My Fediverse Digest for October 2025
A monthly digest of my thoughts, links, and updates from the Fediverse for October 2025.
Sep 30
09:11 PM
As of this update
- moved npm run build work and nginx for fudge.org back to my Akamai Linode VPS
- decided to get off of the “free” netlify tier which kept threatening to charge me for build minutes at various percentage levels
- netlify was not that much faster than the already paid VPS running GoToSocial (previously Mastodon)
- cloudflare is still in front as the proxy but working on the migration to Fastly
Oct 01
12:12 PM
Testing to see if #e14n is a thing
Oct 03
11:12 PM
Long weekend.
🔍 Starting scan in ‘…/fudge-org-eleventy-excellent-4.3.0/src/posts’…
✅ Found 743 Markdown file(s).
— External Image Host Report (Markdown + HTML) —
Found a total of 404 external images from 25 unique domains.
Domain (FQDN) Image Count
---------------------------------------- -----------
assets.buttondown.email 302
buttondown-attachments.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com 40
images.unsplash.com 18
cuthrell.com 17
live.staticflickr.com 5
substackcdn.com 3
upload.wikimedia.org 1
storage.googleapis.com 1
www.alcf.anl.gov 1
spectrum.ieee.org 1
media.licdn.com 1
help.apple.com 1
ieeexplore.ieee.org 1
i.ebayimg.com 1
www.cnet.com 1
news.microsoft.com 1
oxide-computer.imgix.net 1
d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net 1
www.insightpartners.com 1
kstatic.googleusercontent.com 1
assets-global.website-files.com 1
files.mastodon.social 1
api.netlify.com 1
www.fooddive.com 1
buttondown-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com 1
— End of Report —
Oct 05
01:20 PM
Sunday means one thing…
Unexpected token ‘}’ (via SyntaxError)
03:45 PM
Slow progress but ~60% progress it is
0) Delete cache
1) run DEBUG=Eleventy:Fetch* npx eleventy | tee build.log
First Build (Cache Warming) Result:
[11ty] Copied 68 Wrote 1558 files in 1132.55 seconds (726.9ms each, v3.1.1)
2) run DEBUG=Eleventy:Fetch* npx eleventy | tee build.log
Second Build (Using the Cache) Result:
[11ty] Copied 68 Wrote 1558 files in 451.08 seconds (289.5ms each, v3.1.1)
Oct 07
12:43 AM
Upgraded to Eleventy Excellent 4.3.3 by @lene
$ time ELEVENTY_ENV=production NODE_OPTIONS=–max-old-space-size=1536 npm run build:11ty
[… cache hits galore …]
[11ty] Copied 18 Wrote 1547 files in 63.73 seconds (41.2ms each, v3.1.2)
real 1m6.851s
user 0m58.564s
sys 0m3.717s
🤯
09:11 PM
Getting closer…
Oct 08
09:17 PM
The hardest part was finding LinkedIn documentation that wasn’t consistently… wrong.
https://github.com/JayCuthrell/buttondown-python-scripts
but…
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7381854148394196992/
Oct 09
09:42 AM
As Google Cloud begins to break free from association of being developer focused towards more Enterprise aware, the adoption curves and ROI will be akin to a bingo card of fights to come in adjacent use case that stress existing partnerships. ie the A16Z AI Apps 50
Oct 12
12:59 AM
When I first started using Google Workspace (Apps) it was $4.44 per seat a month in 2012. Now, that same seat is going to be $14.00 per month. The moral of this story is that Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace prices on the low end are probably going to be anchored to each other for the foreseeable future.
Oct 13
10:13 PM
1995: Heat
“It comes to you, this stuff just flies through the air” – Kelso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziv7z-P4Gqc
2025: Researchers
"[…] our suspicion was that it would all be encrypted […] And just time and time again, every time we found something new, it wasn’t”
Oct 17
08:54 PM
✅ Final Thoughts Friday for 2025-10-17
Ping. Power. Plate. This was the appeal of a data center.
The biggest story of the week was the $40B acquisition of ping, POWER, and plate represented by Aligned Data Centers.
