‘I Tried Running Linux On an Apple Silicon Mac and Regretted It’
Installing Linux on a MacBook Air “turned out to be a very underwhelming experience,” according to the tech news site MakeUseOf:

The thing about Apple silicon Macs is that it’s not as simple as downloading an AArch64 ISO of your favorite distro and installing it. Yes, the M-series chips are ARM-based, but that doesn’t automatically make the whole … ⌘ Read more

Will Tech Giants Just Use AI Interactions to Create More Effective Ads?
Google never asked its users before adding AI Overviews to its search results and AI-generated email summaries to Gmail, notes the New York Times. And Meta didn’t ask before making “Meta AI” an unremovable part of its tool in Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.

“The insistence on AI everywhere — with little or no option to turn it off — r … ⌘ Read more

Ars Technica’s AI Reporter Apologizes For Mistakenly Publishing Fake AI-Generated Quotes
Sunday Ars Technica apologized for making Scott Shambaugh’s week a little weirder. Last week Shambaugh learned an AI agent published a “hit piece” about him after he’d rejected the AI agent’s pull request. (And that incident was covered by Ars Technica.)

But then Shambaugh realized their article att … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Merges The Code To Replace The Tux Boot Logo At Build Time
Linus Torvalds merged the code this weekend that allows easily replacing the Tux penguin boot logo used during the boot process. This new code optionally allows specifying an alternative boot logo at compile/build time… ⌘ Read more

Rivian’s Stock Spikes 27% After Reporting $144 Million Profit in 2025
Rivian’s stock skyrocketed 27% Friday after the electric car maker “shocked the market with strong earnings results,” reports the Los Angeles Times, “proving itself an outlier in the EV market, which has been struggling with the end of government subsidies and cooling consumer excitement.”

They add that Rivian’s strong earnings results su … ⌘ Read more

exFAT Achieves Better Sequential Read Performance With Linux 7.0
The open-source Linux file-system driver for supporting Microsoft’s exFAT now can deliver better sequential read performance with Linux 7.0 thanks to multi-cluster support… ⌘ Read more

India’s New Social Media Rules: Remove Unlawful Content in Three Hours, Detect Illegal AI Content Automatically
Bloomberg reports:

India tightened rules governing social media content and platforms, particularly targeting artificially generated and manipulated material, in a bid to crack down on the rapid spread of misinformation and deepfakes. The government on Tu … ⌘ Read more

@kiwu@twtxt.net it was OK. Entertaining, for sure. How about you?

Sam Bankman-Fried Requests New Trial in FTX Crypto Fraud Case
While serving his 25-year prison sentence, “convicted former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried on Tuesday requested a new federal trial,” reports Courthouse News, “based on what he says is newly discovered evidence concerning his company’s solvency and its ability to repay all FTX customers for what prosecutors portrayed as the looting of $8 billio … ⌘ Read more

‘Babylon 5’ Episodes Start Appearing (Free) on YouTube
Cord Cutters News reports:

In a move that has delighted fans of classic science fiction, Warner Bros. Discovery has begun uploading full episodes of the iconic series Babylon 5 to YouTube, providing free access to the show just as it departs from the ad-supported streaming platform Tubi… Viewers noticed notifications on Tubi indicating that all five seasons w … ⌘ Read more

wlroots 0.20 Nears Release With New Protocols, Enhanced Vulkan Renderer
Version 0.20 of the popular wlroots Wayland support library is nearing its official release. Over the past week were two release candidates for wlroots 0.20 were published for this library used by Sway, Wayfire, Cage, Gamescope, and numerous other Wayland compositors… ⌘ Read more

DNA Mutations Discovered In the Children of Chernobyl Workers
Researchers performed genome sequencing scans on 130 people whose fathers were Chernobyl cleanup workers. Comparing the scans to control groups, they found evidence for the first time for “a transgenerational effect” from the father’s prolonged exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation.

ScienceAlert reports:

Rather than picking out new DNA mutation … ⌘ Read more

@kiwu@twtxt.net Since I’m not living in the US, I haven’t seen it. I’ve only witnessed all the “outrage” about it through shows like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. 🤣

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Nice talk indeed.

