Gavin Brown
(·𐑜𐑨𐑝𐑦𐑯 𐑚𐑮𐑬)
DNS geek, nerd, dad.
This is a personal account.
https://gavinbrown.xyz
- .SG (the ccTLD for Singapore) gained an RDAP server yesterday! More data at deployment.rdap.org
- Reposted by Gavin BrownAncient 21st century curse: may the thing you depend upon get bought by a billionaire
- My monitoring script broke and I missed it, but some time in the last 6 weeks, the .gov TLD gained an RDAP server! As did .as, .ng and .to! More details at deployment.rdap.org #rdap
- Reposted by Gavin Brown*I blame Marxist AIs

- Reposted by Gavin BrownThe pivot from 'we shouldn't bother with Net Zero 'cause China' to 'How does China have a massive lead in so many key 21st century technologies' doesn't seem to have caused any reflection at all from quite a few parties.
- How have I only learned about this story today?!
- Reposted by Gavin Brown100% tariff on the MM/DD/YY format.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownWith #Greenland raising awareness of our massive 24/7 dependence on US clouds for vital services, I made a list of what (government) stuff would break here under US sanctions. It is EXTREMELY depressing. Tip: also make a list like this one for your own country! berthub.eu/articles/pos...
- Reposted by Gavin Browni would suggest an online safety act that can’t deal with CSAM on a widely used social network frequented by most westminster public figures isn’t doing a very good job of keeping anybody safe online
- Reposted by Gavin BrownSome of us were warning about this well over a decade ago. Same with pictures of your kids.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownOpen up this picture fully. Then look at the surface of Mars. Then look up to the top right. Spot Mars' moon Phobos high in the sky. Then notice the bright spot beside Phobos. That's Earth.
- Reposted by Gavin Brownanother robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls
- Reposted by Gavin BrownData is important. Keep him safe.
- Reposted by Gavin Brown(The answer, for anyone blessedly too young to remember is: Yes. Yes it did.)
- Reposted by Gavin BrownTurns out a million monkeys on a million typewriters will generate `sudo rm -rf /` quite expeditiously!
- My family on school day mornings.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownMy analysis. Polarisation does not exist in way it's to often described ('echo chambers'). But the mechanism can be exploited in propaganda, disinformation, mechanical information operations. Bonus: agreement with 'enemies of the group' is penalised socially. blog.lukaszolejnik.com/polarisation...
- Reposted by Gavin BrownThe only surefire way to stop oligarchs buying up the things we love is to drop those things the moment oligarchs buy them & that requires changing habits and massive self-discipline. It means going to alternatives that might not be quite as good or convenient. It’s really hard. But there it is.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownI believe that NVIDIA is breaking no laws, committing no fraud, and not doing anything other than forcing partners to buy endless GPUs, taking advantage of exec ignorance and FOMO. Repercussions will be the company's main revenue source going away (NVDA won't die)
- Reposted by Gavin BrownMark Zuckerberg’s gamble on the "Metaverse" has lost his company more than $77 billion.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownGreat culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard
- Reposted by Gavin Brown
- Reposted by Gavin BrownWhen I’m accused of “technopessimism“ I counter that I’m not “pessimistic about technology“; I am opposed to the economic, political, and social project of upward wealth transfer that “AI” is being leveraged to bring about. If that phrasing is useful to others, then go ahead and use it.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownTakes a few seconds and this is definitely needed so please do your bit. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...
- Reposted by Gavin Brown“6-7” belongs in the dictionary, actually In defense of @dictionarycom.bsky.social's Word of the Year Website: linguisticdiscovery.com/posts/67/ Substack: linguisticdiscovery.substack.com/p/67
- It... wasn't DNS blog.cloudflare.com/18-november-...
- Reposted by Gavin BrownDuring this cloudflare outage, let me supply you with this wisdom of the ages: “single point of failure” can be sung to the tune of “all the single ladies”
- RDAP.org was supposed to have maintenance today (to switch to a new backend) but it seems like Cloudflare is having a moment, so the maintenance window will be postponed until things settle down...
- Reposted by Gavin BrownLondon is also diverse. It's hugely multicultural, and it's a largely tolerant and welcoming place. Sure it has it's problems and the housing crisis is a big one. But the haters don't hate this city because of that. They hate it because it stands as living proof that multiculturalism works.
