evanjrowley

Every time I am tempted to switch to iPhone, it does not take long for me to remember that Apple is a hostile enemy.

FWIW, I get tempted to switch when my Android starts feeling like it works for Google and not for me. The advantage of the iPhone is that it works for nobody.

Halfway through the article are some cool references to studies, research, and an interesting dataset about ransomware data access.

Is Bash not considered a "Memory Safe" language?

See: Prusa CEO declares "open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead" - China blamed for causing the beginning of the end via TechRadar.

  - State-backed rivals have made open source 3D printing nearly impossible

  - Chinese subsidies shift global competition in desktop 3D printer production

  - Cheap Chinese patents create obstacles far beyond Europe’s market borders

https://www.techradar.com/pro/prusa-ceo-declares-open-hardwa...

I've only read the book and never paid attention to any analysis of it, FWIW. It never occured to me that the weapon in Infinite Jest could be anything like GenAI, and that's probably because everyone in the book who could articulate what they experienced all described something vaugely specific... unless the ending is meant to suggest that visions of "the angel of death" are a common experience! The inability to describe what one's watched after an hour of slop does lend credence to this interpretation. Thanks for the fresh perspective on the book.

My advice is to search for the stuff you want on eBay, then filter results for sellers near you, identify some interesting sellers and try to visit their facility in person. If you buy through eBay, then a less awkward tactic is to choose "Local Pickup" instead of a delivery service. When you're at the facility, ask if you can take a look around or if they know of other sellers for used server equipment.

Up until now I considered the enterprise nightmare of vibe debugging to be a data/governance problem involving something like:

Dev: enables verbose/debug logging

App: encounters error, creating big log file

Dev: uploads entire logfile, containing secrets, to 3rd party LLM and asks "read this log and identify the problem"

meanwhile...

LLM: leaks prompt, logs, and secrets to hackers

LLM: uses prompt for training data, then provides secrets as responses to other users

Impressive research but I can't help feeling like it's fundamentally flawed. The analysis considered "essay ownership" a property of LLM, Search, and Brain-Only participants, but what would have been more valuable is flipping all of the graphs based on percieved ownership levels. On average, less LLM users felt a sense of ownership, and this should not surprise anyone. The researchers lumped together people who let LLMs do all of the writing vs using LLMs constructive ways. What would have been more interesting is studying the LLM users who maintained a sense of owership, because then we could learn more way to use LLMs that potentially make us smarter.

I also feel like there's more to be said about LLMs fostering the ability to ask questions better than you might if you primarily used search. If the objective was to write, for example, about an esoteric organic chemistry topic, and a "No Brain" group of non-experts was only allowed to formulate a response by asking real-life experts as much as they can about the esoteric topic, then would users more experienced with LLMs come out ahead on the essay score? Understanding how to leverage a tight communication loop most effectively is a skill that the non-LLM groups in this study should be evaluated on.

>somebody is berating product of engineer's genius like it would be a retarded hamster

Where can I find this hamster and is it available for adoption?

A follow-up story about Phison investigating the issue in SSD controllers has also been published: https://wccftech.com/phison-acknowledges-ssd-failures-on-win...

One of my family members has a Beelink SER8 that stopped successfully booting Windows 11 Pro after the August 2025 update. A Windows pre-boot screen shows saying there was a problem, but none of the troubleshooting and rescue options work to get it booting again. The only option left is to reinstall Windows. It seems like an SSD failure, just like how these articles are reporting.

If their cost cutting measures include releasing this with a FHD/1080p screen, I would support that.

I'm looking for a fanless laptop with a FHD display that can be easily mirrored to cheap XR/VR glasses.

Recently I became aware of "heat batteries" that might also be useful for these applications. https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/24/1082217/heat-bat...

I also saw it, and it happened on a non-touch computer screen.

This reminds me of an article from approximately a decade ago about how enterprise networking gear could be less expensive if the designs leveraged more RAM instead of L1/2 cache. Apparently Cisco IOS and it's state predominantly existed in fast but costly CPU cache. The latency savings of having everything in the CPU cache was not worth it, according to the author.

All that being said, I'm really not qualified to speak in detail about the underlying implementation. Networking is not my background. Also, a lot of this stuff is probably changed since then. For example, Cisco IOS-XE and IOS-XR have gained prominence. Both of those are based on Linux and probably means lots of changes under the hood.

Intel can become like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. If that happened, then who would be the regulator providing oversight of Intel?

I did not create this article but was intrigued to see an attack vector for the Nostr protocol being highlighted.

Are you planning on keeping this setup, or migrating over to something else?

The 4' width seems to be the biggest drawback with shelf-to-desk conversions like this. Dual monitor setups featuring screen sizes beyond 24" commonly require more than 4' width.

Links 3 through 6 in my comment touched upon this. My point is that even companies behind commercial Linux products are trying to resist the GPL.

In 2021, it appeared that Google was planning a pivot to their own BSD/MIT-licensed OS named Fuscia.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/googles-fuchsia-smar...

This pivot seemed to end around the same time tech layoffs were occuring in 2024.

https://9to5google.com/2024/01/15/google-is-no-longer-bringi...

Since then, Google has chosen to limit the amount of open source development done for the Android OS.

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-development-...

Keeping Android kernel development internal creates greater risk of binary blobs polluting the source code. Binary blobs might be a practical solution to bring products to market, but they are also a mechanism to circumvent the GPL. I doubt Google will take this problem seriously, but other Linux distributions have.

https://lwn.net/Articles/655519/

The move by Google mirrors the choice by Red Hat to keep RHEL source code private.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/

The common trend is product managers for these companies view the GPL as a bug instead of a feature.

