Linux 7.3-rc5 Released: “Another Week, Another Large RC”
In working toward the stable Linux 7.3 kernel release hopefully on 18 October, out today is Linux 7.3-rc5 as the newest weekly test candidate… ⌘ Read more

Waymo Says Its Self-Driving Cars Reduced Injury-Causing Accidents by 82%
Waymo’s self-driving car technology “continues to outperform human benchmarks,” the company claimed this week. “It was involved in 841 fewer injury-causing crashes — an 82% reduction compared to human drivers.”

Electrek reports:

We’ve seen various Waymo crash data before, with Waymo claiming crash reductions. That’s all well and … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Sometimes you lose, sometimes the others win.

Did I post this here already?

“A short film about hope”

https://movq.de/v/eb0675d4ce/a-short-film-about-hope.mp4

Source: https://social.tchncs.de/@grumpy_copi/117257509153287572

Budgie 10.10.3 Released With Favorites In Budgie Menu, Labwc Bridge Improvements
Budgie 10.10.3 is out today as the newest point release to this open-source desktop… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Let’s hope there are no more … ahem … party poopers. 🤣

@prologic@twtxt.net Nice! Looks tranquil.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Agreed, and I have an extensive library of “my own” files. However, we bought into the Google Home ecosystem some years ago (we have those little hockey-puck-shaped speakers throughout the house), and the only way to get multi-room streaming to work with them is to use a streaming service that they support. Hence, YT Music.

I’ve been expecting Google to EoL those speakers for the past few years, and figured I’d finally pivot to something self-hosted once that happens. But not yet!

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Thanks!

@david@daiwei.me
My email is hey (at) itsericwoodward.com, if that works. While I agree it doesn’t help test federation in the short term, right now I don’t really have a frame of reference for how it should work, which makes it doubly hard to setup. 🙂

TBH, my biggest concerns with running my own instance is with DNS, just because of the “unique” way my home network is setup (plus, it’s always DNS…).

After Dozens of Incidents at OpenAI and Anthropic, OpenAI Pauses Model Training to Build More Safeguards
“OpenAI said it has paused training of its latest AI models,” reports the Associated Press, “as reports of AI agents going rogue mount.”

The decision to halt development came just hours after the company disclosed Friday that it was reviewing several incidents from the summ … ⌘ Read more

Linux Kernel’s LZ4 Compression Code Being Resynced For Better Performance & Cleanliness
In addition to the Linux kernel’s Zstd compression code being improved, the LZ4 compression code within the kernel tree is also seeing a separate set of enhancements… ⌘ Read more

Intel Delivers A Significant Memory Hotplugging Performance Optimization For Linux
Adding to the features expected to land for Linux 7.4 is a significant performance optimization for the memory hotplugging speed for adding additional RAM. In particular, the memory hotplugging being most applicable for cases like expanding the amount of memory for VMs or in today’s CXL world for adding additional system memory… ⌘ Read more

Hello! 👋

New Linux Patches For Supporting Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon G14’s Second Webcam
For those considering Lenovo’s recently launched and beautifully crafted ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 laptop powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake”, one of the lingering missing features under Linux will hopefully soon be addressed: its second web camera… ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org It is!

New Patch Series Working Toward DRBD 9 Support In The Linux Kernel
Earlier this year developers at LINBIT began working toward a goal of upstreaming ~15 years worth of their Distributed Replicated Block Device changes into the mainline Linux kernel. That major update has yet to land but sent out this week was a new patch series in preparing the trek toward introducing DRBD 9 support in the mainline kernel… ⌘ Read more

New Tin-based Solar Cells Trap Heat 1,000 Times Longer, Could Beat 33% Limit
Could this push solar cell efficiency beyond the theoretical 33% limit? Interesting Engineering reports:

Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands found that tin-based perovskite solar cells can slow heat loss from high-energy “hot electrons…”

When sunlight strikes a panel, photons jump-start elect … ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Very nice view! I reckon this is a lake not a river?

Some more pics of where were staying 👌

@itsericwoodward@itsericwoodward.com Nothing beats an own collection in my opinion. However, for parties and the like, it’s really great to be able to add random bits to the playlist that noone else has ever heard before. :-)

@itsericwoodward@itsericwoodward.com Sometimes, all things come together. I’m glad both of you are feeling better now and wishing you a continued speedy recovery. Also, happy hacking!

Looking forward to the photos. :-)

@david@daiwei.me Easy, Twtxt is similar to IRC. If you publish the password here, e.g. hunter2, only @itsericwoodward@itsericwoodward.com will be able to read it as it is his. See?!

China and the US Say They’ve Agreed to Start Talks About AI
The United States and China have agreed to “launch a dialogue” on AI, reports Reuters.

On artificial intelligence, the two sides agreed to hold a dialogue on the technology’s risks and benefits, with the next round of discussions set for November, and to set up a communication channel for AI-related incidents, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the White Hou … ⌘ Read more

Thank you ! 🙏

KDE and GNOME Developers Ponder How to Handle AI-Generated Contributions
Last weekend KDE’s annual Akademy conference included a presentation proposing
an AI-native KDE,” writes The Register. This led KDE developer Nate Graham to open a discussion about proposed restrictions on LLM-assisted contributions which “rapidly became heated. Moderators issued warnings, restricted further comments, and eventual … ⌘ Read more

Improved GPU Reset Coming For Raspberry Pi Boards With Linux 7.4
In addition to this week’s DRM-Misc-Next pull request introducing some new HDMI 2.0 helpers for the DRM drivers, the pull request also introduced improved GPU reset support for the Broadcom V3D GPU with the VC4 kernel driver… ⌘ Read more

Agog to be the 4,960th 🐲 on BackerKit for Deathbringer TTRPG by Professor DM. 🤘

@david@daiwei.me To be honest, I’m a bit tor: part of me wants to set it up on my main application server (alongside gitea, TwtKpr, and a few others), but part of me wants to run it on a Raspberry Pi with Docker (because why not).

