Tick Tock - almost time.

If you ever do a keynote and are offered a time for a tech check, TAKE IT.

#Identiverse

Heading to Las Vegas today for Identiverse.

I should say something fun and uplifting, but mostly I’m tired from content wrangling 170 amazing sessions.

I got to review so much in advance, which is a privilege. The downside is that I rarely get to attend the sessions in person.

So if you're there and see me standing still, come tell me what I’m missing. Let me live vicariously.

When you know you're losing the plot due to stress: This conversation happens at the end of a content planning call.

"I'm telling you, pigs are WAY scarier than goats! Pigs will eat _everything_. Bones and all. There will be nothing left. Great for murder cleanup. Or so I've read."

I've reached the limits of my patience and have started hissing at my cat.

Oh, ye who have not submitted your slides, you are in sooooooo much trouble.

Identity Discovery Is More Than Finding the Login Button

"In the first post in this series, I framed discovery as a broader systems problem." The challenge is not simply that search engines need to be better....

https://sphericalcowconsulting.com/2026/06/09/identity-discovery/

#TIL - if you stare at the spreadsheets indicating whether a slide deck was submitted for review, it doesn't actually make the slide decks come in any faster.

Who knew?

Apparently I was on to something 9 months ago when I penned the Statement on Discourse About ActivityPub and AT Protocol open letter, nice to see it pop up again in the materials for https://european.social

I was describing to a friend what life is like before heading out to a big conference that I'm the content chair for. I said,

"It's like, today is Friday. Tomorrow is Monday. The next day is also Monday. Then there's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Drink Heavily, Pray, and leave for the event."

Conference organizing is not for the faint of heart.

I would like to take this moment to say: the hypothalamus is stupid and deserves a timeout.

How it can go from "hey, there's not a lot of estrogen around here" to "quick, turn on evaporative cooling" is entirely unreasonable.

Grrrr.

AI is driving a surge in global energy and water demand, with new research from the United Nations suggesting that both will double in the next four years.

https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2026/datacentre/datacentre-power-and-water-use-to-double-by-2030?utm_source=mastodon_org&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=June_Datacentre

#datacenter #technews #energy #water #unitednations #emissions

Stifling Speech Through DNS Infrastructure

https://internet.exchangepoint.tech/stifling-speech-through-dns-infrastructure/

For pride month, you can no longer use the phrase "let me get this straight".
You have to use "just so we're queer".

This one with the white chin is Emily Brontë because she will insist that she does *not* want to be snuggled but she totally does.

#CatsOfMastodon #FosterKittens

I think my cats have been slacking. The birds were RIGHT THERE.

Excuse me I have question.

Huzzah! I've managed to stage blog posts and audioblogs through to early July! Which is good 'cause I'm not going to have any time for the next few weeks to research and write.

Gotta love finding a single topic that inspires lots of material. (In this case, the concept of "discovery" in systems.)

Discovery is not just search. It is how people and systems find information, accounts, credentials, endpoints, and authority across an increasingly fragmented internet. This post starts a new series on why that matters.

I don't understand how people live without wearing glasses. Glasses keep hair and dust out of eyes. Eyes don't dry out as quickly. They are like the first shield against the world.

(Random musings while I wait for my next call to start.)

I love that AI helps people explore ideas.

I do not love when the next step is “could you, unpaid subject-matter expert, validate my AI-assisted theory?”

Especially in digital identity, where “quick sanity check” often means standards interpretation, governance history, policy constraints, interoperability questions, and a quiet little tour through why reality is annoying.

So I made a service page.

Because apparently I have reached the “put a dollar amount on the frustration” stage of consulting.

https://sphericalcowconsulting.com/services/strategic-sanity-check-for-digital-identity-ideas/

Consensus is great when it works.

But standards work also needs a path for serious disagreement. Appeals, Formal Objections, and similar processes are not failures by default. They are how standards bodies make room for review when consensus breaks.

Time to talk about the less-than-happy path!

https://sphericalcowconsulting.com/2026/05/26/when-consensus-fails/