when's the next big market crash coming

In which I offer a ringside seat at my struggle vs the temptation to use #GenAI on a couple of programming tasks: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2026/10/19/The-AI-Temptation

Autumnal monochrome.

#photography #TreesOfMastodon

The PHP disaster has now turned into a clowshow. Some hosters are not updating to the fixed versions of PHP but instead backporting changes to known-bad versions *and not updating the version number*. A hoster I use still says that my site is running 8.4.20, but assures me in a trouble ticket:

"For older PHP versions, the security fixes were applied to the existing release (?backported?) and didn't come with a new version number. If your site, a plugin or a security scanner still reports the same PHP version as before, that's expected, and your site is still protected.”

FWIW, this is a very major WordPress hoster. However, I got a similar story when looking at older versions of Ubuntu: they apparently backported the fixes into PHP versions that are EOL.

The result will be that there will be plenty of systems out there that can’t tell if they are safe, so they will assume they are. And when the next CVE comes out, they can’t even tell what actual version they are coming from.

The blame for this lays squarely on the hosters and repo maintainers, not on the PHP dev team.

Join me in celebrating International Static Website Week!

No
#PHP
#HTTPS
#CSS
#JavaScript

This is a good day to mention that static site generators are awesome.

Flying over the Prairies.

#Photography #aerial #canada

The macOS built-in curl, git, pip, python3, perl, ruby, and openssl all read /etc/ssl/cert.pem, which still has the emSign root, but they don't check revocation like Apple's Secure Transport libraries.

This is, uh, a problem. git and pip especially.

I added a short-term workaround to https://emudhra.we-have-a-problem.com/#macos-curl.

2/2 On the let’s-be-mean-to-immigrants, ouch, but nothing new here. Every wave of immigrants back to the 19th century has wanted to slam the door shut behind them. Peoples that have been painted as shiftless and/or dangerous include: Irish, Ukrainians, Chinese, and separately & specifically mainland Chinese. Would rather attribute this to economic cluelessness than mean-spiritedness, but there’s plenty of both to go around.

1/ On the face of it, the fact that a quarter of Albertans voted against Canada is upsetting, and the fact that most of the let’s-be-mean-to-immigrants propositions got plurality support is too. But there are extenuating factors. As one Albertan told me: “ the 25% “leave” is probably only half or less of that in reality— they campaigned pretty hard on “a yes will give us a stronger hand in negotiations, it doesn’t *really* mean separate”

Raw first-person reporting from the West Bank. Warning: Enraging.
Israel is a barbaric gang state that must be cast out of the community of civilized nations.

Behind the Settler Attack on Palestinians and a Washington Post Journalist | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/behind-the-settler-attack-on-palestinians-and-a-washington-post-journalist

Thomas Piketty explains why French high school students are big mad.

https://thomaspiketty.wordpress.com/2026/10/20/high-schoolers-students-the-twilight-of-macronism/

In which the excellent Matt Levine explains the incoming financial explosive decompression simply and straightforwardly.

Money Stuff: Someone Has to Take the AI Risk | NewsletterHunt
https://newsletterhunt.com/emails/531968

From the conservative-but-sane “The Line”:
“The people who supported staying were, by and large, individuals with real reputations and credibility — and, therefore, something real and valuable to lose if they lied. The other side, by comparison, was overwhelmingly dominated by kooks and crooks who suffered no reputational penalty for saying whatever crazy idea or claim slipped out of their mouths.”

https://www.readtheline.ca/p/jen-gerson-can-we-put-separatist?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=70032&post_id=221312499&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=10irp6&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

#cdnPoli

A little dystopic I think… https://www.dpreview.com/news/adobe-adds-easy-ai-eye-generation-to-lightroom-mobile/

I got my picture taken at an art show I had a painting in

(I’ll post the painting later, I forgot to take photos of it before the show)

A little on the unexpected side: https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/article/united-airlines-ceo-says-us-should-have-an-inheritance-tax-close-to-100-and-hed-pay-it-214906350.html

He also said “We should have a national wealth tax — it won't work by state because people will just move.”

RE: https://mstdn.social/@DemocracyMattersALot/117464491850760300

In Canada, lots of supermarket produce, e.g. pre-made salads, young spinach, etc, is from Taylor Farms. Um, don't buy it.

Vancouver’s new mayor!

I saw this back in August but didn't post it, because Pete didn't get to choose what his posters appeared next to. He got my vote and won the election.

#Vancouver #BCPoli

On top of which, I haven’t heard a freaking word out of the NDP on taxing the oligarchs and attacking our absurd, dysfunctional levels of inequality.

#bcndp