Yes and no. The gaming industry serves as an illustrative example because we know the Sony Playstation 4 and 5 are both based on FreeBSD[0].

Compare Sony PlayStation Network[1]

  Monthly active users on PlayStation Network reached 123 million as of June 30, 2025.

with Valve's Steam[2]

  Valve reported 132 million active monthly players (that is, they used Steam within the month, as opposed to being logged in at exact the same time) at the end of 2021...

  This isn't scientific, but if the same ratio of active monthly to peak concurrent users held through to today, back of the napkin math would put Steam's current active monthly users at 221.5 million

With an optimistic estimate of current Monthly Active Users, if gaming on Linux grew overnight from 2.5% to 50% of total players on Steam, then it would still be slightly behind half of the people who are currently gaming on FreeBSD-based Playstation.

FreeBSD code is also in iOS and macOS via Darwin, the Nintendo Switch, and the Microsoft Windows networking stack.

Evidently BSD is a go-to choice for consumers today, but many don't realize it, and those of us who do often do not think about it. That's because the BSD license and the companies that use it result in products that bear no resemblance to the BSD we know.

A similar situation occurred with Minix - to the extent that it's creator Andrew Tannenbaum had no idea it's install base was arguably bigger than Linux until 2017. Intel had put Minix into the Management Engine on their professional grade CPUs for years. The BSD license allowed Intel to put it everywhere without the knowledge of the wider Minix community.

In some key ways, BSD is already taking the Linux spot, however, I'd argue that BSD can't truly take the Linux spot because the GPL license makes the Linux spot what it is. I honestly can't say if this makes Linux better or worse off. The most advanced technology of our time is largely not choosing copyleft licenses, and for those who did choose it, they've taken steps to distance themselves from it[3][4][5][6].

Given all this, I think Hurd has more of a chance to be the spiritual successor to Linux (if it disappeared). The only caveat is there is zero chance for a big-tech-dominated $200M "Hurd Foundation" to arise due to Hurd's's affiliation with the Free Software Foundation. Not much of the Linux Foundation's money actually goes to Linux, so it may not matter in the grand scheme of things[7].

[0] https://wololo.net/2023/03/22/new-freebsd-vulnerabilities-co...

[1] https://www.psu.com/news/psn-hits-123-million-monthly-active...

[2] https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/steam-just-cracked-4...

[3] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/googles-fuchsia-smar...

[4] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-development-...

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/23/red_hat_centos_move/

[6] https://lwn.net/Articles/655519/

[7] https://blog.desdelinux.net/en/The-annual-report-of-the-Linu...

Good luck on your project! Btw, a lot of these racks come with plastic feet. You could cut shorter lengths from the bottom using an angle grinder or saw rated for metal, then hide the rough ends with the feet.

Actually, I don't know if those are really plastic feet, or if they're just added to prevent metal from poking holes in the cardboard box during shipping.

Reading this reminded me of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. The moral of the story is a very similar theme.

There really is no precise name for these.

Source: A technology hoarder who has too many shelves like this full of junk.

Edit: I stand corrected by @bobson381

I have several of these under the Gorilla Rack brand name and they're sold as Industrial Shelving Units. Home Depot in the US also sells these under the Muscle Rack and Edsal brands. These shelves are good, but I caution against using them in rooms with uneven floors (i.e., basement floors) because the feet are not adjustable. The particle board shelf surfaces can also deteriorate easily in moist environments. OP's shelf is one coffee spill away from a ruined shelf. That particle board is also made with formaldehyde and water damage will release it, FYI.

I have even more Wire Rack Shelves from various brands, all mostly with interchangable parts. A major brand is Nexel. There's also a lot of good parts available through the Metro brand sold by The Container Store. I appreciate the Wire Rack Shelving for it's modularity, adjustable feet, and also the ability to use caster wheels. You can always cut your own solid shelf surface from whatever material you like. The drawback is these Wire Rack Shelves cost twice as much as the Industrial Shelving Units.

FreeBSD has lots of AMD graphics code because Sony Playstation 4 and 5 are both based on FreeBSD. I'm not sure how much, but some of OpenBSD's AMD graphics code comes from FreeBSD[0]. Considering the prolific success of the PS4/PS5, it would make sense that FreeBSD's AMD graphics code is a considerable size. If OpenBSD is using parts of it, then we should expect those parts to be large.

[0] https://www.phoronix.com/news/MTQzNjI

This probably has to do with these retail outlets being one of the most highly targeted by organized crime.

https://abc7news.com/post/los-angeles-stolen-items-home-depo...

https://6abc.com/post/brothers-arrested-organized-retail-the...

https://katv.com/news/local/conway-couple-charged-in-2-milli...

Wouldn't this be in direct conflict with the DMA?

I have trouble focusing after string at screens less than 2 meters away for extended periods of time. My solution is to orient my desk so that I have a view of a larger room, to look out the window if possible, and take breaks outdoors.

Don't forget about the friend who blames you for being contrarian because you don't embrace their delusions.

Having spend several years under the thumb of a rural wireless internet service provider, the thought of all my neighbors sucking up shared Starlink bandwidth to stream Netflix in the evenings makes me nauseous. How is it a reasonable expectation that Starlink can really support entire rural areas?

"To login to your bank account, you must first prove you are human by envisioning your name on our new promotional credit card for 30 seconds. Make sure your brain reader is turned on and transmitting before focusing your thoughts. You must also accept our privacy, safety, and sharing agreement before continuing. Warning: This feature is not available to citizens of the EU."

this only leads to selection of male frogs with necrophiliac tendencies