@bender@twtxt.net I misread that sentence and thought that your first crush was called Gisela, and was like “wait, he’s not that old”.

Turns out, Gisela is a much younger name than I thought:

https://namecensus.com/first-names/gisela-meaning-and-history/

A peak in the late 1970is and late 1990ies? What?

But then it turned out that, in Germany, the popularity dropped rapidly in the late 1950ies, which actually matches my expectations:

https://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/5203-gisela.htm

In other words, some other countries picked up the name Gisela after it had already faded away in Germany.

What a fun rabbit hole. 😅

@kiwu@twtxt.net Dang it! I first thought it was jitters due to your exams. Hang in there!

I completely forgot, I saw my very first badger in the wild the day before yesterday. :-) That was absolutely cool! <3

I heard something comparatively large rustling in the bush right next to me and thought that it must be dear. Naturally, I stopped and tried to see what’s in there. The rustling went up the bank and it suddenly came down again towards the road I was on. That’s when I first layed eyes on it and identified it as a badger. For a split second I thought that it’s going to get after me and was ready to get running. But it just hadn’t noticed me yet. When it eventually spotted me, it froze for a few seconds and ran off uphill. My camera took too long to boot, so it was already gone by the time the photo machine was good to go.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I see him on those photos, and his singing starts ringing in my ears. I also thought, “I am going to miss him” because, you know, nothing is everlasting. But then I reproached myself; “enjoy the moment, dude, don’t taint it”. And so I shall.

I left at full sunshine and completely forgot to bring my bicycle’s headlamp. The taillight is always on the bike, but the front one gets charged in the house after every trip. Luckily, I found a torch and roll of duct tape in my hiking backpack. It finally paid off that I always carry all this silly gear around.

A few weeks ago, I actually thought about removing the torch, because it’s been a hot minute when I last used it. Fortunately, I did not. :-)

Tim Cook Calls Apple Maps Launch His ‘First Really Big Mistake’ as CEO
In a recent town hall meeting reported by Bloomberg (paywalled), Apple CEO Tim Cook named the troubled 2012 launch of Apple Maps as his “first really big mistake” in the role. “The product wasn’t ready, and we thought it was because we were testing more of local kind of stuff,” Cook told staff. MacRumors reports: Reflecting on the deba … ⌘ Read more

Critical Atlantic Current Significantly More Likely To Collapse Than Thought
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a c … ⌘ Read more

Will Some Programmers Become ‘AI Babysitters’?
Will some programmers become “AI babysitters”? asks long-time Slashdot readertheodp. They share some thoughts from a founding member of Code.org and former Director of Education at Google:

“AI may allow anyone to generate code, but only a computer scientist can maintain a system,” explained Google.org Global Head Maggie Johnson in a LinkedIn post. So “As AI-generated code beco … ⌘ Read more

First US Newsroom Strike For AI Protections Staged by ProPublica’s Journalists
It’s the first time a major U.S. newsroom has gone on strike partly to demand protections from AI-related layoffs, according to a report from Nieman Lab.

They noted that one of the picketer’s signs read “Thoughts not bots,” :

On Wednesday, roughly 150 members of the Propublica Guild, one of the largest nonprofit newsr … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Hahaha, nice. :-) I first thought, that this maybe comes from https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/lunar-flyby/, but it’s actually from another gallery.

Via https://github.com/newsboat/newsboat/issues/3220#issuecomment-4198066671 I came across this nice selection on why not to use AI: https://github.com/Vxrpenter/AIMania/blob/main/WHY.md#why

This then lead me to the slopware list: https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopware

Holy shit, there’s even more than I thought. :-O In addition to Vim, the following affects me more or less daily (but hopefully not my ancient versions): curl, VLC, ImageMagick, rsync, Python, systemd and even the Linux Kernel itself. Oh fuck me dead. :‘-(

That’s a very interesting thought and I agree: https://benhoyt.com/writings/dependencies/

@itsericwoordward@itsericwoodward.com That’s a nice collection. :-)

It made me look at my single frisbee, that was last used maybe 8 years ago, possibly more. I immediately found it in the drawer I thought it was in. And alongside some other stuff I was unsuccessfully hunting for for literally months by now. Thanks, mate! ;-)

Hopefully, my good headlamp also reveals itself at some point in time.

@falsifian@www.falsifian.org Thanks for clarification. I already thought something along those lines. Wow, so, you can really mix different encodings in a single file, crazy. My Perl experience is limited to maybe 10, 20 or at the very most 30 written lines of code over the decades.

I made the classic mistake. I thought I was smarter than this. I could try to scrub this from my repository, but that seems like more trouble than it’s worth, so here it is for your enjoyment: https://fossil.falsifian.org/misc/info/f6fa59e27781ce75f4cbaf700997ffffab41ad9d2e97b4aa3e360400ead3532c

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Thanks (again) for the heads-up!. I’m not sure why you were seeing black text, but I just pushed a new version of the library (v0.10.1) with some updated colors in the demo’s themes (which should hopefully address the contrast issues).

