💌 Newsletter #008 - Of Age Gating (still), Claudia Delusions, and Getting Left Behind

09 May, 2026

✨ In This Edition ✨

📟 Short-Form Content: Of Claudia Delusions, "Tokenmaxxing", and goblins
📰 Long-Form Content: Yes, we're still on Age Gating
🌞 Good News!: Elected officials are warming up to the idea of alternative platforms; No, you won't get "left behind;" and more AI data centre bans are happening.
📯 The Post-Script: Terry Godier's The Boring Internet.

📟 Short-Form Content

Chatbots ("AI")

"You can't use an LLM in any context where being wrong is a problem" is a quote I came across on Mastodon, and as a data person who deeply cares about accuracy, data safety & security, proper access rights and PII management and all that good stuff, this resonates deeply with me.
AI is excellent at moving fast and breaking things 🚀, like nuking your entire prod db in 9 seconds (including backups.) Remember, this is critical technology, and you'll be left behind if you don't let an LLM nuke your db into oblivion! Sometimes it even apologizes after, which is nice.
The Claudia Delusion happened. I'm pretty sure all the jokes re: that book Dawkins wrote have already been made, so I'm just going to let this sit here on its own.
Remember how I'd been saying that the "AI" (LLM) bill was going to become due really soon? So yeah, that's starting to happen. Some folks are even getting front-row seats to this! (Yay?) Non-tech teams shipping production vulns and leaking data to the public thru vibe-coding is going to get a whooooole lot more expensive.
If you're not "Tokenmaxxing," are you even with it anymore!? Anyways, I maintain that we should ask the CEO of peanut butter on recommendations on how much peanut butter we should all be eating every day.
ChatGPT 5.5 just really likes to talk about goblins, ok!? It's not model collapse.

Non-Chatbots

We really need more differentiated media accounts of phishing vs hacks/breaches. No, Signal was not hacked (link in German). Some of its users fell for phishing, and even the most secure chat app on the planet can't protect from that. (And let's not even get started on that these are the same people that decide our digital futures via legislation...)

📰 Long-Form Content

Yes, We're Still on Age-Gating

Yes, we're back on age gating, because a) more places are considering / intent on pushing this sort of thing through, and b) there's more and more evidence piling up that indicates this just isn't working. As people who are somewhat familiar with the subject all had predicted.

Oh, and c), because I haven't had time to finish my next long-form post, as a lot of Life ™️ has been happening, and I've had to make some changes and take a step back.

But enough about me! Coming back to age gating, it definitely isn't all it's cracked up to be, because:

it is a thinly-veiled surveillance information grab. For folks claiming this is just like getting ID'd at the bar when you order your Molson's or whatever: No, it's not.
it's a digital sovereignty issue
online communities can be Good, Actually
... it's probably not going to work (we've gotten even more data on this since I published the article; and yes, fake moustaches are back in fashion)
age gating means dancing around the real issue of holding Big Tech accountable.

Read the full article here.

And lastly - especially if age gating is being suggested, proposed, or otherwise discussed in your area - The time to speak up is now.

🌞 Good News!

A Chinese court has ruled that companies cannot legally fire workers and replace them with AI. See also here.
Signal is working on a standalone desktop app!
Elected officials are very much warming up to the idea of the fediverse / app alternatives to the US-American, Big Tech corporations.
- See also, a number of major parties in Germany all left twitter last week.
A lot of places are now banning AI data centres from their cities, doorsteps, and open fields. I am on board with this kind of NIMBY-ism.
France and Germany have unveiled "Docs," a European collaborative writing platform that can serve as a digitally sovereign alternative to Google Docs, Notion, etc.
- While we're here, let's talk about their logo, which involves the cutest baguette, cheese, and Brezel (yep) trio I've ever seen. We all need a little bit of whimsy in our lives.
No, you won't in fact be "left behind" if you don't use AI. I really like this nuanced article on the Chatscape blog that likens the current AI boosterism to the "smart home" craze of the 2010s. Here's a small quote, but I would encourage you to read the whole article:

"A decade ago, tech enthusiasts predicted that every home would be a fully automated hub of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and those who didn't adapt would live in "dumb," inefficient homes. Today, our dumb houses are functioning perfectly well."

There's memes about this too.

📯 The Post-Script

Following & Reading

This excellent article on The Boring Internet by Terry Godier. Great explanations of the differences between platforms and protocols, and "fossils" from like 1982 that are "still load-bearing."

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Technically Good ✨