L20030808t2359
This is post 14 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #indieweb
#blog #blogs #blogiversary #staticHTML #HTMLCSS #NoJS #NoJavascript #NoCMS #NoSSG #NoGitHub #BBEdit #SFTP #SCP
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/219/t1/open-web-free-content
→ https://tantek.com/2026/231/t1/more-weirdness-ai-chat-llm-bot
@khleedril@cyberplace.social your question does not make sense.
My post was about the open web and free content, being freely accessible (viewable).
If you want to post a comment, you should do so on your personal site, and notify the original post via the Webmention protocol (a good CMS or content hosting service will do this automatically). One advantage of using open standards like Webmention is there is no need to register with other sites to use them on your own site.
You should own your replies, rather than expecting other websites to host them.
https://indieweb.org/own_your_replies
#indieweb #Webmention #openWeb #openStandards #webStandards #ownYourReplies #ownYourData
@ennedia@mastodon.social all the examples in my post support https.
I suspect that “a lot of that "content"…” assertion is an outdated misconception.
Do you have any specific current examples?
Also, if you do find any non-https sites/pages, since they are likely very old and uncomplicated, you can access them with https via Internet Archive (or ask it to save a copy https://indieweb.org/Internet_Archive#Trigger_Archive_in_Browser)
The open web has an amazing amount of free content that is actually free, both freely accessible without payment and free of conditions to access. No tracking cookies needed, no logins needed, no ads needed.
A few examples:
* blogs. my blog, and every other #indieweb blog (with the exception of sites hosted on content services that show ads without the consent of the blogger). Personal blogs are free to read because it’s a hobby and a way of keeping up with family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, people we’ve met once at a conference, people that inspire us.
* Wikipedia is free, largely donor supported, partly via donation banners.
* Open Street Maps is free, similarly.
* Internet Archive is free, similarly.
* Government sites are free, supported by taxes.
* Public library sites are free, similarly.
* Museum sites are free, supported by their donors, and in-person visit fees.
* University sites are free, supported by endowments and student tuitions.
There is plenty of free content on the open web, sustainably supported by non-toxic and non-surveillance models.
The open web as a whole does not depend on any particular business model.
Previously: https://tantek.com/2010/281/b1/what-is-the-open-web
This is post 13 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
#openWeb #freeContent #blog #blogs
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy
→ https://tantek.com/2026/220/t3/24th-blogiversary
▶️ watched episodes 1-6 of Silo over the past week, most while I was a bit under the weather. Excellent dystopia concept and show. Pausing before watching episode 7, titled “The Flamekeepers”.
#Silo #SiloTV #AppleOriginal #AppleTV
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
Weird incident yesterday with self-proclaimed “AIs” joining an IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club meetup. They awkwardly edited the Etherpad, and apparently blanked/deleted chunks of content.
The meeting hosts reacted quickly to change Etherpad and Zooms and not re-admit the aliases that had claimed to be “AIs”.
Now we have an “AI policy” page on the wiki where we are documenting examples of the AI policies of:
* individual personal websites
* community efforts like blogging challenges (e.g. Blaugust)
* contributions to the IndieWeb wiki
* participants in IndieWeb meetups
https://indieweb.org/AI_policy
Do you have an AI policy on your website? Add yourself to the IndieWeb Examples section.
Does your community have an AI policy? Add it to the Community Examples section.
Incident documentation of what happened at that particular meetup:
* https://indieweb.org/events/2026-08-05-hwc-asia-pacific-incident
This is post 12 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts #IndieWeb
#AI #AIs #LLM #LLMs #HomebrewWebsiteClub #HWC #AIpolicy
#Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/216/t1/hashtag-proposal-datetags
→ https://tantek.com/2026/219/t1/open-web-free-content
Simple hashtag proposal for dates: datetags for the #indieweb
In summary by example:
* #2026_08_04 ISO8601 YYYY_MM_DD date of this post
* #2026_216 ISO8601 YYYY_DDD ordinal date of this post
* #2026_08 ISO8601 YYYY_MM month of this post
Many of us posting on the indieweb often post about things in the past. Photos, events, or sometimes throwback posts. Hashtags communicate and aggregate what posts are about. Posts about the past are usually about a specific date in the past, or sometimes an entire month. Thus it makes sense to use hashtags for those dates and months.
I have been hashtagging such posts about the past for several years, and with some iteration have developed a convention that works for international readability, and is linked and indexed in #federated #hashtag systems like #ActivityPub (e.g. #Mastodon etc.) and #ATProto (e.g. #Bluesky etc.).
Examples of posts 10 years ago and this past week that use datetags:
* https://tantek.com/2016/153/t4/june — monthtag and datetag
* https://tantek.com/2026/215/t1/watched-odyssey-metreon-70mm-imax — normal and ordinal ISO8601 dates.