The dark mode was an aesthetic choice by a designer with a strong preference for dark mode (and who thought the maroon looked better as a background color), but in the interest of being supportive of my audience, I added a localstorage-backed memory to the theme toggle (so when you turn it to light mode, it should remember for future visits).

I thought that YouTube finally destroyed all the feeds, because I didn’t get any new entries in my newsreader for days. Now I realized that Newsboat somehow just froze. No idea what happened. This is the very first time ever in all those years. Haven’t updated the version for literally years. I reckon I will compile the upcoming version then. This will require a new Rust toolchain, that’s going to be great fun, I’m sure. Already looking forward to that…

Opera GX Web Browser Released For Linux
It’s been a while since most of you probably thought about the Opera web browser, but these days they have been catering their “Opera GX” web browser to gamers. Today they have finally delivered this Opera GX gaming-focused browser for Linux users… ⌘ Read more

Yeah. It’s a peculiar situation.

On one hand, I can count on my fingers (ha! fingers… one hand…) how many power losses we have in a year on the last few decades.

On the other hand, I live in an old part of the town and the infrastructure is equal parts a joke in bad taste, an archeological defiance, and an ugly mistake that needs to be killed with fire. (On second thought, maybe not the last part).

This month we started having power failures only on some apartments, which make no sense at all. When we call the power company, they always promise to send someone to check on it, but the power comes back in one or two hours.

The first time it happened, I suspect it damaged my PC’s mainboard and / or GPU, who are both showing random, subtly erratic behaviors.

The 19th Century Silent Film That First Captured a Robot Attack
The Library of Congress has restored Gugusse et l’Automate, an 1897 short by Georges Melies that likely features the first robot ever shown on film. Long thought lost, the reel was discovered in a box of decaying nitrate films donated from a Michigan family collection. NPR reports: The film, which can be viewed on the Library of Congress’ websi … ⌘ Read more

Colorado Lawmakers Push for Age Verification at the Operating System Level
Colorado lawmakers are proposing SB26-051, a bill that would require operating systems to register a user’s age bracket and share it with apps via an API. PCMag reports: The bill comes from state Sen. Matt Ball and Rep. Amy Paschal, both Democrats. “The intent is to create thoughtful safeguards for kids online through a privacy … ⌘ Read more

Viral Doomsday Report Lays Bare Wall Street’s Deep Anxiety About AI Future
A 7,000-word “doomsday” thought experiment from Citrini Research helped trigger an 800-point drop in the Dow, “painting a dark portrait of a future in which technological change inspires a race to the bottom in white-collar knowledge work,” reports the Wall Street Journal. From the report: Concerns of hyperscalers overspending are o … ⌘ Read more

Phil Spencer Retiring After 38 Years At Microsoft
Xbox chief and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years at the company. “Meanwhile, Xbox President Sarah Bond, “long thought by many both inside and outside of Microsoft to be Spencer’s heir apparent, has resigned,” reports IGN. From the report: The new CEO of Microsoft Gaming will be Asha Sharma, currently the President of Microsoft’s Cor … ⌘ Read more

There was an endless coming and going of sun, clouds and rain. Not to forget about the wind. I called it quits a bit earlier and went into the woods.

Towards the end I was completeley surrounded by rain curtains in all directions. This looked super cool. I thought I might make it home just in time without having to use my umbrella, but the rain clouds were way quicker than I anticipated. Just after the rain hit me, I met an acquaintance who just started his walk. The wind picked up hard and rain hammered down, mixed with snow. Holding the umbrella was a workout. Shortly after I returned, the rain stopped again.

I didn’t notice the kestrel sitting on the tree when I took the last photo. That was a nice surprise when I sorted through the nearly 300 pics.

https://lyse.isobeef.org/waldspaziergang-2026-02-17/

Bad Map Projection: Zero Declination
⌘ Read more

A Hellish ‘Hothouse Earth’ Getting Closer, Scientists Say
The world is closer than thought to a “point of no return” after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists have said. From a report: Continued global heating could trigger climate tipping points, leading to a cascade of further tipping points and feedback loops, they said. This would lock the world into a new and hellish “hothouse Earth” climate … ⌘ Read more

Fuck me dead! I accidentally confused an HTML file for a YAML file and manually opened it in my browser. Unfortunately, I clicked on the OK button of the popped up dialog a bit too fast, it just caught me off guard. It asked which program to open the YAML file in. Of course Firefox thought that it could handle that and suggested itself by default. Conveniently, the “don’t prompt me again and always use this selection from now on” checkbox was enabled.

