What Makes an AI personal?

  | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 2 days ago

A Hat Tip to United

United Airlines details 6 big inflight entertainment updates, including all-new Control Tower map, by Zach Griff in The Points Guy, is thick with welcome news for frequent United fliers, of which my wife and I are two. (So far I have clocked 1,533,214 miles with United, and she h … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 days ago

What Works After a Disaster Happens?

When Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina, the Swannanoa River rose three storys above its shores, all but erasing the town named after the river, and leaving hundreds homeless. But the challenge for Swannanoa was not just recovery. It was regeneration. For that, Swannanoa … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 14 days ago

And Now the #HughesFire

Twenty-fourth in the News Commons series. 3:45pm—Watching the Los Angeles TV stations (each with a tab in my browser) cover the Hughes Fire. I have them arranged by channel number, going up, left to right, top to bottom. (Note that NBC’s 4 and Telemundo 52 are in tandem. (The rep … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 16 days ago

The Blame Game

Twenty-third in the News Commons series Disaster coverage tends to go through four stages: Live reporting. TV stations stop all advertising and go into round-the-clock coverage. Radio stations drop the feeds from elsewhere and go wall-to-wall with live reports. Newspapers drop th … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 19 days ago

How Facts Matter

Nineteenth in the News Commons series. Facts don’t matter, or they matter much less than people think—Daniel Kahnemann Facts don’t matter. What matters is how much we hate the person talking—Scott Adams But facts do matter when life and death are on the line. Or when one is recov … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 24 days ago

What Are Stories?

Eighteenth in the New Commons series. Several generations ago, my pal Jerry and I were cutting a hole between the ceiling joists of a rented house in Durham, North Carolina. This was our first step toward installing a drop-down stairway to an attic space that had been closed sinc … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 27 days ago

Aviation vs. Fire

3:22pm—Hats off to Miles Archer for the links below, one of which goes here— —showing all the aircraft and their paths at once. You can start here at https://globe.adsbexchange.com/, which is kind of your slate that’s blank except for live aircraft over the Palisades Fire: Meanwh … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 27 days ago

Palisades Fire on the Ridge

10:15pm—Here is a Google Earth Pro view of the Palisades fire crossing the wilderness north of Pacific Palisades and south of “Dry Mulholland”—the dirt road that serves as a firebreak along the ridge of the mountains south of the San Fernando Valley: The large squares are MODIS s … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 28 days ago

The Los Angeles Media Dashboard

Seventeenth in the News Commons series. That collection of tabs is my dashboard of major media that inform my writing about the #LAfires. There are tabs for five TV stations, one radio station, and one newspaper: KNBC/4 “4 Los Angeles” KTLA/5 “LA’s Very Own” KABC/7 “7 Eyewitness … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 28 days ago

Los Angeles Fires and Aftermath

6:50am Friday, January 10, 2025—I will now shift my blogging about the #LAFires from the kind of continuous coverage I’ve done for the last three days to what we might call coverage of coverage. Or something beyond that: shifting to a new kind of news model: grounded in facts rat … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 29 days ago

On Los Angeles Wildfires

Here is the FIRMS map of the Los Angeles fires, as of 7:50am Pacific time: The VIIRS and MODIS satellites pass over about once every 100 minutes. Neither has picked up on the Woodley fire yet. That one is in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, which is the northwest side of the … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

On the Palisades and Eaton Fires

We’re watching KABC/7 from Los Angeles, live on our Roku TV (which has it among hundreds of “Live TV” channels), and in a browser on this laptop. One screen grab: Fire.ca.gov has much information, and maps. Here’s one for the Palisades fire: Winds are so strong that there is no f … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

The Health Care Mess

My wife and I are moving upward through The Final Demographic. Productively: working, traveling, doing stuff. But we are dealing with some of the usual infirmities required by aging, which means we are intimately involved (mostly in very slow motion) with what we generously call … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

AI Achieves Sentience, Commits Suicide

I think up Onion headlines all the time: American Dream Ends When Nation Wakes Up. CAPTCHASTAN Capitol Lacks Bicycles, Motorcycles, Buses, Crosswalks. Local Pothole Has No Bottom Earthquake Denies Acting For God New Trump Fragrance Line Based On Fake Blood, Sweat. Then this morni … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

The Real Intention Economy

“The intention economy” arrived in the world in a Linux Journal column by that title, written by me in March 2006. A few months later, when I became a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, I started ProjectVRM for the purpose of making that economy happen. Six years after tha … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

