Jonathan Corbet
Posts
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
One of these days I'll do a routine update on a BigBlueButton server and not have to spend the rest of the day figuring out why BBB doesn't work anymore.
This is not that day.
This is not that day.
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Repeating this again, from a different perspective: when your precious AI buddy requires hitting niche forges multiple million times a day, that is a cost your precious buddy generates.
Whenever a legit human visitor's browser has to solve an Anubis challenge, that is a cost your precious AI buddy generated.
Whenever you use these tools, these are the costs you push down onto others. Your precious AI buddies cost us countless hours of CPU time, bandwidth, and incredible headache trying to fend them off.
If you are using genAI for any purpose whatsoever, you are party to this carnage.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
"Over 70% of Business Insider employees are already using Enterprise ChatGPT regularly (our goal is 100%), and we’re building prompt libraries and sharing everyday use cases that help us work faster, smarter, and better."
...part of a memo explaining why the company is laying of 21% of its staff.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benjamin-mullin-b99abb35_scoop-business-insider-is-cutting-21-percent-activity-7333836611815661569-g4qk/
LWN is still 100% human-written content, and we intend to stay that way. We'll see how long the world lets us do that.
...part of a memo explaining why the company is laying of 21% of its staff.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benjamin-mullin-b99abb35_scoop-business-insider-is-cutting-21-percent-activity-7333836611815661569-g4qk/
LWN is still 100% human-written content, and we intend to stay that way. We'll see how long the world lets us do that.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
So I just learned that May is "Open Source Maintainer Month" — I almost missed it!
What happens in Open Source Maintainer Month? It appears that maintainers get all kinds of opportunities for discounts on proprietary services. I definitely feel appreciated now.
https://thenewstack.io/how-the-world-is-celebrating-open-source-maintainer-month/
What happens in Open Source Maintainer Month? It appears that maintainers get all kinds of opportunities for discounts on proprietary services. I definitely feel appreciated now.
https://thenewstack.io/how-the-world-is-celebrating-open-source-maintainer-month/
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
For $REASONS, we ended up deciding to move the LWN.net Mastodon feed in a bit of a hurry. The good news is that we now are able to appear under our own domain as @LWN. It looks like the migration magic has dragged about half of our followers (so far) along with us; the ability to relocate like that is a nice feature.
We're still figuring out various details of how to make the new server work well; please pardon any rough edges.
We're still figuring out various details of how to make the new server work well; please pardon any rough edges.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
20 Years ago: the BitKeeper license changed, making it unavailable for kernel development.
https://lwn.net/Articles/130746/
It drove home the perils of relying on proprietary software and spurred the creation of Git - a significant event, overall.
https://lwn.net/Articles/130746/
It drove home the perils of relying on proprietary software and spurred the creation of Git - a significant event, overall.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Today I got a cheery email from somebody who claims to be the "ethics and compliance" officer for a company called Bright Data. He wanted to have a "no pressure" conversation about the whole AI scraperbot problem. Looking at their web site, this company offers an API that, and I quote, "Bypasses anti-scraping mechanisms and solves CAPTCHAs, ensuring uninterrupted access to the most protected web sites".
After careful consideration for several milliseconds, I have concluded that I really don't have anything to discuss with this person.
But at least their claimed "100M+" of residential IP addresses that they use for their DDOS attacks are "ethically sourced".
After careful consideration for several milliseconds, I have concluded that I really don't have anything to discuss with this person.
But at least their claimed "100M+" of residential IP addresses that they use for their DDOS attacks are "ethically sourced".
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
So my phone (a Pixel 7) has picked up the habit of randomly rebooting for unknown reasons. It seems to be getting worse.
Once upon a time, I used to look forward, at least a little bit, to getting a new phone. Shinier better hardware, a software update, there was something I got out of the deal, even when I wasn't really feeling that I wanted to buy another hunk of electronic stuff.
When I think of a new phone now, I think of fending of a bunch of new AI crap, of trying to track down and fix a hundred different privacy settings that, mysteriously, don't get copied from the old device, and generally just trying to get back to where I am now.
In other words, it's not that I'm not excited about getting a new phone; I actively don't want that new phone.
Maybe I'll just go back to the land line.
Once upon a time, I used to look forward, at least a little bit, to getting a new phone. Shinier better hardware, a software update, there was something I got out of the deal, even when I wasn't really feeling that I wanted to buy another hunk of electronic stuff.
When I think of a new phone now, I think of fending of a bunch of new AI crap, of trying to track down and fix a hundred different privacy settings that, mysteriously, don't get copied from the old device, and generally just trying to get back to where I am now.
In other words, it's not that I'm not excited about getting a new phone; I actively don't want that new phone.
Maybe I'll just go back to the land line.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
The current OSI fun reminds me of an article I wrote just under 20 years ago... https://lwn.net/Articles/148792/
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Ah the memories one finds at the bottom of a desk drawer... Once upon a time this was a really cool thing.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
I have ... opinions ... on the current course of the US federal government, and have been doing my best to make sure that my elected congresscritters know about them.
When you put in a message on Senator Bennet's web site, as with all of them, they want you to pick a topic. Only today did I notice that one of them is, literally, "Internet & Technology". I guess I'll have to advise them of my opinions on excessive entity escaping too...
When you put in a message on Senator Bennet's web site, as with all of them, they want you to pick a topic. Only today did I notice that one of them is, literally, "Internet & Technology". I guess I'll have to advise them of my opinions on excessive entity escaping too...
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Jonathan Corbet
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John Skiles Skinner
skiles@carhenge.clubI got laid off today, with the rest of 18F.
18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it.
We made this website to tell our story:
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
US politics
Show content
So, while I think this article declares victory a bit too soon, I think we also need the occasional optimistic view that we may actually get through this administration.
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-24-trump-coup-has-failed/
(by way of @pluralistic)
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-24-trump-coup-has-failed/
(by way of @pluralistic)
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Just after my last post on solar power, I got a cheery email from "SunStrong", the company taking over from SunPower, which has gone bankrupt. It seems that if I want to get historical data or performance data for individual panels (which I own) out of the monitoring system (which I own) installed in my house, I will have to pay them $100/year.
...or perhaps I can just use the data I've collected into Home Assistant via the SunPower integration and tell them to take a hike ...
My one question is whether they have the ability to push a firmware load and enshittify things further; I think the time may be coming to take the monitoring box off the net.
...or perhaps I can just use the data I've collected into Home Assistant via the SunPower integration and tell them to take a hike ...
My one question is whether they have the ability to push a firmware load and enshittify things further; I think the time may be coming to take the monitoring box off the net.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Many cultures celebrate solar events — solstices and such — and that is a fine tradition. My variant of that is to celebrate the first day of the year when the solar panels generate more power than the house uses, running the meter backward overall. Thanks to some warm weather, that was yesterday... spring is coming!
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Far too many years ago, Rit Carbone hired me as a student assistant at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. My first job was delineating data from early doppler radars into structured scans — and creating a deck of punched cards describing each tape from the radar. It was an amazing way to start a career.
I am deeply saddened to hear that Rit is gone, he was a great scientist and a great man.
https://www.rit-memorial.com/
I am deeply saddened to hear that Rit is gone, he was a great scientist and a great man.
https://www.rit-memorial.com/
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
On the radar: should there be an OpenWrt Two router device?
https://lwn.net/ml/all/56022ffa-2e71-4335-ae3c-418552e7e088@phrozen.org
...as if anybody is going to say "no"...
https://lwn.net/ml/all/56022ffa-2e71-4335-ae3c-418552e7e088@phrozen.org
...as if anybody is going to say "no"...
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