dsearls
@dsearls.bsky.social
Journalist, author, blogger, podcaster, photographer, farting-arounder
Big thing going down in London on the 28th. See you there or in a Zoom square: doc.searls.com/2026/01/20/n...
Now the Future Can Start
That’s a screen grab of an email we’re sending out for the MyTerms launch in London. Links: To attend online: To attend in person: Be there in a Zoom square. Or in old-fashioned reality…
doc.searls.com
January 21, 2026 at 1:17 AM
Big thing going down in London on the 28th. See you there or in a Zoom square: doc.searls.com/2026/01/20/n...
A blog post: doc.searls.com/2026/01/16/h...
How to Be Old, Lesson 1
A trick for opening a stuck lid. I’ve been young a long time. My chronometer says 78.4685 years, which is long for a human but short for a rock. I know a lot of rocks. It helps to have perspe…
doc.searls.com
January 17, 2026 at 3:00 AM
A blog post: doc.searls.com/2026/01/16/h...
Here is a short video that condenses my hour-long talk on MyTerms at Indiana University: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2B7... Does a pretty good job.
MyTerms Reclaiming Your Digital Self
YouTube video by MyTerms
www.youtube.com
January 11, 2026 at 2:43 PM
Here is a short video that condenses my hour-long talk on MyTerms at Indiana University: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2B7... Does a pretty good job.
Had fun writing this one: doc.searls.com/2025/12/30/o...
On the Scariest Roller Coaster Ever Built
The original Cyclone roller coaster at Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, built in 1927. The photo is by my father, Allen H. Searls, who helped build it and turned nineteen that year. I just d…
doc.searls.com
December 31, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Had fun writing this one: doc.searls.com/2025/12/30/o...
I am live on WFHB right now: wfhb.org
WFHB
Bloomington Community Radio
wfhb.org
December 18, 2025 at 10:33 PM
I am live on WFHB right now: wfhb.org
We are an hour and a third from a great talk Elettra Bietti will give here at Indiana University and live on Zoom. It'll be great. Please come. More here (with the Zoom link): doc.searls.com/2025/12/05/o...
On extracting yourself from the extractors
Here’s the flyer for the next talk in our salon series here at Indiana University: Elettra is one of the most interesting, smart, accomplished, caring, and effective people I know. She is als…
doc.searls.com
December 9, 2025 at 7:40 PM
We are an hour and a third from a great talk Elettra Bietti will give here at Indiana University and live on Zoom. It'll be great. Please come. More here (with the Zoom link): doc.searls.com/2025/12/05/o...
I'm giving a talk on Tuesday about a new standard that flips the script on cookie notices, surveillance, and the adtech fecosystem. Its IEEE P7012, better known as #MyTerms. It'll be on Zoom. More at doc.searls.com/2025/11/14/m...
MyTerms are Your Terms
That’s the case I’ll be making next Tuesday in a talk at Indiana University. The subject is big—maybe the biggest in your online life. That’s because MyTerms is the only way you&#…
doc.searls.com
November 17, 2025 at 3:29 AM
I'm giving a talk on Tuesday about a new standard that flips the script on cookie notices, surveillance, and the adtech fecosystem. Its IEEE P7012, better known as #MyTerms. It'll be on Zoom. More at doc.searls.com/2025/11/14/m...
Why I'd rather book the Death Star than use Tripadvisor for anything again: doc.searls.com/2025/11/14/l...
Life after SeatGuru
As a devout window-sitter on planes, SeatGuru was a must-have for avoiding misaligned or absent windows on booked flights. But now it’s gone, because its owner, Tripadvisor, failed to keep it…
doc.searls.com
November 14, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Why I'd rather book the Death Star than use Tripadvisor for anything again: doc.searls.com/2025/11/14/l...
Big aurora going on: doc.searls.com/2025/11/11/l...
Look Up!
Surf’s up. North. Here is the auroral oval, right now: And here is the K Index, also via NOAA: Remember that the aurora’s curtains of light stand up to 800 miles above their base, about…
doc.searls.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Big aurora going on: doc.searls.com/2025/11/11/l...
A question, plus another at the end: doc.searls.com/2025/11/06/w...
Who’s your agent?
M.G. Siegler says AI is Breaking the Browser's Back. His problem starts with OpenAI's GPT Atlas, which some publishers won't let view their contents on the Web. For example, if you a…
doc.searls.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:14 AM
A question, plus another at the end: doc.searls.com/2025/11/06/w...
My latest: doc.searls.com/2025/10/20/t...
This is a Test. Or a Taste. Or both.
What see ye? I shot the photo above last night on approach to SFO. My window seat was on the left side of the plane. Tell me where this is, what the two most standout features are, and what was hap…
doc.searls.com
October 21, 2025 at 4:48 AM
My latest: doc.searls.com/2025/10/20/t...
I've disliked the Dodgers since they divorced New York and married Los Angeles (which I do love, but not for its baseball). But Shohei Ohtani is possibly the greatest baseball player of all time, and he is playing in ours, now. Alas, for the Dodgers.
October 18, 2025 at 5:28 PM
I've disliked the Dodgers since they divorced New York and married Los Angeles (which I do love, but not for its baseball). But Shohei Ohtani is possibly the greatest baseball player of all time, and he is playing in ours, now. Alas, for the Dodgers.
Is Facebook down? Every other site/service seems to be working, but Facebook is a spinning wheel right now.
October 17, 2025 at 4:28 AM
Is Facebook down? Every other site/service seems to be working, but Facebook is a spinning wheel right now.
