“AI” is making me, and a lot of other people sad. This collection of links will give you an idea why…

I don’t think I really know when it happened—the “burnout”. It’s not something that happens all at once. Maybe you see it coming, you start to spot the signs. Or, if you’re like me, you don’t know it’s happened until months or years after being mired in the after-effects. I would slip… in… and out, of the conscious realization that I was indeed burned out. There were times I found myself very lucid, entirely aware of how burned out I had become. Through other spans of time I managed to disassociate entirely. How long was I there? I can’t honestly say. The entire lifecycle from burning out, to burned out, to realizing I was burned out, to recovery, is not a straight path, and not one that has some known, or widely-accepted timescale. Come to think of it, I really haven’t seen many accounts of severe burnout. I suppose that’s because those who experience it are likely too burned out to write about it. So, am I back? Hah! It’s not that simple unfortunately. But I am in a place where I feel that I can share my experience.

I recently came across MAESTRO—billed as a “novel threat modeling framework designed specifically for the unique challenges of Agentic AI.” I fancy myself a bit of a collector of threat modeling frameworks, so of course I decided to dig into the writeup to see what innovative ideas it brings that are uniquely applicable to the world of agentic AI systems. TL;DR—I don’t think its approach, the actual “framework” for modeling, is particularly novel. Rather, what this whitepaper usefully introduces (if anything) is a multi-layered, AI-specific, attack/threat catalog.

Howdy y’all 🧑‍🌾! Spring is just around the corner and as such, I’ve started thinking about what I’m goin’ to do gardenin’-wise in 2026. Last year was the first time I’ve ever tried to grow anything, so I wasn’t particularly ambitious. I grew some cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes which turned out amazing, and I harvested some blueberries from a bush that was already in the yard from before I bought the house. That’s it though. This year I’m planning on expanding the garden to additional zones and planting a wider variety of things. Exciting!

The year is 2026. AI has hollowed out what little humanity remained within the enshittified husks of the big tech slums us mortals digitally reside. Our privacy has been laid waste, our identities subjugated, our voices silenced, and our (digital) world sterilized. But this need not be our fate. A web revolution has begun my friends. What was once the nascent spark of a long lost web, is now a flourishing of digital gardens—personal sanctuaries on the net. It is there that once again people are free—to express themselves, to find others, to share their thoughts—without the fear of algorithmic oppression, corporate censorship and mass-assimilation. This revolution is known by many names—the “IndieWeb”, the “small web”, the “old web”—whatever you call it, it’s a more human web. A better web. Will you join us?

This month’s IndieWeb Carnival is Intersecting Interests. After giving it some thought, I’m not sure I have a particularly outstanding pair of intersecting interests, but there’s plenty of li’l junctions to speak of. Let’s see what I’ve got…

Here’s a blogging challenge inspired by theresmiling. “100 webmaster questions”, let’s go!

1. Please introduce yourself.

I am shellsharks and shellsharks means me! (IRL, folks call me Mike.)

I love the IndieWeb 🧡. For a lot of reasons—but one thing I particularly enjoy (as I’ve mentioned here and here for example) is the practice of “link-dumping”. Links are great, and in a world where search engines have just become essentially AI summary slop machines, having real, hard links to actual websites made by humans is a valuable thing. But discovery is tough. Singularly finding NON-AI slopsites is an exercise in itself. But collectively, we can make surfing easier and dare I say, kinda fun again?

Who are you on the web? Are you what your Linkedin says you are? Or your Facebook? What about Instagram? Mastodon? TikTok? Reddit? You probably wouldn’t say any one of those is really you. Each of these represent only a fraction of our collective self on the Internet, none of them truly embodying our real, complete personage as we want it known. We rent these spaces to share our fractured selves, but we don’t actually own our identities, our words or our relationships. They are locked inside each of the individual silos, for the gain of corporations, not for the welfare of we the people who give those spaces life and value.

To combat this digital decay, we have the IndieWeb, a movement engineered to reclaim our created content, establish more resilient communities and control exactly how and what we want to share with the world. The IndieWeb isn’t universal though, and it lacks some of the social capabilities we’ve come to know and enjoy that these other platforms possess. How can we reconcile the notion of using the IndieWeb as our singular, canonical point-of-presence on the Internet while also continuing to subordinate and store our content in the traditional, corporate-owned platforms? One answer, is PESOS.

OK! Checking in now on all things garden-ey from the past few weeks…

A place for me to keep record of my (coffee) cold brews. I’m no coffee tasting expert, but will add some notes as I go! ☕️

It’s time. I’m gettin’ into gardening. Have I grown anything ever? Nope. Do I simply adore the taste of a garden-fresh tomato? 100%. So, as is my custom, I’m going to attempt to document the journey—to include all the successes, failures, and hopefully delicious moments along the way.

Here’s a blogging challenge kicked off by Forking Mad. Here’s 10 “pointless” questions, and their answers, from me!

Here’s my submission to lazybea.rs series Over/Under. The idea is simple, Hyde gives me some topics and I state whether those things are overrated or underrated, with some text about why. Here were my chosen topics…

• Indieweb
• Slashpages
• Sharks are dangerous
• Ransomware
• Octopus dishes

Did you know if you have your own website, you can do whatever you want with it? Like… it doesn’t have to be all snobby or professional. Or like… some of it can, but some of it could just not be, y’know?

