Linux 7.3 Better Protects Against Buggy EFI Firmware Taking Down The Rest Of User-Space
The EFI updates were merged today for the in-development Linux 7.3 kernel. Most notable with the EFI updates is now enforcing a timeout foe EFI runtime service completions rather than potentially hanging indefinitely… ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I take it you also know their acoustic album “Visor om Slutet”? I love that one. 😍

Iran-linked Cyberattackers Shut Down a UK Power Plant for Four Days
“Iran shut down a British power plant for four days in an unprecedented cyber attack,” reports the Telegraph.

More details from the BBC:

The government said that at no point was there a risk to the UK’s energy system, but the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has contacted power companies to advise them about the risk of … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.3 Delivers Graphics Driver Improvements From Old GPUs To Next-Gen Hardware
The Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.3 merge window. There is a lot of exciting GPU kernel driver improvements this cycle ranging from some notable enhancements to old AMD Radeon graphics hardware up through enabling support for some next-generation AMD graphics IP blocks to over on the Intel side where Nova Lake S graphics are being enabled by default… ⌘ Read more

Slovakia Finds Russian Backdoor In Traffic Speed Cameras
Slovakia acquired speed cameras to modernize its traffic control– but there was a surprise. Tom’s Hardware cites this story from the Risky Bulletin Newsletter:

Unfortunately, the country’s national security service, the NBU, has discovered that the cameras have multiple security issues. Firstly, they have SMS-activated Russian backdoors. Secondly, live camera f … ⌘ Read more

Stanford Economist Now Believes an AI Job Apocalypse Is Unlikely
“There is still no sign of economy-wide job destruction,” says economist Erik Brynjolfsson. Working with researchers at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Brynjolfsson has determined an AI “job apocalypse” is unlikely, reports the Washington Post, “even though it will likely impact entry-level jobs.”

And Brynjolfsson “predicts that demand for experi … ⌘ Read more

23 Years After SimCity 4’s Release, ‘Eternal Commuter’ Bug Finally Fixed
“It began life just a year after SimCity 4’s 2003 launch,” writes the blog PCGamesN. “Now, over 20 years later, it’s still going strong with the arrival of Network Addon Mod update 50.”

The SimCity 4 Network Addon Mod, or simply ‘NAM’ among the community, has long been a de facto recommendation to anyone looking to pick up the class … ⌘ Read more

Canonical is Funding a PhD to Automate C to Rust Translation
An anonymous reader shared this report from the blog It’s FOSS:

Canonical has committed funding to a three-year PhD project focused on building a system that can automatically translate large C codebases into Rust. And they are not alone; UK Research and Innovation is matching their funding for the project, which is set to run through the Universi … ⌘ Read more

Yesterday, my mate and I left the house at 10 in the morning around 15 or 16°C. There was a steady wind blowing, the sun came and went every two minutes. The clouds looked really nice. Temperatures peaked at 21°C I reckon. Certainly great t-shirt weather. It was supposed to slightly rain at some point in the morning, but all we got was less than two hand full of drops and later the tiniest amount of drizzle for not even half a minute. So, nothing.

The weathermen also called for a cloudy arvo and partially sunny evening. The forecast must have scared off people right away, because there was noone around. We saw very dark clouds in the distance and there was certainly rain in the town. But out in nature, just a constant alternation between the sun and clouds.

Just before noon, we arrived at the bakery two villages over and got four fire brezels (with pepper, extremely tasty, but the fingers are an oily mess after that) and two nut sticky buns for provisions. This is where the small bird (19-23) was giving us a show.

It’s so dry, the landscape looks already like autumn for several weeks. Sooo many orange and brown leaves on the ground, it’s crazy. I hope we still get a real autumn and head not straight from summer into winter. Last weekend was still an awful 37°C.