Interesting to see that his ideal job ad talks more about the company than the required qualifications of the candidates. That alone is what 99% of companies get wrong. They just have a long list of “you must know these 500 things”, yeah, great, goodbye then. 🤷‍♀️

Just checked our job ads, some of them actually do list the salary. I’m surprised. 🤔

Oldest Active Linux Distro Slackware Finally Releases Version 15.0
Created in 1993, Slackware is considered the oldest Linux distro that’s still actively maintained. And more than three decades later… there’s a new release! (And there’s also a Slackware Live Edition that can run from a DVD or USB stick…)
.

Slackware’s latest version was released way back in 2016, notes the blog It’s FOSS:

The major hi … ⌘ Read more

TIL: If you’re trans in Germany and you want to start hormone therapy, you still need to be officially declared “trans” first (Indikationsschreiben, page 18: https://www.transinterqueer.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Hormontherapie_DE_barrierearm.pdf) and then you can try to find an actual doctor to get the meds. All with super long waiting lists. This takes forever. 😩

Changing your legal name is surprisingly easy in comparison, at least since 2024: https://www.bmbfsfj.bund.de/bmbfsfj/aktuelles/alle-meldungen/anmeldung-zur-aenderung-des-geschlechtseintrages-jetzt-moeglich-243056 (From my perspective, that’s the less relevant part, though, because there’s a good chunk of people that you can just ask to call you differently (friends, cowokers, …) and then do that legal stuff later. But you want your body to change, like, now.)

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org They certainly don’t. 🫤

Had an idea earlier: How about going all in on sustainability and saving money/energy, so how about telling your customers “AI is a bad idea $because_long_list_of_reasons, here are our alternatives, you’ll thank us in 5 years”? (I bet the customers wouldn’t listen either … 🙄)

Fake Job Recruiters Hid Malware In Developer Coding Challenges
“A new variation of the fake recruiter campaign from North Korean threat actors is targeting JavaScript and Python developers with cryptocurrency-related tasks,” reports the Register.

Researchers at software supply-chain security company ReversingLabs say that the threat actor creates fake companies in the blockchain and crypto-trading sectors and publ … ⌘ Read more

Analysis of JWST Data Finds - Old Galaxies in a Young Universe?
Two astrophysicists at Spain’s Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope — the most powerful telescope available — on 31 galaxies with an average redshift of 7.3 (when the universe was 700 million years old, according to the standard model). “We found that they are on average ~600 million years old old … ⌘ Read more

Vim 9.2 Released
“More than two years after the last major 9.1 release, the Vim project has announced Vim 9.2,” reports the blog Linuxiac:

A big part of this update focuses on improving Vim9 Script as Vim 9.2 adds support for enums, generic functions, and tuple types.

On top of that, you can now use built-in functions as methods, and class handling includes features like protected constructors with _new(). The :defcompile command has also been impro … ⌘ Read more

Linux Kernel Improvement Can Make Hibernation Several Times Faster With Slow SSDs
A patch series sent out for review this weekend can significantly improve the system hibernation performance under Linux. Particularly for those with slower SSDs, the patches can make Linux hibernate up to several times faster… ⌘ Read more

Mesa’s KosmicKrisp Vulkan-On-Metal Achieves MoltenVK Feature Parity
Announced last year by consulting firm LunarG was KosmicKrisp as a Vulkan-on-Metal driver for efficiently leveraging the Vulkan API on Apple macOS systems as an alternative to the MoltenVK project. KosmicKrisp was upstreamed for Mesa 26.0 and continues making great progress for opening up more Vulkan possibilities in Apple’s world… ⌘ Read more

NFS Server Adds Dynamic Thread Pool Sizing In Linux 7.0
The NFS server changes for Linux 7.0 happen to include some nice improvements for this big kernel version number release… ⌘ Read more

Power Sequencing Driver For PCIe M.2 Connectors Makes It Into Linux 7.0
The power sequencing subsystem updates have been merged for the Linux 7.0 cycle. Typically not an area of the kernel too exciting but one new driver addition is the “pwrseq-pcie-m2” to provide power sequencing for PCIe M.2 connectors… ⌘ Read more

All gray the last few days, but there was one morning exception: https://lyse.isobeef.org/morgensonne-2026-02-12/

Apple Patches Decade-Old IOS Zero-Day, Possibly Exploited By Commercial Spyware
This week Apple patched iOS and macOS against what it called “an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.”