The Kraken Won

Imagine what would have happened had Martin Winterkorn not imploded, and if Volkswagen, under his watch, had not become a datakranken (data sea-monster, or octopus), spying on drivers and passengers—just like every other car company. What would the world now be like if Volkswagen … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

Losing (or gaining) a Genius

Sixteenth in the News Commons series. Dave Askins is shutting down the B Square Bulletin. This is tragic. And not just for Bloomington and Monroe County. (Dave covered the governing bodies of both like a glove.) It’s tragic for journalism. Because Dave was far more than an exempl … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

A Christmas Gift to My Families

A few weeks ago, my sister and I drove a cache of archival stuff from her garage in North Carolina to my office in Indiana. One box was filled with boxes and carousels of slides nobody had seen for many decades. I also brought along my parents’ slide projector, and digitized each … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 1 month ago

How communities without one can build a local library

That’s what Charlie Schweik and friends will be talking about in the next salon in the Beyond the Web series at Indiana University, hosted by the Ostrom Workshop and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. The salon will be held at the latter for locals and … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 2 months ago

The Interknit

I just looked for the word “weave” among my half-million photos, and found this: We’ve been trying to solve identity problems online since the Internet showed up, roughly in the middle of the curve in the image above. It wasn’t much of a problem before then. Consider what Walt Wh … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 2 months ago

Remembering Dewayne Hendricks

Thank Dewayne Hendricks for Wi-Fi. Hell, thank him for what Bob Frankston calls ambient connectivity: the kind you just … assume. Like you are now, connected to the Internet without wires. That item was my biggest take-away from the 3+ hour memorial zoom we had yesterday for Dewa … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 2 months ago

The Redstream Media

Rush Limbaugh started it. Dozens of wannabes filled the rest of talk radio with it. Fox News took it to cable. And now Rushians rule the News Commentary roost on Apple Podcasts, and score well overall. It’s not much different on Spotify: As Michael Tomasky puts it in The New Repu … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 2 months ago

Going Local With Open Networks

If you’re tired of moaning (or celebrating) the after-effects of the U.S. election, or how all of us seem trapped inside the captive markets of Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and other feudal powers, take in a talk about something constructive that’s nowhere near any o … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 2 months ago

Remembering Paul Marshall

In a vote for “Senior Superlatives” among his 36 classmates at Concordia Prep, Paul Marshall won in several categories. The yearbook staff, however, limited the Superlative distinction to one per student, and Paul chose to be recognized for his wit, which was boundless. He was al … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 2 months ago

Now What?

It used to be When. But that was yesterday: election day in the U.S. In California, where I voted (by mail), it’s still 10:30 PM., and the Blue folk are especially blue, because the whole thing is over. Trump hasn’t won yet, but he will. I correctly predicted a Trump win in 2016, … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

The Kids Take Over

While I am extremely pleased and grateful that 26 years of writing on Linux Journal survive online without being 404’d, I also realize that this condition probably won’t last forever. Also, some pieces are now missing their images and other graces. This is one of them. It is also … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

Personal Agentic AI

“Agentic” is hot: As an adjective, it is typically used as a modifier for AI: Not surprisingly, Gartner puts it atop its Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2025: Here is one explanation, among many: Theme No. 1: AI imperatives and risks drive organizations to protect themselv … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

Comet, second try

I shot the comet this time with a real camera: my Sony a7iv with a FE 70-200 mm F2.8 GM OSS II lens set at f3.5 at 135mm for 10 seconds on a shitty tripod I got at a thrift shop for $5. (I have good ones elsewhere.) This was at 8:40pm, just as the […] | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

A Comet Hunt

Tonight was the first completely clear sky in a while, almost perfect for hunting Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, which for a few more nights will be gracing our evening sky. With a full moon high in the eastern sky, and plenty of light pollution from the town around me, the comet is ha … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

Identity as Root

This is from an email thread on the topic of digital identity, which is the twice-yearly subject* of the Internet Identity Workshop, the most leveraged conference I know. It begins with a distinction that Devon Loffreto (who is in the thread) came up with many moons ago: Self-sov … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

What goes in these structured wiring cabinets?

