Breaking character: Ken White has a fantastic post about how "free speech culture" undermines free speech. It's something I've thought about a lot before, but Ken knows way more about it than I do and explains it really well. www.popehat.com/p/how-free-s...

At India FOSS last weekend, I spoke about daydreaming with a Raspberry Pi and DIY homelab server racks. It starts at ≈57:40 in the livestream here. Half hour of your time. www.youtube.com/live/FtF-I0-... Instructions: jackerhack.ing/notes/202503...

Preach.

This reminded me of another Nehru story on these lines:

TIL the Dyson Sphere is satire. Freeman Dyson was likely frustrated at limited resources being wasted on utopian projects, so he proposed his own utopia of unlimited resources. Hahaha! youtu.be/fLzEX1TPBFM

Farewell.

On the early morning drive to meet with the departed, I found potholes marked with yellow gravestones. An invitation to occupy if the destination is too far. Two commuters made a dash to retrieve their helmet, asserting against the inevitable: not today.

Why is there a black actor in blackface in this film? What is this supposed to mean?

former kids who read too many books and didnt know how to pronounce the words you learned gang say hey

Delicious toast.

Debian/Ubuntu (and RPiOS, etc) users, what's your cope for Debian's glacially slow package updates? What's your goto secondary package manager? Snap? Nix? Homebrew? Mise? Asdf? Bespoke PPAs? Assuming not Flatpak as that's desktop-only.

As a teacher, can confirm. My admin has suggested its use for lesson planning. I know of plenty of teachers using it rn. I’ve always said, if ai can do your job, why would someone pay you to do it. I think it’s only going to get worse and less smart teachers will be teaching your kids.

How do you manage your SSH private keys? Separate keys on each of your devices? Stored in secure enclave where available? Or the same key(s), copied over manually? Or via a password manager that has ssh-agent functionality? Life was simple when I only had a laptop and phone. Now I need a plan.

Every interaction I have with an LLP feels like I'm interviewing an intern with trick questions. Confidently wrong answer, gotcha moment, then fervent apology because they don't want to lose the opportunity. When are we getting the flying car delivery of an LLM we can rely on?

Wanted: a password manager extension that will also fish out “verify email” links from email, because that is the only thing I use email for anymore.

It's the weekend, baby

Dear Amazon, could you please slow down on your sales extravaganza so I can checkout once in a while?

Amazed this exists. With every passing day one can feel the transition of the Western tech ecosystem turning downstream of Chinese tech. Everything in emerging hardware is Chinese-first. Sharp contrast with India, where the only thing we're exporting is KYC.

I have another unicorn product request. What's a DAC that's also a digital audio mixer with multiple simultaneous digital inputs (USB/HDMI/BT) and independent controls? Fosi Audio ZD3 has inputs but isn't a mixer. Behringer Flow 8 has 1xBT+1xUSB×2 but sharing one volume fader.

Music Assistant is the first genuinely great thing I've stumbled into this year. All my music from all my sources to all my household devices. Multi-source multi-room audio without ecosystem lockdown, and it actually works!

New camera’s overheating. There are camera coolers, but THEY WANT HOW MUCH MONEY FOR A FAN IN A BOX? So I made my own with spare parts. 50x50 heatsink, 4010 12V fan, a USB-PD 12V trigger and a 3D printed case. Topped off with a copper plate cut to size because I had no spare thermal pad.

applying for jobs again

Do you remember when China's Great Firewall was the main topic? When we took pride in our open internet? Now I can't say anything online without posts disappearing and angry mobs descending to label it fake news. I don't know, there must be a term to describe this phenomenon.

Did you know "passkey" is an anagram for "reset password"?

One day I'd like to have this level of confidence in my footnotes.

WTF is happening in Indian e-commerce? We’ve replaced AliExpress with this?

Does Wikipedia have an annotation to mark the History section of a topic as incomplete or biased if it covers only the history in the Western tradition? Take "vacuum" for instance: surely it occurred to someone other than the ancient Greeks? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum

Every morning I stumble out of bed and head to the toilet, then feed the cats. They've figured it out. Now they eavesdrop at the door while I take a dump for the appropriate moment to launch fanfare and a victory parade to the kitchen. Every morning a celebration.

I saw another interview w Lavinglia and what emerged clearly is how drunk software engineers are on efficiency & optimization that they imagine them to be transferable concepts that can easily be ported into labor, service, and knowledge sectors in which they have no experience.

There are hallucinations in LLMs, and there are the ancients. Y’all realise today’s AI slop is going to be around forever as divine scripture?

CLI people, what's your method to sync your dotfiles, especially if (a) devices are on different architectures, and (b) may be shared access, like servers? Chezmoi, Mackup, Stow, something else? It's hard to google this stuff because old reviews are subject to bitrot. www.chezmoi.io/comparison-t...

What is it with the cheerleading content on Digipin? It's the most idiotic proposal I've seen in a while. No checksum; just lat-lon coordinates but in nested spirals that defy simple math; not global; no privacy masking; sub 4m precision, enough to identify your bedroom. WTF?

It is really really sinking in for me the degree to which LLMs are the ultimate expression of right wing anti-intellectualism. Its proponents are literally mocking the idea that anyone would ever want to learn anything, know anything, develop any actual skill, or have a thought of their own.

Oh lol so he's definitely gonna win huh?

I don't think I've ever seen a phone in my dreams. I've seen bicycles, trains and even clothes, which seem linked to emotional security, advancement and relationships, but no tools per se. Original post: mas.to/@carnage4lif...

You know of zip-off pants, the ones that convert into shorts by unzipping the leg bits? I'd like the opposite, shorts that unfurl into full pants when you're in a cold room. Who makes these?

Investors don’t know what video games are. Exhibit 1.

One way to think about the ethics of social apps generating revenue at scale is to focus on revenue per user. Many ethical choices are made for a social app once they decide that they have to generate $30+ per user/yr. Better choices are available for social apps satisfied with $3 per user/yr.

Took a train over the weekend. Had cravings and walked the entire platform, but everyone had the same product. No bhel puri for me. Settled for a pack of biscuits marked "Use By May 2025".

The fact that the DOGE guy who left is complaining about an HP laptop would be hilarious if the whole thing weren't so sad. Getting an HP laptop at work is like getting Sodexo vouchers for lunch or taking part in an HR-mandated Diwali rangoli competition.

What a way to describe a 4-month period that will lead to 25+ million deaths worldwide.

This is what I put in my appeal for the sake of transparency.

Three video cubes have returned from a tour of duty at Rootconf. Quality Control officer is concluding inspections. Certified non-edible.

Baking for Rootconf.