Tim Chambers

An Ai Cooperative

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:03:30 -0400

I’m still getting my head around how this would actually work:

“co/core is a place where people share the compute they already own to run AI for each other, instead of renting from a handful of giant providers. It’s an experiment in inference we build, share, and own together — and your existing code works as-is, because we speak the same standard API everything else does. The models are open ones that run on the hardware people already have. Every new user is granted 1m tokens that can be run on the network - when tokens are used, they are debited from the requestors account. 95% of those tokens are then credited to the owner of the machine that ran the compute - 5% are held by the co/core account. At the end of each month, the co/core account then disburses its holdings as a dividend to all active users on the network.”

https://graze.leaflet.pub/3molilyuk5k2a

"The Street Finds its Own Use for Things..."

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 07:02:47 -0400

I like this a lot:

“More true is to say that early internet champions were alive to the importance of the internet, and therefore both excited about the possibilities of the internet to deliver a world of connection, idiosyncrasy, love and solidarity; and about the danger of the internet as a dystopian system of surveillance and manipulation…

History isn’t finished. Long after the AI bubble pops, there will be local models and people vibe coding homemade software that respond directly to their needs. The stuff we make on our own computers, for ourselves, is deplatformed from its inception. It’s part of the life we can build in technology’s “shadowy corners” that we used to just call “technology.” The fact that this stuff is utterly unsuited to be production code makes it inherently unmonetizable. It’s how the street finds its own use for things.”

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/15/vernacular/

Not Good on Any Front: Fox Buys Roku

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:15:41 -0400

This is not good on any front. It further centralizes our onramp to media, it creates fewer digital TV solutions on the market, and puts so much human data into Rupert’s hands.

“**Fox to buy streaming pioneer Roku in a $22 billion deal…**The deal will give Fox access to more than 100 million global households, along with the Roku channel and its first-party data. Fox oversees a massive sports, news and entertainment network, as well as Tubi, which it acquired in 2020.”

https://www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio/news/business/fox-roku-tubi-streaming-824089dbe16631fade634becdb164c94

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 09:12:48 -0400

This rings true. #Apple #AI

youtu.be/t7L6-fMpx…

"There is No Future for Digtial News Unless We Build or Own Tech..."

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:33:08 -0400

From Nobel Prize Winning journalist #MariaRessa:

“The Rappler co-founder and chief executive, and 2021 Nobel laureate, called for collective action ‘This is existential for the planet – if journalism doesn’t survive, democracy dies,’ she said….‘We realised there is no future for digital news unless we build our own tech, because there are only three ways a digital news site, or any digital site, gets traffic: direct, search or social search….

With the roll-out of AI search, ‘the digital funnel is closing’ giving publishers no control over their distribution….So we will own our distribution, and we could strengthen our communities.”

https://www.gxpress.net/article/8413/ressa-explains-app-plan-for-a-shared-reality

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:34:24 -0400

Watching this closely: “Signal Alums Reveal ‘Encrypted Spaces,’ a System for Making Private Collaboration Apps…”

www.wired.com/story/sig…

Is Good AI Possible?

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:09:56 -0400

I like this whole article from Anil Dash, and especially thinking over this section… #AI #AgenticWeb

“The Good AI?

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it’s possible to imagine some traits of an AI system that could credibly offer an alternative to the offerings that are currently dominating the conversation. (This is deliberately light on technical specifics and is intended for a more general audience, but is grounded in familiarity with the current state of progress on consumer-grade AI technologies.)

Here are some highlights:

Content consent: A model trained on a data set gathered with consent, from creators or content owners who have agreed to allow their work or intellectual property to be indexed, and with revenues (if any) shared back to those creators if those are the agreed terms.
Hallucination-free: Alternative approaches, possibly other than a large language model entirely, which avoid the confabulation issues generally described as “hallucination” in current systems, or which clearly label content likely to be spurious.
Green: Clarity on sustainability and energy consumption for both training and usage of new offerings, reflecting the vast improvements in efficiency that have been achieved by recent models, and encouraging and rewarding the use of lower-impact, more conventional approaches (like traditional search!) where appropriate.
Actually open source: The Open Source Initiative has offered us a clear definition of open source AI, which doesn’t settle for the mere “open weights” that industry titans are trying to pass off as “open”, and offers real transparency for developers and institutions, which would unlock a new era of innovation and accountability. Developers are ready to get their hands on these kinds of tools.
Community-led: Alternative creation, ownership and governance models for AI tools that address the corporate chaos of today’s big names are well past due. Whether it takes the form of a workers' cooperative, an open source collective, stewardship by an academic or NGO, or some other simple format for sharing the work and the tech, both users and the industry are ready for other players to change the power dynamic around AI tech. There’s even the potential for a platform that is creator-led or owned and controlled by those who contributed to its creation, aligning the motivations of the platform with those who make its existence possible.
Accessible: These are tools that should be available to all. Whether that means across devices, across continents, across abilities, across platforms, or even simply across a longer span of time and attention than “until the VC money runs out”, there’s a huge opportunity in making tools that serve everyone."