- "It is easier to deceive many than one" - Herodotus, via @fallofcivilizations.com
- Reposted by Gavin BrownOh look. There really are "no go areas" in England. And they're marked by St George's flags www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
- Reposted by Gavin BrownGandhi’s Talisman. Unfortunately for too many world leaders their doubts are dissolving in a way Gandhi did not anticipate.
- Reposted by Gavin Brown
- Reposted by Gavin BrownIf we're starting another quantum hype cycle, I need people to understand that there are pretty much just two practical problems we *know* have an exponential speedup on a quantum computer. These are: 1. Breaking the internet 2. Being quantum A few other problems have a smaller speedup, or none
- Reposted by Gavin Brownthe password to the louvre surveillance server was "louvre" www.thesocialpost.it/2025/11/02/f...
- Reposted by Gavin BrownThe options are: broad based tax rises and good public services; no tax rises and acceptance that the state does meaningfully less; or keep promising someone else can pay, failing, and populists winning and making everything much worse.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownAI: It’s The Sam Old Story From the new Private Eye, out now.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownThis year's Batman annual still remembers who the heroes and villains are, even if everyone else has forgotten
- Reposted by Gavin BrownLong thread here but, honestly, put five minutes into it and it will make you think useful thoughts about what being alive is.
- Just play cricket instead. Really.
- Reposted by Gavin Browni am so ready for quantum to be the next dumb buzzword the tech industry forces everyone to pretend to care about. "how are you incorporating quantum into your daily work?" i'm not but it's so refreshing you asked me a new and different stupid question
- Reposted by Gavin BrownYay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.
- Reposted by Gavin Brownokay i need you to watch this i picked up like 10 separate vocal stims from this one fucking video
- Amazon has blamed today's massive outage on the "DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1." @kentik.bsky.social observed a complete drop-off in traffic to this particular AWS service beginning at 06:55 UTC. Thousands of services around the world were impacted.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownThe internet gods are displeased. (This is the level of my understanding). And this means I can’t access my bank account and my doorbell isn’t working.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownWith the AWS outage, now‘s as good a time as any to post this old strip.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownThe post-Winamp era of computing is straight up dogshit.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownRemember our mantra: Don't Engage, Just Block.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownNEWS! 'Elite' now somehow an insult newsthump.com/2025/10/17/e...
- Reposted by Gavin BrownPeople on Facebook who say they have been hacked, have really given away their password and login details to a page to find out what they would look like if they were a potato.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownThe Uncanny Valet
- Reposted by Gavin BrownAll my comics have happy endings!
- People, remember to renew your domain names!
- Blast from the past: @rorycj.bsky.social doing a segment for BBC News from the new gTLD "reveal day" back in 2012.
- Reposted by Gavin Brown[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Gavin BrownThis is not just theoretical now.
- Reposted by Gavin BrownIf you're currently a user of OpenDNSSEC, you might find this new KB article about migrating from OpenDNSSEC to BIND 9 useful: kb.isc.org/docs/migrati... And if you'll be at the #oarc45 meeting next week in Stockholm, several ISC staff members will also be there and would love to chat with you!
- Reposted by Gavin BrownNew! Cassetteboy vs Keir Starmer. This took absolutely ages, so if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi.com/cassetteboy we'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
- New favourite band name
- Reposted by Gavin BrownMandatory ID cards are a terrible, terrible idea iandunt.substack.com/p/id-cards-a...
- Reposted by Gavin BrownAlba Bossoms Mesa: ‘From rock art to cave walls: exploring new sources of ancient human DNA’ Can we get aDNA from cave art 😍?? Test: 11 sites from Iberia (300 libraries!) 5 cases w HUMAN mtDNA !!! Nuclear DNA ongoing: but suggestion of male/female diffs on use of pigments; + pop ID (WHG)
- Reposted by Gavin Brown🤘NEW EPISODE🤘 Is listening to heavy metal a life hack? Today on Why?, @emmakennedy.bsky.social is joined by journalist for Independent Nurse and self confessed metal head Sumaiyah Uddin to find out how mosh pits could be the path to mental wellbeing ➡️ linktr.ee/whypodcast #metal #concerts #music