I’m also something of a bad geek in some areas, and IRC was never really my scene, so I don’t have a ton of experience with it (I went straight from BBSes to WWW)… Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer of an account at https://chat.ratha.us/, just to get my feet wet… (if it’s still open) 😁

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Nice!

@prologic@twtxt.net Happy belated birthday to you, sir! 🎂

@david@daiwei.me Right? I loved seeing it on the big screen. It was even the Director’s / European cut, with the little Nazi-killing bit in the middle. “It’s a kind of magic!” ⚔️

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, it’s what we use for streaming. We’ve had a YouTube Faamily plan for years (we originally signed up to keep the ads away from the younglings), and it’s included as part of the deal. I also have some hard-to-find music I uploaded to it back when it was Google Play Music. Still, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, per se.

@klaxzy@klaxzy.net Absolutely! “Angel Dust” was (and still is) my absolute favorite album of all time, from any band. It is (and remains) that damn good. 🤘

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Added to the calendar, thanks!

@prologic@twtxt.net @david@daiwei.me Good to know! 😃 I’ll let y’all know if I get stuck.

Hey, folks. Sorry to disappear for the last couple of weeks.

Last weekend, I took the family to Atlanta, GA for a visit to the Georgia Aquarium and the Center for Puppetry Arts, both of which were fantastic (pics forthcoming). Unfortunately, amongst the souvenirs we brought home was the worst sickness my wife and I have had in years, which basically laid us both out until Thursday, and we’ve been recovering since.

On top of it, just before we left, I accidentally broke TwtStrm (my WIP TwtTxt reader), so I didn’t even have a functional way to keep up with the only “social media platform” I actually give a hoot about (nor a functional brain to try and fix it).

As of this morning, though, I’m happy to report that we’re basically all better, and TwtStrm is back to working. I’m actually hoping to get some code written this weekend (and maybe even try to get Parley running), but we’ll see how things go. 🙂

After 40 Years, Microsoft Excel Will Add Single-Cell Lists and Arrays
Microsoft’s senior product manager for Excel acknowledges that “Throughout Excel’s 40-year history, you’ve only been able to put one value per cell.” But that’s now changing with arrays in cells (as well as nested arrays) and lists.

“You can create a list by selecting Insert > List or pressing Ctrl+J, then typing or pasting items separated b … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Oh yeah, very interesting. Thanks for telling us!

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Ah, I see. Didn’t cross my mind to use Inkscape for that. I hope to remember this once I run into a similar situation.

🎶 “Regina” - The Sugarcubes https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=QpEz9pfJS7g&si=lKj-diIWGoi5BrWJ

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah, some letters are really unreadable. And I always, always read the “s” as an “f”. Every time.

Yeah, I find it telling when Nazis use Fraktur. Very interesting, I wasn’t aware that occupied regions couldn’t read the orders.

“Toolpak” Being Devised By GNOME OS Developers, Akin To Flatpak For Tools
GNOME developer Jordan Petridis published a blog post today to introduce the world to the Toolpak plans for GNOME OS… ⌘ Read more

AI Finds So Many Linux Bugs, Canonical Changes to a Two-Week Stable Release Update Cycle
“Finding vulnerabilities faster also puts pressure on Linux distributions to fix and deliver patches faster,” writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli

AI has transformed bug discovery from “a manual, time-intensive process into a highly automated engine,” notes Canonical’s blog, leading to a “recent expl … ⌘ Read more

MM Change Slated For Linux 7.4 Yields +22904539.81% In One Metric, More Modest Wins In Others
Queued this week into the slab/for-next Git branch ahead of next month’s Linux 7.4 merge window is a memory management change for refilling pre-filled sheaves from the barn. In some cases this yields wild improvements to specific synthetic benchmarks… ⌘ Read more

That was an interesting read about C:

https://pikuma.com/blog/c-integer-sizes-not-a-mistake

Is Microsoft Quietly Killing Off Its ‘Copilot+ PC’ Brand?
“Copilot+ PCs” were Microsoft’s official branding for Windows 11 “AI PCs” that met their system requirements. But the 2024 launch “didn’t go smoothly,” writes Windows Central, after security researchers discovered its proposed “Recall” feature was woefully insecure:

This pretty much tarnished the Copilot+ PC brand, and over the last two years more and more OEMs h … ⌘ Read more

AI Bug Fixes, Crescent Island Power Brake & Nouveau Fixes For Linux 7.3-rc5 DRM
The Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem fixes for the week are heavier on the side with many fixes to these kernel graphics/display drivers ahead of Sunday’s Linux 7.3-rc5 release… ⌘ Read more

Wisp Makes It Easier To Manage Btrfs Snapshots From The GNOME Desktop
Wisp is a new GNOME Shell extension making it easier to graphically manage Btrfs file-system snapshots… ⌘ Read more

AMDXDNA Linux Driver Being Enhanced For Current NPU3 Hardware
The AMDXDNA open-source Linux kernel accelerator driver is seeing a fair amount of work for better supporting current-generation NPU3 neural processing units. The AMD NPU3 is what’s found in current AMD Ryzen AI 300 / Ryzen AI 300 PRO series SoCs… ⌘ Read more