This time, we paid the small entrence fee to walk around inside the ruin of Hohenrechberg Castle. The red sandstone looks super sick. I really dig it. It’s actually purplish at parts, no kidding. Absolutely unreal! At least for me, I normally only see the beige sandstone around here.

Right when we went down the castle ditch, both camera batteries were completely drained after just 880 photos in total. What a bummer. I saw a guy with a leather glove coming out of a door and immediately followed him to the aviary in the hopes of a show or something. That flight cage wasn’t there last time I visited the ruin. And we were lucky, the falconer fed his harris’ hawk and explained us along the way. Other families came and went, but we talked to him for at least 20 minutes. Super interesting. I think that was easily the best part.

At exactly 19 o’clock I unlocked the front door. Our feet were done. It was an amazing nine hours hike. :-)

The gallery is a tiny bit larger than usual, enjoy: https://lyse.isobeef.org/wanderung-auf-die-burgruine-hohenrechberg-2026-08-22/

ReactOS Merges Support For Job Objects As Step To Running Modern Windows Apps
Merged yesterday to the ReactOS code-base is initial support for Job Objects, which is an important milestone in the road to being able to run more modern Windows software under this open-source operating system striving for Windows driver/application compatibility… ⌘ Read more

Supply Chain Issues Delaying US Grid Batteries’ Installation
Falling prices have made grid-scale storage batteries more attractive, reports Bloomberg. But after decades of stagnant investment, America’s grids “are racing to make the upgrades needed to plug them in,” with supplies straining for the necessary equipment.

Demand for batteries has skyrocketed as electricity use across the U.S. swells, driven by dat … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.3 Makes Preparations Toward Upstreaming FAMFS File-System
The NVDIMM and direct access (DAX) patches have been merged for the Linux 7.3 cycle. Most of the DAX/NVDIMM activity this cycle is on making preparations for the upcoming submission of Micron’s FAMFS file-system… ⌘ Read more

@arne@uplegger.eu Wohl bekomms!

@arne@uplegger.eu Auweia, was ein absoluter Saftladen. Unfassbar.

GCC Patch Adjusting AMD Zen 5 Misprediction Cost Nets 12% Win In Benchmark
An AMD compiler engineer posted a patch on Saturday for the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). The two-line patch adjusts the misprediction cost for Zen 4 and Zen 5 processors, which ends up yielding a 12% improvement in one SPEC CPU benchmark on Zen 5 and a 9% improvement on Zen 4… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.3 Introduces New AES Encryption APIs - Will Open Up More Performance
Eric Biggers of Google continues carrying out great work on the Linux kernel crypto code. For Linux 7.3 he’s landed work on new library APIs for most of the AES encryption modes used within the kernel. Moving forward this will open the door to more performance optimizations, reducing code duplication, and other enhancements… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.3 Input Subsystem Updates Merged With Security Fixes, Other Improvements
The big set of input subsystem updates were merged earlier this week for the Linux 7.3 cycle. It’s a random assortment of different improvements as well as bug/security fixes driven in part by the flow of AI/LLM generated discoveries… ⌘ Read more

@arne@uplegger.eu @movq@www.uninformativ.de Wurde dann doch noch ein wenig anstrengend gegen Ende hin. Für mal so zwischendurch geht’s. :-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Fingers crossed!

At 8 o’clock, we had chilly 10°C. My mate and I dashed up our backyard mountain in just a tad under an hour. And that wasn’t the direct way. Our jumpers came off quick. It was really nice, because the sun was already warming and lighting up the landscape and everbody else still asleep. We had everything to our own.

Shortly after we were atop, the first two yoga women showed up with their mats. When we decended, a bunch more were on the way up. And then came the families with dogs and kids. Very glad to have missed all this hustle and bustle.

Now, I’m really tired. But it’s a great feeling of exhaustion. Two and a half hours later, we’re at 17°C. It’s supposed to hit an acceptable 23°C later on.

Unfortunately, no pics. I learned that charging via the docking station when the computer is turned off doesn’t do shit at all. Oh well.