What Congress Could Look Like Without Gerrymandering

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:57:07 -0400

TLdr: It would look much more like a government checked by the “conscent of the governed.”

“A 435-district map drawn without partisan favoritism shows what fair districts would look like nationwide — more representative, more competitive, and close to guaranteeing that whichever party wins the popular vote wins the House.”

https://heartlandsignal.com/2026/06/09/what-congress-would-look-like-without-gerrymandering/

Iran and the Open Social Web

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 09:14:14 -0400

I can’t shake thinking that someone needs to build an app for phones, tablets, and laptops that is as easy to use as Signal, but under the hood uses a mix of #Reticulum, #DeltaChat, and an #OpenSocialWeb gateway.
It’s exactly what we need for this:

“Internet blackouts have become routine in Iran, imposed during anti-regime uprisings and now two wars. But this one—Iran’s fifth—was the world’s longest, according to Netblocks… some online connection is now restored, but for many Iranians, the partial reopening feels like the removal of a few bricks from the digital wall the Islamic Republic has built: Enough for Iranians to glimpse the outside world, but not enough for them to enter it, and the opening comes with the knowledge that the regime can brick the wall back up at any time.”

[www.theatlantic.com/internati…)

Open Source when it comes to AI needs to meet something....

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:50:17 -0400

Getting this right and crisp is super important. Open Source when it comes to #AI needs to meet something.

“he Vision sets out clear criteria for AI model openness: labeling models with proprietary licensing as ‘Weights Available’, while labeling models which are distributed under an Open Source license as ‘_Open Weights’…_Finally, the Vision adds criteria for “Open Source AI with Open Data” to describe AI systems where all assets are released free of charge under an Open Source license – including its models’ weights, deployment code, training code, and full training data.”

https://opensource.org/blog/open-source-initiative-helps-g7-deliver-vision-on-ai-openness

SpaceX: "Your 401K is the Exit Liquidty"

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:50:01 -0400

This is simply irresponsible theft. #SpaceX

“If the company lists on Nasdaq this June as expected, the stock could land in your retirement portfolio within weeks. And some of Wall Street’s loudest skeptics think that’s a problem. That’s thanks to Nasdaq’s new “Fast Entry” rule, approved March 30, which slashes the index inclusion waiting period from three months to just 15 trading days for any newly listed company whose market cap ranks in the top 40 of the Nasdaq-100…

George Noble, a former Fidelity fund manager with more than four decades on Wall Street, called the proposal ‘the most SHAMELESS structural manipulation of a major index I’ve ever seen.’

When lockup periods expire 90 to 180 days later, insiders holding the vast majority of shares can sell into artificially supported passive demand.

‘Your 401(k) is the exit liquidity,’ he wrote…

The concentration risk could get worse: former Tesla president Jon McNeill has said there is a better thatn 50% chance Musk merges Tesla with SpaceX after the IPO which would tie even more passive retirement money to a single Musk-controlled ticker.

No one’s arguing SpaceX shouldn’t go public. The argument is whether rushing the largest IPO in history into the most widely tracked indexes on Wall Street — before the market has had any real time to discover a fair price — is good for the millions of ordinary investors whose retirement savings will foot the bill.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-land-401-k-no-163000833.html

SpaceX: "Your 401K is the Exit Liquidty"

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:49:59 -0400

This is simply irresponsible theft. #SpaceX

George Noble, a former Fidelity fund manager with more than four decades on Wall Street, called the proposal ‘the most SHAMELESS structural manipulation of a major index I’ve ever seen.’

When lockup periods expire 90 to 180 days later, insiders holding the vast majority of shares can sell into artificially supported passive demand.

‘Your 401(k) is the exit liquidity,’ he wrote…

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-land-401-k-no-163000833.html

Build the Open Social Web From the Ground Up

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:08:24 -0400

Fully endorse this article from Newsmast. They are doing crucial work in this space and everyone that cares about the open social web should learn from their efforts.

Expecially like this:

“The web began with connections. Then it outsourced search to Google, and social to Meta, X and TikTok. We have a chance to start again and do something different. The work begins with that overused but still powerful word: community.

There’s a world of organisations, communities and inspiring people out there, and they all depend on platforms that don’t share their values. They’re wrestling with Big Tech dominance, funding gaps, and the disruption of AI. Everyone wants to move on from Big Social. But wanting to leave isn’t the same as being able to leap straight to decentralised technology.

So we need to start with tools that work for communities: safe hubs, local groups, news and content, calendars and events. Showcases for what a community makes and knows. Communities need their own platforms, with their own rules, to build their own safe spaces. And that’s just the beginning.”

https://www.blog-pat.ch/connected-community-spaces/

Build the Open Social Web From the Ground Up

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:08:22 -0400

Fully endorse this article from Newsmast. They are doing crucial work in this space and everyone that cares about the open social web should learn from their efforts.