And then the endless loop of death started. Turns out, this fucking browser can’t do shit with YAML files and delegated to what had been just configured. Oh, would you look at that!? Firefox! Empty tabs after empty tabs appeared. Killing and restarting Firefox just loaded the last session with all the tabs and the loop continued.

Some bloody snakeoil on my work machine slows down link openening requests by two, three seconds. It’s always absolutely anoying, but luckily, it actually limited the rate of new tabs popping up. I still could not close the many tabs fast enough that had accumulated before I noticed what was going on in the background.

Going to the settings to change them was always interrupted with a new tab opening in the foreground.

Finally, killing Firefox and renaming the file on disk before restarting Firefox did the trick and broke the loop. I was still holding down Ctrl+W for a minute or so to get rid of the useless tabs. I didn’t want to loose the important tabs, so just ditching the session wasn’t an option.

Neocities Founder Stuck in Chatbot Hell After Bing Blocked 1.5 Million Sites
Neocities founder Kyle Drake has spent weeks trapped in Microsoft’s automated support loop after discovering that Bing quietly blocked all 1.5 million websites hosted on his platform, a free web-hosting service that has kept the spirit of 1990s GeoCities alive since 2013.

Drake first noticed the issue last summer and thought … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I don’t have any statistics, just observe what is around me, so it’s very subjective. I know a bunch of kids with names I’ve never heard before. Sometimes, I first thought other kids were making fun of their friends by calling them by made-up nonsense. But no. Without question, I live under a rock. I just looked up some of them that came to mind immediately and they seem to be of Greek, Swedish and Latin origin, etc.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I reckon up until then you had to have another first name that clearly differentiated. Didn’t read through the court decision, though.

Interesting, I always thought that Kiran was a male first name. But I only know one person with that name. As last name, though.

Now I’m wondering, was that also the beginning when parents started giving their kids really weird names?

What a beautiful, beautiful 0°C Sunday arvo and evening! The weather forecast delayed the snow by the minute. An hour or so after it finally started very, very lightly, I headed off for the woods to check out the lake again. Unfortunately, with the fresh snow layer, the crazy wild surface texture of the ice sheet wasn’t visible anymore. But it brought some other nice views and photo opportunities.

I initially thought that I just go for a quick turn. However, with the snowfall a wee bit increasing I was hooked and kept going. Visibility was poor, but the snow blankets just looked too stunning. The road surfaces were quite slippery, so I often just walked alongside the pathways. On downhill slopes I had some good fun sliding down the road on my feet. With varying success. Luckily, I managed not to fall.

On the summit of the mountain the twigs had those absolutely magnificently looking windblown crystal coverings. Awwwwwww! They never get old. It was already getting dark, so the camera was tired and wanted to sleep. The snow program then made use of the flash and I’m quite pleased with how these shots turned out.

Two deer crossed the road in front of me and ran into the woods, that was sight for sore eyes. Although I felt bad that they had to flee from me in this white terrain. By the time I got home, the snow had accumulated around eight centimeters in height, even in town down in the valley. Walking on this fresh snow is just amazing. And I love the sound it makes. Today, the snow consistency must have been just right, because the crushing sound was really loud.

I cannot recall that I had frozen hair and beard before, but today, there was a thick ice buildup. In case I had, it was definitely never this much. Felt really cool.

Enough of this preliminary skirmishing, there ya go: https://lyse.isobeef.org/waldspaziergang-2026-01-25/

@pluralistic@pluralistic summing up my thoughts on where the current #DigitalSovereignty conversation is leading us towards:

I’m sorry. I know that when we talk about “digital sovereignty,” we’re obliged to talk about how we can build more data-centres that we can fill up with money-losing chips from American silicon monopolists in the hopes of destroying as many jobs as possible while blowing through our clean energy goals and enshittifying as much of our potable water as possible.

I don’t have any advice for how to do that. I’m sorry!

Heh I thought I fixed that bug? (is it s abug?!)

• @kirschner@kirschner ’s “Ada & Zangemann: A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream” was a wonderful surprise – I knew I’d like this book since I’ve heard he had written it, but I’ll admit I only actually read it once I had the actual physical book in my hands… and ended up being surprised by it a couple of times, the book has plenty more depth than I assumed! Sure, it is what I thought it would be, “a book for children about free software”, but it is so much more than that…

• @o_sarilho@o_sarilho is a webcomic - and fortunately it is also collected in physical format. There are versions in Portuguese and English, but this is a SciFi comic book from a Portuguese author, and that alone would get my attention… the fact that part of the action happens on the region where I actually live just made it even more interesting! So, well, I knew I would need to read it, and I bought the books, but only in 2025 did I actually started reading it… and, well - all I can say is that I glad I have the rest of the series so far, so I can catch up!

