Robin Riley

5 topics I could give an hour long talk on - how open source is broken & why fixing it requires socialism - building high trust teams & communities - navigating the surveillance state & surveillance capitalism - what it takes to run a local electoral campaign - how to make a difference in your town

unlike just a few years ago, nobody online seems to be talking much about how the future economy will be built around very expensive digital pictures of cartoon monkeys anymore

gotta pump these numbers up

Research

I've been thinking about the Carcinisation of different forms of software SO much recently

Thursday is a paid holiday. Because Flavor Flav said so.

I'm not a basketball fan in any way, but the idea that a Championship Game wouldn't take precedent over a regular season game is so ludicrous, it's obviously only happening for one fucking reason, and it's as the article states: "so that men aren’t inconvenienced."

In other news, Reflect Orbital is still completely dangerous and useless, and everyone knows it: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/astronomy-and-society/a-satellite-company-tested-sunlight-as-a-service-without-astronomers-knowledge/

Keep me posted if you see anything relevant - especially related to tech policy and strategy work around civilian drones, aid, investigating war crimes, and remote sensing. (I’m more of a policy/research wonk than anything else, but I can wear many hats and have a lot of technical experience).

A far-right nationalist going to Argentina? Where have I heard this before?

please let him be cooked

Got 2 tickets to Daði Freyr for this Thursday at The Castro Theater in SF. Free to anyone I know as long as they'll go to use! If this post is still up, they're still available.

EXTRA, EXTRA! 🗞️ For this new #WebKitIgaliaPeriodicals edition, number 82, we have a mixed bag of updates: a libsoup release, improvements to subprocess spawning, deprecation of the libwpe-based APIs, and the usual trickle of work on the new SVG engine. Check it at blogs.igalia.com/webkit/blog/...

Ok, I'm noodling with an essay about this. It would be partly an obit, but I want to use it more to explore how academia has shifted since my mentor entered it, and what we've lost as a result. It's part eulogy, part "where are we" with higher ed. The Chronicle said no. Would anybody else care?

I think the local Blue Zones staff have done some things to improve quality of life in Petaluma, I wish the Healthcare District had thrown those dollars at local orgs that don't have some international org based on hogwash taking a cut, and are focused more on evidence-based improvements.

“The city release of documents confirmed a police drone flew through the windshield of a Peterbilt tractor-trailer truck in June, cutting the face of a Canadian driver and sending him to Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Temple.” This is a key reason why I’m opposed to these drone 911 programs.

I think the lesson from Lula is not never talk about the opposition; it's articulate a positive vision that's basically, We Can Just Do Things. That's why Mamdani-ism is so popular - voters have an intrinsic sense that their electeds have agency they're not using

Find you an event organizer who both requires masks indoors AND accommodates things like a private room for doctor ordered post-op physical therapy during lunch breaks. I 💛 the team and community behind NPDev. I'll be low spoons but I'll see you there this Nov: aspirationtech.org/events/devsu...

This is good

making sure everyone sees this! lula came back from the initial deficit at least in part because ten million implemented an organized strategy to neutralize algorithmic manipulation from tech lords brazil did not just "voter harder" -- they assessed the disinformation threat and organized a tactic

devastating - @restofworld.org has been one of my favorite outlets doing very important journalism.

This year, solar will represent 10% of power generation. Abundant, clean energy is great news - but there's more work to do to make sure every community benefits.

we got Spooky Bay Area expert @bethwinegarner.bsky.social on @coyotemedia.org today folks! 🪦

Linux 7.3 was released recently, check out Igalia's contributions... www.igalia.com/2026/10/26/L...

Hope everyone's made it home safely from the #MatrixConf! Recordings of all the talks can be found here: conference.matrix.org/schedule/#fu.... And we would love to have thoughts from those who joined us in person or online. Our feedback form is here: cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/for...

I have no idea if this is any good but hell yes, normalize these sorts of articles. Looking at you, @nytimes.com

Against the fascist creep into our politics!

This feed is hosted by 🦜 @skyfeed.eu, not 🦋 Bluesky. We host 90,000+ custom feeds, but subscriptions don't yet cover our hosting costs: skyfeed.eu/sustainability If this feed is useful to you, consider supporting SkyFeed with a sub for 5€/month. It helps fund hosting and keeps the feeds running.

reviving local news by requiring every resident, every day, send in a proof of life photo next to the day's newspaper

Need a new, more carbon neutral expression for “now we’re cooking with gas“

We stand with the Rose City Riveters and our Transgender and LGBTQ+ community. We see you; We support you; We protect our own; This is bigger than the pitch. Hate has no place in our sections, especially hateful messages about gender and identity. If you come for one, you can expect us all.

District 2, do YOU know who's funding your Supervisor candidates? @pressdemo.bsky.social does! Read this to learn who's backing SoCo DSA-endorsed candidate Joanna Paun (workers, unions, and SoCo locals) versus her opponent (cops, wine reps... need we say more?) www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/10/24/s...

Try not to think about all the wifi signals passing through your body at all times and what sort of information and images they contain. Ignore the terabytes of memes coursing through your flesh.

we had a great time hacking on Matrix this week at #MatrixConf. The @matrix.org folks are doing some great work and use Coop, Osprey, and HMA to do it! ft @cassidyjames.com and @julietshen.online (sometimes but not always represented by a rooster on a wall)

Tailscale praising RSS

these fucking guys, man. “surely there must have been some mistake” “nah bro we did that on purpose and our company culture is so wild this is a normal thing to say on the public Internet”

found out that my mother in law decided she was aggressively pro trans rights literally by going, I don't know anything about this but everyone who is against trans rights is also against free school lunch, the issue I know and care a lot about, so this must be the correct way to feel about this

There should be significant fines and criminal prosecution of all those responsible in this case.

If you want to support more independent journalism about the Bay Area music scene, please consider subscribing. Subs start at just $8/month! coyotemedia.org?ref=coyoteme...

New survey from the @autisticsociety.bsky.social in the U.K. said the top three places to hear misinformation was in the mainstream media 1,484 (84%), on social media 1,362 (77%), from politicians or other public figures 1,272 (72%). www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/n...

I loved my grandparents very dearly, but even as a child I was not into hugging that much - as anyone who knows me now, knows! Consent is something children need to know about, it gives them agency to express what’s within their comfort zone.

Seriously though ebiking to as many errands and chores as possible has done so much to improve my mental health

So many literary magazines I want to (re-)subscribe to when funds come back in: - www.parapraxismagazine.com - longhaulmag.com - dissentmagazine.org - thebaffler.com Just to start.

the rent extraction is coming from inside the house, it turns out, and of course, said rent extraction brings fascism inside the house

An open standard needs a neutral steward. And while Matrix is #free to use, it isn't free to run. If just 80% of the public sector orgs that rely on #Matrix became members, it would guarantee the Foundation's independence. Love Matrix? Consider becoming a member today: matrix.org/foundation/m...

I think Andrew Dewaard’s argument in Derivative Media is so useful here - reboots, references, remakes are finance capital’s way of exerting control over the unpredictability of media reception. Intertextuality as business strategy in financialized entertainment industry