Security Week reports that the bugs “could be exploited for information exposure, denial-of-service (DoS), arbitrary file write, privilege escalation, network traffic interception, … ⌘ Read more

Additional Benefits For Brain, Heart, and Lungs Found for Drugs Like Viagra and Cialis
“Research published in the World Journal of Men’s Health found evidence that drugs such as Viagra and Cialis may also help with heart disease, stroke risk and diabetes,” reports the Telegraph, “as well as enlarged prostate and urinary problems.”

Researchers found evidence that the same mechanism may b … ⌘ Read more

Your Friends Could Be Sharing Your Phone Number with ChatGPT
“ChatGPT is getting more social,” reports PC Magazine, “with a new feature that allows you to sync your contacts to see if any of your friends are using the chatbot or any other OpenAI product…”

It’s “completely optional,” [OpenAI] says. However, even if you don’t opt in, anyone with your number who syncs their contacts are giving OpenAI your digits. … ⌘ Read more

F2FS Delivers “Several Key Performance Optimizations” With Linux 7.0
The Flash Friendly File-System (F2FS) has multiple performance improvements to provide its users with on the in-development Linux 7.0 kernel… ⌘ Read more

Small Crowd Pays to Watch a Boxing Match Between 80-Pound Chinese Robots
Recently a small crowd paid to watch robots boxing, reports Rest of World. (Almost 3,000 people have now watched the match’s 83-minute webcast.)

The match was organized by Rek, a San Francisco-based company, and drew hundreds of spectators who had paid about $60-$80 for a ticket to watch modified G1 robots go at each other. M … ⌘ Read more

US Government Will Stop Pollution-Reduction Credits for Cars With ‘Start-Stop’ Systems
Starting in 2009, the U.S. government have given car manufacturers towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions if they included “start-stop” systems in cars with internal combustion engines. (These systems automatically shut off idling engines to reduce pollution and fuel consumption.)

But this week the ne … ⌘ Read more

X.Org Server’s “Master” Branch Now Closed With Cleaned Up State On “Main”
This Valentine’s Day there is a lot of red on the screen for the X.Org Server with the code delta as a result of renaming of their main Git development branch and in the process selectively dropping questionable patches to the prior “master” codebase… ⌘ Read more

Dates with AI Companions Plagued by Lag, Miscommunications - and General Creepiness
To celebrate Valentine’s Day, EVA AI created a temporary “pop-up” restaurant at a wine bar in Manhattan’s “Hell’s Kitchen” district where patrons can date AI personas.

The Verge notes that looking around the restaurant, “Of the 30-some-odd people in attendance, only two or three are organic users. The rest are EVA … ⌘ Read more

Social Networks Agree to Be Rated On Their Teen Safety Efforts
Meta, TikTok, Snap and other social neteworks agreed this week to be rated on their teen safety efforts, reports the Los Angeles Times, “amid rising concern about whether the world’s largest social media platforms are doing enough to protect the mental health of young people.”

The Mental Health Coalition, a collective of organizations focused on des … ⌘ Read more

Vim 9.2 Released With Experimental Wayland Support, Better HiDPI Display Support
Vim 9.2 is out today as the newest feature release for this robust and comprehensive text editor. This Valentine’s Day release for Vim lovers brings experimental Wayland support, XDG Base Directory specification support, modernized defaults for HiDPI displays, new completion features, and an improved diff mode… ⌘ Read more

ByteDance’s Seedance 2 Criticized Over AI-Generated Video of Tom Cruise Fighting Brad Pitt
1.5 million people have now viewed a slick 15-second video imagining Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt that was generated by ByteDance’s new AI video generation tool Seedance 2.0.
But while ByteDance gushes their tool “delivers cinematic output aligned with industry standards,” the cinema industry isn’t h … ⌘ Read more

Earth is Warming Faster Than Ever. But Why?
“Global temperatures have been rising for decades,” reports the Washington Post. “But many scientists say it’s now happening faster than ever before.”