China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ Breaks Nuclear Fusion Limit Thought to Be Impossible
“Scientists in China have made a breakthrough with fusion energy that could finally overcome one of the most stubborn barriers to realising the next-generation energy source,” reports the Independent:

A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said its experimental nuclear reactor, dubbed the ‘artificial Sun’, a … ⌘ Read more

#MaradoWeekly #WeeklyShirt Week 01

After an year of posting a #WeeklyRecord (2024) and another a #WeeklyPlant (2025), in 2026 I plan to post a weekly t-shirt: and encourage you to do the same!

Like with the records and the plants, these aren’t my favorite t-shirts or need to be important, or meaningful, and there aren’t there any rules. Why t-shirts? Well, as time passes a person collects t-shirts: sometimes we bought them for a reason (like this first one), others we got on conferences or festivals, maybe they are from a favorite band… in a way, many of this shirts end up telling a story. And I do have more t-shirts than an year has weeks, so I hope I won’t have to repeat any! 😇

Usually I keep my Weekly photos text-free or explanation free, with some insights on their alt text.

Image

Study Casts Doubt on Potential For Life on Jupiter’s Moon Europa
Jupiter’s moon Europa is on the short list of places in our solar system seen as promising in the search for life beyond Earth, with a large subsurface ocean thought to be hidden under an outer shell of ice. But new research is raising questions about whether Europa in fact has what it takes for habitability. Reuters: The study assessed the pot … ⌘ Read more

With RAM crazy prices being what they are, I guess my PC is gonna be stuck on 16GB RAM for some time. I originally bought the DDR4 16GB kit for like $49 AUD, and I thought I’d just buy another 16GB or more later down the track (this was like a year and a half ago), thinking it would be similarly priced or even cheaper…

Boy was that a mistake in hindsight LOL. The same kit is like $229 AUD now….

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org It’s actually not nearly as half bad as I really thought it would be. Just having to eventually deal with the “lowering down” to machine code / ARM64 assembly in the end once you’ve verified the semantics in the VM.

Things I’ve learned along the way:

1. Writing self-contained and barely tied up programs didn’t go as well as I’d have thought
   
2. Reverse engineering (to put it that way) an open source library
   
3. Acceptance of non-Make build systems

@movq@www.uninformativ.de the ‘writing a Yarn client’ thought goes all the way back to my ‘novaburst’ days in Yarn.social, but with the other pod apparently being gone, there’s no proof of it, except on everyone’s minds.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I was surprised by that as well. 😅 I thought these were features that you can use, but no, you must do all this.

By the way, I now fixed the issue that I mentioned at the end and it works on the netbook now. 🥳

Image

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Beats me, but I can’t stand the thought of having to use it rather than wanting to

@shinyoukai@neko.laidback.moe But I thought Alpine was one of the good distro’s left. 😢 What’s it doing wrong?

Got a nice conspiracy theory for you:

https://mastodon.social/@mcc/115670290552252848

Actually wait I just thought about this and realized that the precise timing of the ACTUAL GitHub seed bank, by which I mean the Arctic Code Vault, on 2020-02-02, makes it more or less a perfect snapshot of pre-Copilot GitHub. Also precisely timed before we all got brain damage from COVID. This is the only remaining archive of source code by people with a fully working sense of smell

(Bonus points because the Arctic World Archive is located in Svaldbard and that’s the name of the AI in Stacey Kade’s “Cold Eternity”.)

Scientists Thought Parkinson’s Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water
For decades, Parkinson’s disease research has overwhelmingly focused on genetics – more than half of all research dollars in the past two decades flowed toward genomic studies – but a growing body of evidence now points to something far more mundane as a primary culprit: contaminated drinking water.

A landmark study by epide … ⌘ Read more

Investigation reopened into man’s ‘accidental’ death eight years ago
Police say the death of Phillip Rudd, once thought to be an accident, could be more sinister following new information. ⌘ Read more

Odd elements in supernova blast might have implications for alien life
Some of the elements used by living systems are far more abundant in Cassiopeia A than we thought, hinting that some parts of our galaxy might be more suitable for life than others ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Ah, shit, you might be right. You can even buy these slot plates on Amazon. I didn’t even think to check Amazon, I went straight to eBay and tried to find it there, because I thought “it’s so old, nobody is going to use that anymore, I need to buy second-hand”. 🤦🤦🤦

It really shows that I built my last PC so long ago … I know next to nothing about current hardware. 😢

My current PC is from 2013, so I never even bothered to check, but as it turns out: My motherboard still has a serial port. 🤯 I thought these had long died out by then. To be honest, I didn’t have the need for one, either, not until recently … So I completely lost track if PCs have these things or not.

All I needed was one of those slot-cable-thingies. (And if the order of pins is correct, then it actually works. 🤦)

Cool! One less USB device. 😃