The CVE program is dying. Damn. ¹

What does this mean? What were CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) doin’ for us anyway? Are CVEs considered critical cybersecurity infrastructure? What are we gunna’ do now?! Panic!! Read on for more hyper-composed and ever-well-researched analysis! (Plus, plenty of related resources, per usual.)

Much digital ink has been spilt on the plight of the cybersecurity workforce. Is there a talent shortage? A skills gap? Other, darker issues? Here’s what I think…

This month I’ve decided to participate in my first IndieWeb Carnival—a once-a-month writing prompt organized by the IndieWeb.org community. This month’s prompt is “Renewal”, hosted by Jamie Thingelstad.

There’s a lot on my mind lately in regards to this term—“Renewal”. I recently moved into a new house and with it I have a yard. The yard has a lot of plants and trees that are now flowering—cherry blossom, red bud, skip laurel, rhododendron and more! This is my first spring here so it has been fun to see what bloomed, and given me an opportunity to learn more about these plants.

If you’ve got something to say, something to share, something that others might be interested in—why not just put it on your blog?

This week’s Blog Questions Challenge is called “Nature Appreciation”.

Home is a place of comfort. Home has that particular smell. Home is where our stuff is. Its halls you know so well. It’s where we gather with friends, and the decor is uniquely you. It may have cracks in the foundations, and another issue or two. It won’t ever be perfect, always a work-in-progress. But home is home, and you love it nonetheless.

A website, your own personal website, is just like this—a digital home, on the web. With all the same comforts, familiarities and problems that need-a-fixin’. You can design it how you want, add rooms (pages), invite friends over, paint the walls, hang some art, share your recipes, get some much-needed peace and quiet, anything! But unlike actual home ownership, it’s a lot more attainable (financially-speaking).

Indieweb.txt is an idea for sharing information about one’s indie site with the world. It is a proposal which resembles other plain-text, web-bourne, information-sharing documents such as humans.txt and security.txt. As initially proposed, it would contain information such as the tools one uses to implement IndieWeb capabilities, information on Indie-Web-related strategies employed by the webmaster and writings on why the site owner has embraced the IndieWeb.¹

This is an idea / proposal to extend indieweb.txt with a new section I’ve dubbed “Reference Information” (I’m open to better ideas for the name). Its usecase(s) are somewhat simple. It is a place for you, an owner of an IndieWeb site, to share information about how you would like to be referenced on other sites.

This is the Manual of Style for Shellsharks.com. It details the conventions and other practices used for writing, editing, styling and generally composing content across the site.

Here’s a list of things I wish I had known before I set out on my blogging / site-making / IndieWeb journey. (In no particular order)

Had I known these, and carefully considered each, I would have saved myself A LOT of time fixing stuff, and even now, would have a lot less things to fix and add. For example, my CSS files are a mess, I have a lot of poorly managed inline .JS everywhere, accessiblity nightmares abound and much more… Learn from my mistakes!

Here’s another Blog Questions Challenge. This week, it’s all about Travel Adventures!

My site is over 5 years old at this point, and in that time I have had several noteworthy site redesigns. In between those big remodels, I’ve also been near-constantly tweaking design elements, and tinkering with the CSS styling. Along the way, I’ve discovered certain site decor and design choices that I think are pleasing. Now I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which makes this quite subjective. I also am very aware that my site is probably riddled with CSS-related atrocities, accessibility faux pas, and other web design best-practice deviations. But, with all that said, here are some things I have done with my site up to this point that I think make it look and feel great. They are what make it enjoyable for me to just scroll around on and experience, even when I’m not looking for anything in particular. Sometimes I just browse and click about enjoying the UX I’ve put together.

I am procrastinating. Like, right now I’m doing it. I’ve got a ton of other more important things to work on - at home, at my job, even for my site. I gotta do taxes for example, *blegh*! But, I kinda don’t have the energy, or don’t feel like it, or just saw something else shiny to work on instead (e.g. this post). I am great at procrastinating. World-class even. This site makes for a fantastic vehicle by which I can constructively procrastinate. Because you see, it’s not like I’m sittin’ around doin’ nothing. I’m creating! I’m working on my site. Yeah, I’m procrastinating, sure. But what comes out of it all is something I’m proud of. So it’s completely justified right? I’m sure you’re nodding your head right now in agreement, and I appreciate that.

Documented below are the guiding principles by which I approach how I work on, and write for shellsharks. These tenets are foundational across my site and are core to who I am as a human.

I enjoy writing, it’s why I have this blog. But my style is far from perfect in the technical sense. I’m very aware of the many interesting and possibly unique writing quirks and habits I have. So, here I reflect on and catalog those distinct writing mannerisms.

Joan Westenberg recently published a (relatively short) post titled “The Only Metrics That Matter” where she calls out a number of toxic metrics that a lot of sites and site-owners obsess over, i.e. page views, time-on-site, bounce rates, etc.. She (expertly, as usual) calls out that these are the focus because of the ad-supported business model that the modern web survives on, and that that system is not one she cares to participate in with her own site and writing. Can’t disagree with any of what she’s said so far. But she loses me a bit with the next bit. She goes on to say that…