Heya, Heya!

Before the presents land under the Christmas tree, we’re super happy and honored to reveal the name of our godfather for the 2026 edition: @corbet.

Huge thanks to him for giving us a bit of his time — we know how precious it is.

@bjst I too miss Rockbox - that was a great project. If somebody were looking for a similar project today, how about replacement firmware for the humble television with a better interface and no surveillance?

RE: https://mastodon.social/@bjst/115644471160611216

In 2017 Randall Munroe posted a strip called "Seven Years" about being the caregiver for a loved one dealing with cancer:

https://xkcd.com/1928/

That strip literally made me cry, it was such a clear telling of what that experience is like; much of it could have been about my own life.

Except that my own experience had a different ending.

Today he put out "Fifteen Years":

https://xkcd.com/3172/

This one made me want to cheer. What a joy to see a story that has played out so differently, so much better. I have never crossed paths with Mr. Munroe, but I rejoice in his and his family's good fortune as if he were a good friend.

Here's to many more years.

This was an IQ test.

EFF is asking for US folks to file comments on a proposed rules change that would make killing bad patents much harder.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/patent-office-about-make-bad-patents-untouchable

The company that provides LWN's health insurance just sent me a helpful thing about how a very small number of employees, those with expensive chronic conditions, drive the bulk of insurance claim costs.

We are far too small to have such a plan, but bigger companies pay their claim costs. As these companies lay people off, surely they wouldn't target the few employees that, we are being told, are the reason their health-insurance costs are going through the ceiling. The ones who most need the insurance they would stand to lose.

Right?

https://www.anthem.com/employer/the-benefits-guide/the-high-cost-reality-what-2024-trends-mean-for-self-funded-employers

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Reflect Orbital's fucking stupid giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky, is going to launch.

A bunch of astronomers and I have sent out a fact sheet about them to a bunch of journalists, but very few are going to write about this. So, let me try posting it all here.

Here's what I know about Reflect Orbital and all the downsides:

Here we are again: stunned, floored, full of hope, because of you–each of you wonderful humans in the #Python community. Since we shared the news about our withdrawal from the NSF grant opportunity two weeks ago, we have received over $160,000 in donations across nearly 2000 donors, which includes 313 new Members–WOW!

Ah ... a federal guarantee for AI financing ... somehow I thought this was all such a sure thing that they couldn't possibly need the government to bail them out?

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/if-you-thought-the-2008-bank-bailout

Had a nice visitor this afternoon

@Laberpferd @ewen @laird ...or they just have their own cellular interface...

https://lwn.net/Articles/850218/

@ewen OpenWrt makes setting up an alternative SSID trivially easy; there is really no reason *not* to do it. (And little reason not to run OpenWrt, but that's a separate story...)

"The manufacturer had the power to remotely disable devices and used it against me for blocking their data collection."

https://codetiger.github.io/blog/the-day-my-smart-vacuum-turned-against-me/

...and people wonder why I resist having that kind of stuff in my home...

@ansuz @dmarti An interesting list, but the absence of Kagi is a rather glaring hole ... I switched over a while ago and have not been even mildly tempted to look back.

@cstross Says 2025 is the pivot year where everything changes ... definitely worth a read.

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2025/10/the-pivot-1.html

@vbabka @cceckman Indeed it does; it's an amazingly insecure system saved only by the fact that things can be undone, for a period at least.

(I was once informed by the bank handling LWN's account that unauthorized withdrawals can be reliably reversed, but only within 24 hours of the event. That has a lot to do with why I compulsively check the account every day, rather than, say, the eternal hope that somehow a vast fortune will have materialized there overnight. But one can still hope.)

For whatever reason, I seem to have ended up with a position high on the list of people who, somebody thinks, are desperate to borrow money for their company from random people who show up offering it. It's generally at least a half-dozen phone calls and texts per day, plus all of the emails.

I'm guessing the scam is something like "we'll wire you the money right away, just give us your account number", or "the financing is all lined up, we just need you to pay an administrative fee first". I am not curious enough to find out.

It sure would be nice if all those bozos would go away.

Every town in Italy (as in much of Europe) has its own special cheese that is made only there. Still, this one, found in Norcia, struck me as a bit more special than most...

No, I didn't try it.

There are days when I feel like I want to find a different world to live in; this post from Kevin Kelly has brought that feeling to the fore. Consider:

Some authors have it backwards. They believe that AI companies should pay them for training AIs on their books. But I predict in a very short while, authors will be paying AI companies to ensure that their books are included in the education and training of AIs.

Or perhaps...

If a book can be more easily parsed by an AI, its influence will be greater. Therefore many books will be written and formatted with an eye on their main audience. Writing for AIs will become a skill like any other, and something you can get better at. Authors could actively seek to optimize their work for AI ingestion, perhaps even collaborating with AI companies to ensure their content is properly understood, and integrated.

Kevin has certainly consumed large amounts of Kool-Aid on this one. Personally, I plan to keep writing for humans, even if that is seemingly obsolete.

Taken in Porto last week - definitely a pretty place