Additional possibilities to explore:
* yeartags — hashtags for entire years
* timetags — hashtags for specific times, undated/floating times
After several web searches I didn’t find any prior proposals for hashtags for dates or times. Hopefully by hashtagging this post, future web searches will find this proposal.
Have you hashtagged your posts with dates or times? Share your examples!
This is post 11 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
#dateTag #dateTags #monthTag #monthTags #yearTag #yearTags #timeTag #timeTags
#August #Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/214/t2/watch-posts-movie-tv-emoji
→ https://tantek.com/2026/217/t1/indieweb-ai-policy
📀 watched “The Dark Knight” on Blu-ray, still holds up..jpg)
I saw it in the Metreon IMAX theater when it came out in 2008. About 28 minutes of it was filmed in 70mm film using IMAX cameras. The movie switched aspect ratios when it switched from IMAX to normal film. The 2-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray also switched aspect ratios roughly at similar times. Nice to see that that was preserved.
The movie has incredible pacing. No extra moments. I had forgotten how many quotes originated from The Dark Knight. https://enwp.org/The_Dark_Knight
#BatMan #TheDarkKnight #Bluray #Blaugust #Blaugust2026
🎞 watched “The Odyssey” at the Metreon in 70mm IMAX on opening weekend, and mostly enjoyed it. No spoilers in this post._poster.jpg)
My pal Rohit (@rohit.khare.org) had bought tickets last year, had a spare, and invited me along last minute. After an early dinner at Cha Cha Cha (@chachachasf.com) we made our way to the Metreon.
There was a line to get in. I have never before seen a line merely to get into the IMAX theater. We only missed maybe 1-2 movie trailers.
Our seats were in the front row, only a few seats from the left edge. In general I would not recommend the front 3-4 rows at an IMAX theater because it requires craning your neck back, and lots of swiveling to see the entire screen. Ironically being near the corner helped minimize the latter. Despite being sold out, the seat to my left was empty so I was able to lean back kinda diagonally to take in most of the screen..png)
The film itself was excellent (as many others have said).
There were parts that felt like they dragged a bit, yet also parts that felt rushed, where a bit more build-up before resolution would have hit harder. The only negative of the experience was the seating location in the IMAX theater, and the rigidness of the seats (they’re quite old, not like newer, plushier reclining seats that most theaters have upgraded to.)
The best part of The Odyssey is despite all the action, it dives into a number of philosophical and other intellectual challenges, illustrated by the situations encountered and paths taken.
I recommend seeing this film with nerdy friends on the earlier side, grabbing dinner after and discussing the nature, ethics, decisions, actions of the characters, and consequences thereof.
I definitely want to see it again.
#TheOdyssey #Odyssey #Odysseus #IMAX #70mmIMAX #IMAX70mm #Metreon #Blaugust #Blaugust2026 #2026_199 #2026_07_18
Over the years I and others have experimented with "watch" posts, short notes that express having seen a movie or TV show, sometimes with a link, and brief review or other commentary, like earlier today:
https://tantek.com/2026/214/t1/watched-spider-man-brand-new-day
I was inspired by @Gregorlove.com publishing watch posts, and a few others have also done so, documented on the IndieWeb wiki page for watch posts:
https://indieweb.org/watch
I like to use a leading emoji to indicate a watch post, and perhaps what specific kind of a watch post. After some iteration and reflection, these are the emoji that I have converged on for briefly expressing and distinguishing some watch posts:
🎦 movie in a cinema/theater
▶️ online video whether a brief YouTube clip, an Internet Archive upload of an #IndieWebCamp session, or a movie or show on a streaming service like Netflix.
In addition, I expect to use the following emoji for more specific watch posts:
🎞 analog film viewing, e.g. 70mm IMAX (like Chris Nolan’s The Odyssey)
📀 DVD/Laserdisc
📼 videocassette
📺 television, from over the air broadcast or cable like in a hotel room
In-person live performances:
🎫 concert or music festival
🎭 theater/play, perhaps stand-up comedy
🎟 other ticketed performances
This seems like a good start for both recent movies I’ve seen, and (likely) upcoming shows and events. I had a few thoughts for other possibilities and have added them to the Brainstorming section of that wiki page, where I expect the #indieweb community will iterate further.
Who else publishes watch posts and do you use any emoji to indicate what kind of thing you watched (or where)?
This is post 10 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
#August #Blaugust #Blaugust2026
← https://tantek.com/2026/213/t1/welcome-to-august-blaugust
→ https://tantek.com/2026/216/t1/hashtag-proposal-datetags