Amazon's music on hold is the same as Rackspace's was before it failed in an attack and cost me years of email. Hope that's not a bad sign.
October 4, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Amazon's music on hold is the same as Rackspace's was before it failed in an attack and cost me years of email. Hope that's not a bad sign.
Do partisan statements atop US .gov websites violate the Hatch Act? See doc.searls.com/2025/10/03/q... My idea here is mainly to help reporters follow what's going on by visiting links to every federal branch and agency I could find. See what they're saying during the shutdown.
Questions of Law, not Just Politics
Go to HUD.gov, and you’ll get this: Go to USDA.gov, and you’ll get this: Seems to me these violate the Hatch Act, aka “An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities.” I…
doc.searls.com
October 4, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Do partisan statements atop US .gov websites violate the Hatch Act? See doc.searls.com/2025/10/03/q... My idea here is mainly to help reporters follow what's going on by visiting links to every federal branch and agency I could find. See what they're saying during the shutdown.
Laws won't get us privacy online. Contract will. I explain why: doc.searls.com/2025/09/11/p...
Privacy is a Contract
In the natural world, privacy is a social contract: a tacit agreement that we respect others’ private spaces. We guard those spaces with the privacy tech we call clothing and shelter. We also…
doc.searls.com
September 11, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Laws won't get us privacy online. Contract will. I explain why: doc.searls.com/2025/09/11/p...
A long-belated obituary of sorts, with a bunch of bonus facts: doc.searls.com/2025/09/09/r...
Remembering R.C. Ward
The first thing R.C. Ward taught in our biology class at Guilford College was his eponymous Law: “If it works, it’s good.” He frequently mentioned Ward’s Law by name and req…
doc.searls.com
September 10, 2025 at 2:43 AM
A long-belated obituary of sorts, with a bunch of bonus facts: doc.searls.com/2025/09/09/r...
One irony is that I'm pointing to this on a social medium and not putting it on my own Lovable Expert page: www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...
Cartoon: Web's end
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon .
Follow me on Bluesky ...
www.dailykos.com
August 28, 2025 at 6:07 PM
One irony is that I'm pointing to this on a social medium and not putting it on my own Lovable Expert page: www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...
Want to blow up cookie notices, and overturn the whole surveillance fecosystem? MyTerms is the way. I make the case here: doc.searls.com/2025/08/14/t...
The Case for MyTerms
We know more than we can tell. That was how Michael Polanyi distinguished between tacit and explicit knowing. We may know tacitly how we form speech, ride a bike, or sense when to shake hands with …
doc.searls.com
August 14, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Want to blow up cookie notices, and overturn the whole surveillance fecosystem? MyTerms is the way. I make the case here: doc.searls.com/2025/08/14/t...
Try seeing "mainframe" every time you see "AI." Because giant mainframes are what we're getting AI from, so far. "Personalized" is nice, but you don't drive. You're a passenger in a Waymo. We need truly personal AI. I've been writing about that here: doc.searls.com/personal-ai/
Personal AI
Having personal AI is like having a personal computer. It’s yours. It’s not AIaaS (AI as a Service), which is what we get from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Perplexity, Meta, an…
doc.searls.com
August 4, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Try seeing "mainframe" every time you see "AI." Because giant mainframes are what we're getting AI from, so far. "Personalized" is nice, but you don't drive. You're a passenger in a Waymo. We need truly personal AI. I've been writing about that here: doc.searls.com/personal-ai/
Just posted this: doc.searls.com/2025/08/02/g...
Getting Real With AI.
When I read that some conversations with ChatGPT had appeared in Google searches, I did a search for “Doc Searls” ChatGPT and got a long and not-bad but not entirely accurate AI summary…
doc.searls.com
August 2, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Just posted this: doc.searls.com/2025/08/02/g...
This post is about how both The Cluetrain Manifesto and The Intention Economy will finally come true. It's what many of us have been working toward since the last millennium: projectvrm.org/2025/07/15/t...
The Cluetrain Will Run from Customers to Companies – ProjectVRM
For the good of both. Customers need privacy, respect, and the ability to provide good and helpful information to the companies they deal with. The good clues customers bring can include far more than...
projectvrm.org
July 16, 2025 at 12:47 AM
This post is about how both The Cluetrain Manifesto and The Intention Economy will finally come true. It's what many of us have been working toward since the last millennium: projectvrm.org/2025/07/15/t...
This is among the saddest things I've ever read: www.facebook.com/hammaduh/pos...
Hammad Ul Hassan
Pratik Joshi had been living in London for six years. A software professional, he’d long dreamed of building a life abroad for his wife and three young children, who stayed back in India.
After...
www.facebook.com
June 12, 2025 at 7:02 PM
This is among the saddest things I've ever read: www.facebook.com/hammaduh/pos...
I make a bet (more like a wish) at the end of doc.searls.com/2025/05/21/online-sports-betting-is-for-losers/
Online Sports Betting is for Losers
A few decades back my teenage son and I approached Las Vegas at night while traveling south on Interstate 15. When the skyline of the city began sparkling into view, the kid said, “Wow. Think…
doc.searls.com
May 22, 2025 at 12:45 AM
I make a bet (more like a wish) at the end of doc.searls.com/2025/05/21/online-sports-betting-is-for-losers/
Motherings: doc.searls.com/2025/05/11/t...
Motherings
Trump will be flying Qatar One instead of (or as) Air Force One: Aaaand,,,, Call your mother, if she’s still around. If she’s not, remember her anyway. I did that here. I’m pointi…
doc.searls.com
May 11, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Motherings: doc.searls.com/2025/05/11/t...