Debian is Voting on Whether to Allow AI-Assisted Contributions
Debian developers are voting on whether to ban AI-assisted contributions, reports the blog Linuxiac, with a ballot listing eight proposals and a “None of the above” option.

The first one is still the original proposal to ban LLM-assisted contributions by changing the Debian Social Contract. This would stop generative AI from being used for direct D … ⌘ Read more

@arne@uplegger.eu @lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Je öfter man die hört, desto besser werden’se. 🤣 Passt perfekt in den Zeitgeist, dieses Chaos. (Pardon, „Mikrotonalität“.)

Und handwerklich echt beeindruckend.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, no, I haven’t really played anything in a couple of months. 😢

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org But I wannaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. 😭

Let’s see how this goes: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2065883

Defamation Suit Demanding Elsevier Retract Paper Heads Closer To Trial
Retraction Watch reports:

A trial date has been set in a $1 billion defamation case against Elsevier that alleges the company published what plaintiffs say was a manipulated study about an air purifying technology over objections from peer reviewers. The case has already cost Elsevier a $10,000 sanction from a judge.
Global Plasma … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Blames Windows Gaming Issues On RGB Lighting Devices
BleepingComputer reports:

Microsoft says ongoing issues causing games to crash or fail to launch after installing the August 2026 Windows updates may be caused by peripherals with RGB lighting.

As Microsoft explained when it confirmed it’s investigating on Wednesday, this known issue affects games like ARC Raiders, MARVEL Tokon: Fighting Souls, and … ⌘ Read more

Longtime Linux CIFS/SMB3 Maintainer Passes Away
There is a changing of the guard with Linux 7.3 as the maintainer of the Common Internet File System (CIFS) / SMB3 code within the Linux kernel. Longtime maintainer, principal Linux CIFS author, and current Microsoft employee Steve French has stepped down due to health reasons… ⌘ Read more

Battery Fires At Recycling Centres Are Costing the UK £1bn a Year
Wrongly discarded lithium batteries, such as those in vapes, are causing more than 10 fires a week at U.K. recycling centers, according to figures shared with the Guardian:

The Environment Services Association (ESA), the trade body for waste management companies, said its members had reported 1,518 fires in the year to March 2026. At … ⌘ Read more

eCryptfs Sees Fixes For Potential Malicious Intent, Some Dating Back To Its 2006 Debut
The eCryptfs stacked cryptographic filesystem implementation for the Linux kernel to transparently encrypt files saw a number of bug fixes for the Linux 7.3 kernel. A number of these bug fixes deal with potential maliciously-crafted data and vulnerable going back to the 2006 introduction of eCryptfs as this option known for its use on Ubuntu home directory encryption and Chrome OS… ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Haha 😆 Don’t temp me 😅

How Will AI Change the Field of Mathematics?
“AI went from being very terrible to seemingly genuinely quite good at a professional level in a very short space of time…” says the Verge’s AI reporter.

But AI systems “are still truly, truly terrible at some areas of math… even the days of the week.”

If you look at academic math papers, a lot of the time you won’t see numbers… So they’re still terrible, but they’re now also … ⌘ Read more

@GabesArcade@gabesarcade.com I have the Atari800 emulator installed on my laptop along with a copy of the game.

But the easiest way to try it now is probably via the Internet Archive, which allows you to play it in the browser: https://archive.org/details/a8b_M.U.L.E._1983_Electronic_Arts_US

The manual is there, too: https://archive.org/download/agm_mule/mule_text.pdf

Rush Rescue Mission for NASA’s $500M Space Telescope Fails
Remember that rush rescue mission for NASA’s $500M space telescope? It failed, reports CNN, and the LINK satellite won’t be able to boost the telescope’s orbit. NASA says its decades-old Swift telescope will now continue losing altitude, until it reaches Earth’s atmosphere later this year and burns up.