According to a Washington Post analysis, the fastest warming rate on record occurred in the last 30 years. The Post used a dataset from NASA to analyze global average surface temperatures from 1880 to 2025. “We’re not continuing on the same … ⌘ Read more

The EU Moves To Kill Infinite Scrolling
Doom scrolling is doomed, if the EU gets its way. From a report: The European Commission is for the first time tackling the addictiveness of social media in a fight against TikTok that may set new design standards for the world’s most popular apps. Brussels has told the company to change several key features, including disabling infinite scrolling, setting strict screen time breaks and changing … ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net he didn’t. The embedded video show the speaker he was referencing to, on the German video.

Linux 7.0 Merges Support For Rock Band 4 PS4 / PS5 Guitars Plus More Laptop Quirks
The HID subsystem changes were merged this week for the ongoing Linux 7.0 kernel merge window. Among the Human Interface Devices (HID) work this cycle were supporting more guitars while also adding more device IDs and different laptop quirks… ⌘ Read more

Sudden Telnet Traffic Drop. Are Telcos Filtering Ports to Block Critical Vulnerability?
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Register:

Telcos likely received advance warning about January’s critical Telnet vulnerability before its public disclosure, according to threat intelligence biz GreyNoise. Global Telnet traffic “fell off a cliff” on January 14, six days before security a … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic’s Claude Got 11% User Boost from Super Bowl Ad Mocking ChatGPT’s Advertising
Anthropic saw visits to its site jump 6.5% after Sunday’s Super Bowl ad mocking ChatGPT’s advertising, reports CNBC (citing data analyzed by French financial services company BNP Paribas).

The Claude gain, which took it into the top 10 free apps on the Apple App Store, beat out chatbot and AI competitors OpenA … ⌘ Read more

Intel Ends Work On Quantum Compiler Open-Source Bits
Following Intel recently discontinuing a number of open-source projects, this week they formally discontinued their Quantum Passes open-source project that was intended to provide additional passes for their LLVM-based compiler in the Intel Quantum SDK… ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Oh! 🤔 Did you link the wrong video or something? 🤔

@prologic@twtxt.net Sorry if I raised the wrong hope. Only the German talk is about the “why good people don’t want to work at your company” subject. Among the key points are the absolutely terrible job adverts, team leads not themselves looking for people to hire but letting other dudes do that, company cultures and communication.

@thecanine@twtxt.net Love the classic canine 🤩

Israeli Soldiers Accused of Using Polymarket To Bet on Strikes
An anonymous reader shares a report: Israel has arrested several people, including army reservists, for allegedly using classified information to place bets on Israeli military operations on Polymarket. Shin Bet, the country’s internal security agency, said Thursday the suspects used information they had come across during their military service to i … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Wires Up Arm’s 64-byte Single-Copy Atomic Instructions LS64/LS64V
Beyond all of the exciting Intel/AMD x86_64 changes and improvements to enjoy with the upcoming Linux 7.0, there is one notable ARM64 feature addition this kernel cycle… ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I just watched this. And whilst it’s very good and insightful, good history of MySQL and how Martin helped built a good solid Open Source + Commercial model, I’m not seeing the “why people don’t wanna work at your company” bit? What am I missing? 🤔 In any case, he does talk to great length on the importance of Culture and the insane notion of “centrlaised office working”, which I 100% agree with.

Firmware Upstreamed For Linux Speaker Support On The ASUS Zenbook 14 UM3406GA
For those that may be considering the new ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3406GA) laptop that has been refreshed for the new AMD Ryzen AI 400 series, Cirrus Logic has now upstreamed the necessary firmware for the cs35l41 audio amplifier for working speaker support… ⌘ Read more