An investment consortium of BlackRock, GIP, MGX, NVIDIA, xAI, and Microsoft in a deal to buy data centers capable of delivering up to 5GW of power is a clear signal that the AI physical infrastructure is some of the most valuable real estate on the planet but not because of square footage or views of the city, mountains, or a body of water. Rather, $8M/MW, is less about the cost of land and buildings and more about securing a vast and strategic portfolio of power capacity that is essential to energize hardware that supports AI workloads.
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/final-thoughts-friday-for-2025-10-17/
Oct 18
09:09 PM
🔮 Sneak Peak Saturday for 2025-10-18
Once again, we sift through the digital aftermath of a Friday news cycle to find the story that was meant to be a footnote, not a headline. This week’s selection is from Google’s 5+ year saga to end third-party cookies with the Privacy Sandbox initiative.
Paradoxically, it will be Google’s Privacy Sandbox and key technologies going away after years of regulatory debates followed by detours. So, enjoy those not-quite-dead-yet third-party cookies with a nice tall glass of spilled privacy milk. 🍪🥛
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/sneak-peak-saturday-for-2025-10-18/
Oct 19
12:40 PM
Fun quirk of Google Gemini coding partner gem web interface when working on python3 scripts… HTML comments seem to be tossed away in code blocks.
editor_mode_comment = “”
becomes
editor_mode_comment = “”
01:01 PM
🌶️ Hot Fudge Sunday for 2025-10-19
My takeaways from the week:
📈 Markets Monday: Rallies for quantum, semiconductors, and energy
🔥 Hot Takes Tuesday: AI funding frenzy continues without pause
🤪 Wacky Wednesday: Competition for eyeballs among streaming giants
🔙 Throwback Thursday: From “app economy” to 5G and lidar democratization
✅ Final Thoughts Friday: AI is built on a foundation of ping, power, and plate
🔮 Sneak Peak Saturday: Third-party cookies and paradoxical detours
Read the full email here:
https://fudge.org/archive/hot-fudge-sunday-for-2025-10-19/
09:45 PM
Thinking out loud…
I tried gist recipes for turning things off in MacOS to squeeze more workload potential out of my 2020 M1 MacBook Air with 16 GB (the most memory I’ve ever personally owned in any device). But, it is often humbling (or impossible for me at least) to try that same workload on my Linode 2 GB Shared CPU VPS.
Maybe, assuming the AI infrastructure boom results in a similar gluttonous ramp of value chain output for DRAM and NVRAM, it might be the setting for a repeat of the HDD to SSD cost curves convergence from a decade or so ago when the flooding impacted lives where HDD were being manufactured.
Those cute little NVIDIA DGX Spark boxes are appearing more in my social feeds. It’s like you can see a time where GDDRx:DRAM:NVRAM in laptops/workstations will give way to finding a golden ratio for onboard AI workloads where HBM:GDDRx:DRAM:NVRAM and onboard CXL makes personal computing compress the span of time between what was HPC and what we come to expect as general purpose computing.
Oct 21
07:56 PM
🔥 Hot Takes Tuesday for 2025-10-21
💰 + 🤖 Funding for AI-anything companies continues.
- ChipAgents (agentic AI for chip design): $21M
- Serval (agentic AI for IT): $47M
- Findem (AI talent acquisition): $51M
- Anrok (AI for sales tax): $55M
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/hot-takes-tuesday-for-2025-10-21/
Oct 22
11:24 PM
🤪 Wacky Wednesday for 2025-10-22
Wacky. Wayback. Whoa.
Wacky Wonderful
- The scene.
- The build.
- The fill.
Wayback
- News is made.
- Plans are laid.
- Predictions on parade.
Whoa
- Updated declarative.
- Scant details narrative.
- A future “remember when…?” comparative.
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/wacky-wednesday-for-2025-10-22/
Oct 24
11:39 PM
🔙 Throwback Thursday for 2025-10-23
It’s time for another trip in the wayback machine.
5 Years Ago: October 23, 2020
Quibi was the short-form video service… with a short lifespan.
10 Years Ago: October 23, 2015
The US Government was insisting Apple should… decrypt data on iOS devices.
15 Years Ago: October 23, 2010
Netflix had started testing streaming-only plans… vs. DVD by mail.