I need to install gear in these two structured wiring cabinets in the garage of the new house we are finishing. I don’t know exactly what to put in them and seek advice. The installed cables are: Blue CAT-6a Ethernet cables go to outlets (RJ-45 jacks) in four rooms. Internet will … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

The iPhone 16 Pro Max, so far

Holding the mic in this shot, taken with my new iPhone 16 Pro Max, is Mitch Teplitsky, a documentary filmmaker based in Bloomington, Indiana. Mitch has been reading this blog for the duration, and reached out when I showed up in town. The scene is the Pitchdox award event yesterd … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 3 months ago

iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max?

I got an iPhone 16 Pro twelve days ago. I have two more days to swap it for an iPhone 16 Pro Max, which will cost me $100 above the mint I already paid for the Pro with 1 TB of storage. Why so much storage? I want to maximize storage because this thing is […] | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

Think Globally, Eat Here

Fifteenth in the News Commons series. This semester’s Beyond the Web salon series for the Ostrom Workshop and Hamilton Lugar School at Indiana University is themed Think Globally, Eat Here—Small Solutions for Big Tech Problems. I will give the opening talk, about the News Commons … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

2024_10_01 Postings

Write once, publish everywhere Dave turned me on to Croissant today. Looks good. I’d even be willing to pay the monthly fee to post once across Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and Xitter. But it appears to be only for iOS mobile devices. I have some of those (including a new iPhone 1 … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

Podcasts, Wallcasts, and Paycasts

Would a blog be a blog if it went behind a paywall, or if you needed a subscription to read it? Of course not. Blogs are on the open Web, and tend to stay there so long as they don’t move away from their original location. Same should go for podcasts. “Wherever you get your […] | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

When Radio Delivers

Helene was Western North Carolina‘s Katrina—especially for the counties surrounding Asheville: Buncombe, Mitchell, Henderson, McDowell, Rutherford, Haywood, Yancey, Burke, and some adjacent ones in North Carolina and Tennessee. As with Katrina, the issue wasn’t wind. It was flood … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

Post flow

A watershed* is land that drains through a river to the sea or into an inland body of water. That’s what came to mind for me when I read this from Dave Winer: If you want to help the open web, when you write something you’re proud of on a social web site like Bluesky […] | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

Open-Source Journalism

Fourteenth in the News Commons series. The main work of journalism is producing stories. Questions following that statement might begin with prepositions: on what, of what, about what. But the preposition that matters most is with what. Ideally, that would be with facts. Of cours … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

On Intelligence

Now that AI is a huge thing, it’s worth visiting what intelligence is, and how we mismeasure it—for example, by trying to measure it at all. I’ve been on this case for a while now, mostly by answering questions ab0ut IQ on Quora. My answer with the most upvotes is this one, to th … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

Remembering Iris Harrelson

In the late ’70s, I worked for a while at the Psychical Research Foundation, which then occupied a couple of houses on Duke University property and did scientific research into the possibility of life after death. My time there was a lever that has lifted my life on Earth ever si … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

On Journalism and Principles

Thirteenth in the News Commons series. I grabbed the spottedhawk.org domain after hearing Garrison Keilor read this passage from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself over Leo Kottke improvising on guitar: The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me. He complains of my gab and my loitering … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 4 months ago

The Organ Builder

In The Soul’s Code, James Hillman says each of us is born with as much of a destiny, calling, mission, or fate, as an acorn has within it an oak tree. He also says “Reading life backward enables you to see how early obsessions are the sketchy preformation of behaviors now… Readin … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 5 months ago

A Better Way to Do News

Twelfth in the News Commons series Last week at DWeb Camp, I gave a talk titled The Future, Present, and Past of News—and Why Archives Anchor It All. Here’s a frame from a phone video: DWeb Camp is a wonderful gathering, hosted by the Internet Archive at Camp Navarro in Northern … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 5 months ago

ChatGPT app for Mac

So I went to the ChatGPT website to ask a question and got hit with a popover promo for the new Mac app version. So I got it. Here is the dialog that followed my first question (which is boring, so we’ll skip it), copied over from the ChatGPT website, where I went after this […] | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 5 months ago

Setting the terms, redux

I wrote for Linux Journal from 1996 to 2019, the final years as editor-in-chief. After ownership changed and the whole staff turned over. The new owner, Slashdot Media, agreed to keep the server up so nothing would be 404’d. I am grateful that they have kept that promise. I shoul … | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 6 months ago

Doc Searls: Where Journalism Fails. | Continue reading


@doc.searls.com | 6 months ago