Congratulations to all my US friends on making it to the end of your epic 250 year experiment with democracy! May the subsequent imperial phase be mercifully brief and the aftermath painless.

Happy 55th Birthday, Project Gutenberg! Let's celebrate!🎉

Project Gutenberg was founded on July 4, 1971, when Michael Hart typed the U.S. Declaration of Independence into an early internet-connected computer and shared it with friends, making it the first digital text — though its official posting date is recorded as December 1, 1971. (And happy 250th, USA.)

The Declaration of Independence at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1

#ebooks #publicdomain

Only just now realising that the wish fulfilment of having a dedicated slave or polite servant might play a bigger role in the popularity of chatbots than I expected

I can be slow sometimes, but I also always thought the constant signals of servility these systems are made to exude were obviously distasteful, even when experienced second-hand through other people's reports

#wcurl is now two years old!

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/07/03/wcurl-is-here/

Idea: For the next installment in the “Game of Thrones” franchise, base the plot on the endless IETF meltdown about non-hybrid post-quantum cryptography.

The best write-up on the technology issues is, by far, from @sophieschmieg - https://keymaterial.net/2025/11/27/ml-kem-mythbusting/ - since it has a lot of math, I was thinking someone should write a story-oriented narrative, and the GoT scriptwriters have definitely shown the right skillset.

I decided against a link to the mailing-list archive, life is too short.

The @lwn web site is currently under the most intense scraper attack I have seen yet. 1.3M unique IP addresses within the last couple of hours, and it's not done yet. The work we have done on defenses appears to be paying off, though; the server is holding up reasonably well — so far.

...just in case anybody wonders why I have a rather dim view of the whole AI industry...

I am only halfway through this, but I had to stop twice thinking “I need to share this”. It is an enjoyable read, but also one where I pause constantly to think about each morsel.

So I am sharing now:

https://www.the-reframe.com/the-submerged-story/

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:tzy4hibtkautrntsz5f3ns37/post/3mpe5kh7ckc23

Okay I've watched my Star Wars as a young sapling and from then on like any healthy young lass, but wow this fucking thread elevated the whole thing for me:
https://blondejaneblonde.tumblr.com/post/656895555488874496/fandomrecycling-jumpingjacktrash-kyraneko

Into the hall of fame of Tumblr posts it goes! 😹

#StarWars

RE: https://fediscience.org/@petergleick/116805875893611216

Yes, today IS the day to talk about #climate change and it's growing impacts. And tomorrow is the day to talk about #climatechange, as is the day after and every day after that.
Silence is a disservice to humanity.

RE: https://mendeddrum.org/@terrybot/116802847296433056

Pterry predicted mechanical keyboard enthusiasts.

Maybe also Emacs users.

EU needs to make a stand on Play Integrity. If app devs enforce Play Integrity, this means only Google Certified devices can use banking, etc. This excludes all alternative mobile OS. No #postmarketOS, no #SailfishOS, no Android derivatives #GrapheneOS etc. You don't need Play Integrity. If someone is capable to install or use alternative OS, they sure know what to install or not install, it is on their responsibility. Using non-root but bootloader unlocked device (otherwise can't use alternative OS) does not make my device less secure. On the contrary, it is using an up to date OS with the latest security patches. Do we really want all mobile devices have to be Google Certified? No. #mobile #integrity #bootloader #unlocked #nonsense #Europe

"But what if it's good? You can't ban AI submissions completely because what if some of them are good?"

Respectfully, I think a number of AI fans have lost the plot with that argument.

For some people, the point of banning AI submissions is that there's been a deluge of slop submissions. The fact that AI bug reports or whatever are improving *may* turn them around on allowing them at some point. But, you know, let them come around on it on their own, mmmkay?

For many others, though, the point is that they don't want AI submissions, period, end of story. The quality could be excellent, but it does not matter. The point is that it's from an LLM and they object to that on principle. Whether one agrees with that or not, respect it, ok?

It's like arguing with a person who's a vegetarian or vegan, "But this tastes excellent! And the chicken was free-range and well-cared for right up until the moment it was killed. Didn't even see it coming. Joe Pecky thought he was going to a party, and then he got a quick one in the back of the head."

It's still chicken. And some people don't eat animals. Respect that, too.

I'm not going to lecture other people on their use of LLMs, etc., here. But please, stop lobbying everybody else to just give up and accept it, especially in open source.

The thing that makes open source special, when it is, is the human factor. It's building a community that cares about a project. Talking to other humans and working with them on problems. It's OK if that moves more slowly. What's the damn rush anyway?

Sure, the project itself is important, but so is the surrounding community. When that just becomes a bunch of prompt fondling and button pressing to unleash whatever the LLM spat out into a CI/CD pipeline to make its way into another CI/CD pipeline... what even is the point?

#LLMs #OpenSource

An offer of "free" LLM use made to developers in the GCC and glibc communities, which are full of developers who feel strongly about free software, was never going to be received with universal acclaim...

https://lwn.net/ml/all/aac20a98-a70e-4268-a758-316ac0407a16@redhat.com

It will be an interesting day when, after the inevitable rugpull happens, these tools cease being available for use without charge. Hopefully we will still remember how to write and review code.

Remember the #Hercules monochrome ISA graphics adapter?

I had one in the first PC I used – about ~37 years ago.

The driver for it was now removed from #Linux for Version 7.2: https://git.kernel.org/torvalds/c/37a91b995952a556a6eb90c31736ee773b86999c

#LinuxKernel #Linux

The #curl project will not accept or otherwise handle any vulnerability reports during the month of July 2026. We call it the curl summer of bliss.

https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2026/06/15/curl-summer-of-bliss/

I have a question for people who have been through really hard times. Not a bad day or a bad week, but extended periods of grinding, crushing hardship. (If you know, you know.)

My question is: what did other people do to support you that helped? Especially long distance friends (cf pandemic).

So many people I care about are struggling and deeply suffering. I want to find ways to be a better friend.

#AskFedi #Polycrisis

For-profit software companies — big & small — now typically mandate employees use #LLM-backed generative #AI.

I now have multiple reliable reports that many companies also mandate weekly token counts — used as a measure of human performance.

I also heard tale of an enterprising #FOSS developer who hooked the thing up to #Emacs UI & has it doing line-by-line edits to waste tokens.

This world is so strange now I'm worried that I slipped to a subtly different world in the #multiverse circa 2015.

"the language we are using about AI adoption is very similar to how Clayton Williams described rape.

“It’s happening whether you want it or not.”"

(Original title: How to use NO as a complete sentence)

https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-use-no-as-a-complete-sentence/

RE: https://social.ridetrans.it/@Andres4NY/116699359478980781

It's amazing how piracy was nearly wiped out by convenience and reasonable pricing, then brought straight back with greed and enshittification.

OH RIGHT

while yall are investgating alternate browsers, STAY AWAY FROM BRAVE

• run by homopobe and financial backer of other homophobes Brendan Eich

• crypto is all over the fucking thing. they drip feed users tiny amounts of crypto for unblocking certain ads and fill the home screen with crypto trackers and shit

• they "block ads" but inject their own affiliate links into sites you view

this is not the browser youre looking for

EDIT: i have muted this post. it's been two years stop replyguying me defending brave and vivaldi omfg. and also stop suggesting browsers, i already did that in this thread, tldr librewolf and ironfox, go away