Expecially like this:

https://www.blog-pat.ch/connected-community-spaces/

Build the Open Social Web From the Ground Up

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:08:16 -0400

Fully endorse this article from Newsmast. They are doing crucial work in this space and everyone that cares about the open social web should learn from their efforts.

Expecially like this:

https://www.blog-pat.ch/connected-community-spaces/

Build the Open Social Web From the Ground Up

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:08:14 -0400

Fully endorse this article from Newsmast. They are doing crucial work in this space and everyone that cares about the open social web should learn from their efforts.

Expecially like this:

https://www.blog-pat.ch/connected-community-spaces/

"The First One Is Always Free" Google Chromebooks and Students Sreen Time

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:27:32 -0400

As schools debate the merits of smartphones during school hours, the ABSOLUTELY should be rethinking how they manage the near monopooly of Chromebooks being offered to kids - massively subsidized by Google as an onramp to kid using Google Docs, YouTube, etc ad-infinimtum. Like any good dealer, the first one is always free. It’s the biggest onramp to new Google customers ever, and shows all the same risks as other screens.

“In Cambridge, where debate over the merits of screens has been especially pitched this year, school officials have batted around the idea of at least until 3rd grade.

Now a new study offers a glimpse, however limited, at the role screen time is playing in a child’s life during the hours when they’re at school, be it 6-year-olds tapping away on math games during class, or teenagers hacking their Chromebooks to text their friends.

It is just a small portion of the life of a child, who may spend hours a day engaging with a screen of one kind or another. It did not, for example, address the use of cellphones, a primary way many kids absorb screen-based content. Nor did it assess the district’s decision last year to ban the use of the phones during school days — and what impact that might be having on how kids use, or misuse, school-issued devices.

For some caregivers and district leaders, the results released this month are assuaging concerns that school is succumbing to mesmerizing tech at the expense of learning. For others, it most definitely is not.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/28/metro/cambridge-screen-time-report/

"The First One Is Always Free" Google Chromebooks and Students Sreen Time

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:27:30 -0400

“In Cambridge, where debate over the merits of screens has been especially pitched this year, school officials have batted around the idea of at least until 3rd grade.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/28/metro/cambridge-screen-time-report/

"The First One Is Always Free" Google Chromebooks and Students Sreen Time

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:27:21 -0400

“In Cambridge, where debate over the merits of screens has been especially pitched this year, school officials have batted around the idea of at least until 3rd grade.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/28/metro/cambridge-screen-time-report/

"The First One Is Always Free" Google Chromebooks and Students Sreen Time

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 01:27:19 -0400

“In Cambridge, where debate over the merits of screens has been especially pitched this year, school officials have batted around the idea of at least until 3rd grade.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/05/28/metro/cambridge-screen-time-report/

Perpetually 5 to 10 Years Away....

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:50:24 -0400

I think “AGI” or Artifical General Intelligence will be like nuclear fusion, perpetually 5 to 10 years away.

“Ask someone in AI for their timeline, and they’ll tell you when they expect the arrival of AGI—artificial general intelligence—which is sometimes defined as AI technology that can match the abilities of humans at most tasks. As AI’s sophistication has scaled—thanks to faster computers, better algorithms, and more data—timelines have compressed. The leaders of major AI labs… have recently said they expect AGI within a few years.”

It doesn’t help that there is no consencus on the defintion of the term “AGI” itself:

“While benchmarking any intellectual ability is tough, doing so for AGI presents special challenges. That’s in part because people strongly disagree on its definition: Some define AGI by its performance on benchmarks, others by its internal workings, its economic impact, or vibes. So the first step toward measuring the intelligence of AI is agreeing on the general concept.”

https://spectrum.ieee.org/agi-benchmark

Perpetually 5 to 10 Years Away....

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:50:22 -0400

I think “AGI” or Artifical General Intelligence will be like nuclear fusion, perpetually 5 to 10 years away.

It doesn’t help that there is no consencus on the defintion of the term “AGI” itself:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/agi-benchmark

BlueSky, Standard.Site and Cross-Posting

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:17:57 -0400

I’m experimenting with this UX: Saw the post that BlueSky is now supporting longer form articles using Standard.site. Which I thinks is only good. But might it become “double plus good” if this same UX could make it so that posts that were say 500 characters, or more authored on one platform, could “POSSE” over to Bluesky in this new Standard.site mode and not just look like a link card, but as as a decent microblog post with the rest of the thread continuing in the full article.

Not sure it will work well from a user expectation level, but worth a try.

Here is an article about the new support for longer form articles on Bluesky: https://atproto.com/blog/standard-site-bluesky-timeline

BlueSky, Standard.Site and Cross-Posting

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:17:55 -0400

Not sure it will work well from a user expectation level, but worth a try.

Here is an article about the new support for longer form articles on Bluesky: https://atproto.com/blog/standard-site-bluesky-timeline

BlueSky, Standard.Site and Cross-Posting

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:17:45 -0400

Not sure it will work well from a user expectation level, but worth a try.

Here is an article about the new support for longer form articles on Bluesky: https://atproto.com/blog/standard-site-bluesky-timeline