I get asked to show up to book clubs, online and offline. Here is why from now on the answer is always "no." If you think this might have something to do with "AI" ruining yet another thing for everyone, you're absolutely 100% correct.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/03/03/indefinite-book-club-hiatus/

Our site admin (@jerry) is about to get walloped with additional hosting fees, thanks to the great AIpocalypse that is messing up everything with datacenter costs.

I love the fediverse because there are no bullshit targeted ads and no bullshit algorithm-boosted messaging. Just a bunch of humans running servers. The downside of this is there is very little money in running servers and they cost more and more to keep going.

I increased my donation a bit today to help keep up with the costs.

Consult your instance admin for where to donate. In our case you can look at Jerry's profile for the official donation places. If you can afford to donate please do. If you can afford to increase your donation, please do that too.

"They often generate code that fails to perform as intended, but which on the surface seems to run successfully, avoiding syntax errors or obvious crashes."

AI Coding Assistants Are Getting Worse
https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-coding-degrades?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=hero&utm_campaign=hero-2026-01-10&utm_content=hero1

Did you know that Mastodon has a bot that posts one Sumerian cuneiform with its meaning every day?

No? You can find it at @sumerian

Did you know every now and then I make a note of them, thinking I might be able to use them for something?

No? Well you do now.

Below I give you three cuneiform with a helpful* illustration to help you remember them.

Thing. That. Ba.

*shush, yes helpful

#sillyScribbles #sheep #cuneiform #nonsense

New, by me...

Dismantling Defenses: Trump 2.0 Cyber Year In Review

The Trump administration has pursued a staggering range of policy pivots this past year that threaten to weaken the nation’s ability and willingness to address a broad spectrum of technology challenges, from cybersecurity and privacy to countering disinformation, fraud and corruption. These shifts, along with the president’s efforts to restrict free speech and freedom of the press, have come at such a rapid clip that many readers probably aren’t even aware of them all.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/12/dismantling-defenses-trump-2-0-cyber-year-in-review/

Today in "Don't Trust AI to Tell You Facts": How several different "AI" programs messed up the simple fact of to whom I dedicated a book, and what that means for how much you should trust "AI" to tell you the truth about things (spoiler: not much at all):

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/13/ai-a-dedicated-fact-failing-machine-or-yet-another-reason-not-to-trust-it-for-anything/