CNN reports:

Just weeks after LINK lifted off on July … ⌘ Read more

Flock is Secretly Building a Powerful New Prompt-Based AI Tool for Police
Slashdot reader fjo3 shared this article from Wired:

[Flock] has told the public for years that its technology “cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals.” It has now built a system that does both, an artificial intelligence tool for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone … ⌘ Read more

Redox OS Switches To EEVDF-Based Scheduler For 2.6x Throughput
The Rust-written, from-scratch Redox OS operating system has switched to using an EEVDF based scheduler design. In doing so they are promoting a 2.6x increase in throughput and a 782x improvement in fairness… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Now, you just gotta program it yourself. :-) Back in the days, my mates and I were playing Minetest, an open source variant thereof. Turns out it has been renamed: https://www.luanti.org/en/

Apple HFS / HFS+ File-System Support Continues Seeing Fixes With Linux 7.3
In early 2025 it was being discussed to potentially drop the HFS and HFS+ file-system support with the code having been orphaned over a decade and becoming a maintenance burden. But that dismal outlook quickly turned around with some developers stepping up to maintain the old Apple file-system support. Over a year later, fortunately, it’s turned out to be a success story with more HFS/HFS+ file-system fixes continuing to work their way into the … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I really thought you were playing the bass part, but this is just a picture of the CD cover. :‘-D I’ve got this in my collection as well. It’s good shit!

Low Emission Zone Led To Better Lung Size, Function Among London Children
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shared this report from the Guardian:

Children’s lungs grew bigger and stronger after the most polluting vehicles were restricted from entering London, a study has found. Examinations of London schoolchildren before and after the introduction of the city’s ultra-low emission zone found a restora … ⌘ Read more

@arne@uplegger.eu @movq@www.uninformativ.de Ui, heiße Kostüme! Und klingt gar nicht schlecht. Je länger ich es anhör, desto besser gefällt es mir. Nur die „Ansagen“ und den „Gesang“ – oder was auch immer das Geschepper sein soll – bräucht es wirklich nicht.

It just happened with twtxt.net as well! 🥳

Old school Finntroll (1999) 🥳

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRe8ZwEz2s0

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Nice job, looking good! :-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de YOU SHALL NOT SCROLL!

Moderna-Merck Vaccine Cuts Recurrence And Spread of Melanoma, Raises New Treatment Hope
Reuters reports “a major success in a new field of cancer treatment this week, as Moderna and Merck announced a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine “reduced the risk of recurrence and spread of melanoma in a late-stage trial”. The vaccine was tested with Merck’s widely used immunotherapy drug Keytruda: … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Hahaha, auch ne Idee! :-D Muss man nur aufpassen, dass das dann nicht das Ölkännchen für das Wahlbetrugsfeuer wird.

Is AI Really to Blame for High Unemployment Among Recent Graduates? What Economists Say
47% of recent graduates say AI has already impacted hiring in their field, according to an April survey from ZipRecruiter.

“But is AI really the problem, or is it more complicated?” asks NPR. “Here’s what economists have to say.”

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate … ⌘ Read more

Firefox Announces Free VPN and ‘Startpage’ Search Engine Rolling Out to Android, iOS - Plus GeForce NOW Support
Firefox 154 “brings a number of usability improvements,” writes PC World:

The free built-in VPN, introduced with Firefox 149, continues to offer a selection of virtual locations — temporarily extended to 28 countries until the end of August… The free VPN … ⌘ Read more

Longtime Linux CIFS/SMB3 Maintainer Steps Down
There is a changing of the guard with Linux 7.3 as the maintainer of the Common Internet File System (CIFS) / SMB3 code within the Linux kernel. Longtime maintainer, principal Linux CIFS author, and current Microsoft employee Steve French has stepped down due to health reasons… ⌘ Read more

@jastas@twtpub.com Out of curiosity, was it hard to figure that out, or just familiarity with the app? 🤔