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/throwback-thursday-for-2025-10-23/
Oct 25
12:42 AM
✅ Final Thoughts Friday for 2025-10-24
🔌 The big story this week was a push to plug AI data centers into the power grid, faster.
For perspective, this would require approvals of new power grid connections for data centers in terms of months vs. years.
Perhaps the AI companies will donate data center excess heat to warm homes in the winter as a form of industrial symbiosis in a circular economy.
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/final-thoughts-friday-for-2025-10-24/
06:10 PM
So far so good. Markdown posts seem to be very functional (outside of tables) and 5000 characters is plenty of room. #gotosocial
06:19 PM
Observation: BART has come a long way since my first ride so many years ago.
- Clipper app is functional.
- Park and ride long term parking prices are reasonable.
- Digital signage is improved.
- Surfaces are easier to clean.
- No more carpets.
11:09 PM
🔮 Sneak Peak Saturday for 2025-10-25
HP is coming to… the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
On the surface, it’s just HP doing what global companies do, which is building products closer to the markets they serve. In this case, building millions of PCs in Saudi Arabia for export to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
However, this Friday news dump timing makes more sense as the entire political narrative in the US is focused on bringing high-tech manufacturing back to American soil. Still, for a flagship American company like HP to make a major manufacturing announcement outside the US is a daring move against the current political grain even on a slow news Friday.
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/sneak-peak-saturday-for-2025-10-25/
Oct 26
10:40 PM
i unsubscribed from all substack newsletters because i can
Oct 28
12:01 AM
Come for the footer. Stay for the selective omissions.
“The content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.”
https://www.techmeme.com/251027/p41#a251027p41
09:58 PM
@ 10:36 🤯
https://www.youtube.com/live/RESslu3Bhuk?si=LRc2MSaRoGI6WMiL
10:05 PM
🔥 Hot Takes Tuesday for 2025-10-28
💰 + 🤖 Funding for AI-anything companies continues.
• Mem0 (AI cross-device memory passport): $24M
• ConductorOne (AI identity security): $79M
• Substrate (US chip making): $100M+
• Whatnot (AI-assisted livestream marketplace): $225M
• The Bot Company (AI household robots): $250M
• Fireworks AI (AI developer platform): $254M
• Mercor (AI contractor marketplace): $350M
• Wealthsimple (AI-powered robo advisor investing): $538M
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/hot-takes-tuesday-for-2025-10-28
Oct 29
09:19 PM
🤪 Wacky Wednesday for 2025-10-29
First, a wacky wonderful video. Second, a wayback nostalgia tome. Third, a whoa we’re getting older moment.
Wacky Wonderful
- Custom displays
- SoC brain
- Groundhogs Day?
Wayback
First ARPANET connection (1969)
- “LO” rider
- System crashed
- First 404?
Whoa
High-Speed Interstellar Travel via via Sentiers No.376
- Starship dreams
- Physics-bending
- Interstellar paparazzi?
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/wacky-wednesday-for-2025-10-29/
Oct 30
08:59 PM
🔙 Throwback Thursday for 2025-10-30
What was buzzing 5, 10, and 15 years ago today?
5 Years Ago: October 30, 2020
An East Texas jury awarded VirnetX ~$0.5B against Apple for patent infringement (but Apple appealed and won a ~3 years later).
10 Years Ago: October 30, 2015
Amazon Fire(d) all competing devices from Apple and Google from the retail platform (but allowed both back ~2 years later).
15 Years Ago: October 30, 2010
Apple took legal actions against Motorola after Motorola took legal actions against Apple (and others).
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/throwback-thursday-for-2025-10-30
Oct 31
07:54 PM
✅ Final Thoughts Friday for 2025-10-31
The story that completely eclipsed tech earnings week was OpenAI’s pivot.
OpenAI is now a very much for-profit, giving Microsoft a ~27% stake in exchange for a $250B+ Big MACC (Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment), and putting a potential $1T IPO into motion.
Apparently, the pursuit of “benefit for all humanity” includes a vesting schedule.
Read the full post here: https://fudge.org/archive/final-thoughts-friday-for-2025-10-31
