Father Sues Google, Claiming Gemini Chatbot Drove Son Into Fatal Delusion
A father is suing Google and Alphabet for wrongful death, alleging Gemini reinforced his son Jonathan Gavalas’ escalating delusions until he died by suicide in October 2025. “Jonathan Gavalas, 36, started using Google’s Gemini AI chatbot in August 2025 for shopping help, writing support, and trip planning,” reports TechCrunch. “On … ⌘ Read more

It’s raining and raining and raining and raining. I had hoped my mate canceled the hike today. But he didn’t. He showed up. So, off we went to the Staufeneck Castle Ruin after having a lunch first. The rain drizzling on the umbrella was very nice and I was very glad that he dragged me outside.

It was super wet, though. Entire creeks were coming down on some path sections. A slippery, muddy mess on others. Our boots were already soaked a few kilometers in the trip. The important part was that the feet were warm, though, despite being wet. We barely met anybody in this lousy weather. So we had basically everything for us alone. That’s always great.

Visibility was poor the higher we got. At 13 a low hanging cloud was moving in, 14 is the result just three minutes later. We couldn’t see the castle 300 meters away anymore. No chance. It was really funny, because the houses in town at two kilometers distance were still visible. Poorly, but you could clearly make out the town. Not the castle, there was just a white wall of cloud :-)

On the way back, we warmed up with tea I brought along. After I dropped off my mate at the train station, I bumped into a fellow scout, so my wet feet cooled off completely in these 15 minutes we talked. The rainjacket mostly held up with the protection of the umbrella, just the sleeves were down. My rain trousers, on the other hand, leaked a little bit a the lower ends. I was glad when I could strip all the wet stuff. I would do it again, though. :-) Now, I’m swapping the newspaper in my boots every half an hour to absorb all the moisture.

https://lyse.isobeef.org/wanderung-auf-die-burg-staufeneck-2026-02-21/

Oh, our leaning silo laughs at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. :-D I’m wondering when it collapses. I’m waiting for this to happen for years now.

Microbes In Space Mutated and Developed a Remarkable Ability
“A box full of viruses and bacteria has completed its return trip to the International Space Station,” reports ScienceAlert, “and the changes these ‘bugs’ experienced in their travels could help us Earthlings tackle drug-resistant infections…”

Scientists aboard the space station incubated different combinations of bacteria and phages for 25 days, w … ⌘ Read more

NASA Confident, But Some Critics Wonder if Its Orion Spacecraft is Safe to Fly
“NASA remains confident it has a handle on the problem and the vehicle can bring the crew home safely,” reports CNN.

But “When four astronauts begin a historic trip around the moon as soon as February 6, they’ll climb aboard NASA’s 16.5-foot-wide Orion spacecraft with the understanding that it has a known flaw — on … ⌘ Read more

Anyone Else Here
⌘ Read more

Come back from my trip, run my AoC 2025 Day 1 solution in my own language (mu) and find it didn’t run correctly 🤣 Ooops!

$ ./bin/mu examples/aoc2025/day1.mu
closure[0x140001544e0]

AI Slop Ad Backfires For McDonald’s
McDonald’s has pulled an AI-generated Christmas commercial from YouTube after viewers pushed back on what they called a distasteful, “AI slop”-filled take on the holidays. The 45-second ad, titled “It’s the most terrible time of the year,” was a satirical look at holiday chaos – people tripping while carrying overloaded gift bags, getting tangled in lights, burning homemade cookies, starting kitchen fires – … ⌘ Read more

But it is weird that none of the slot plates (that I can find) appear to have the correct pin order. 🤔

The two mainboards I have here use this order:

2468x
13579

But the slot plates use this:

12345
6789x

I tripped over this at first and wondered why it didn’t work.

Has this changed recently or what? 🥴

Coalition puts heat on Wells over trips to cricket and AFL with family
The Coalition is applying more heat to Sport Minister Anika Wells over flights she claimed for herself and her husband to attend two Boxing Day cricket test matches in recent years, and several AFL Grand Final events. ⌘ Read more

Trump Wants Asia’s ‘Cute’ Kei Cars To Be Made and Sold In US
sinij shares news of the Trump administration surprising the auto industry by granting approval for “tiny cars” to be built in the United States. Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump, apparently enamored by the pint-sized Kei cars he saw during his recent trip to Japan, has paved the way for them to be made and sold in the U.S., despite concerns that th … ⌘ Read more

The 100 days, 21 countries and one fractured skull behind one Pom’s wild Ashes tour
Tommy Lamb is taking the long way from Manchester to Adelaide for the third Ashes Test and the 18-year is closing in on a 100-day odyssey that must be seen to be believed. ⌘ Read more

Missing Woogenellup farmer described as ‘irreplaceable’ by family
Great Southern man Mark Adams went on a short fishing trip on Monday afternoon and never returned. His family are devastated by the likely loss of their loved one. ⌘ Read more

Cricket fanatic crisscrossing Australia on Vespa to attend every Ashes Test
One man, one little yellow Vespa and a 12,000-kilometre road trip to attend every Ashes Test. ⌘ Read more

Zelensky says Ukraine and US negotiators will meet after Russia visit
The Ukrainian president says a meeting will be arranged after the Americans return from a trip to Russia, where they held talks with Vladimir Putin. ⌘ Read more

Boat found in search for fisherman missing off Albany
Western Australian authorities search for a man who failed to return from a fishing trip off the Albany coast on Tuesday night. ⌘ Read more

An Independent Effort Says AI Is the Secret To Topple 2-Party Power In Congress
Tony Isaac quotes a report from NPR: The rise of AI assistants is rewriting the rhythms of everyday life: People are feeding their blood test results into chatbots, turning to ChatGPT for advice on their love lives and leaning on AI for everything from planning trips to finishing homework assignments. Now, one or … ⌘ Read more

Sharing some photos of our Vietnam trip so far…

Gold Coast mayor defends third business trip to Europe in two years
Mayor Tom Tate plans to travel to Italy in February next year to take part in the Winter Olympics torch relay. ⌘ Read more

Gold Coast developer under investigation taken to court over continued spending
ASIC alleges businessman David McWilliams has continued to spend money in frozen bank accounts on cruises, gambling and a trip to Disneyland. ⌘ Read more

Australians with dementia urged to revisit the past like Hemsworth family
Helena Popovic took her father on a trip home to Serbia after he was diagnosed with dementia and believes its reminiscence therapy slowed the condition’s progress. ⌘ Read more

** Gundam is just the same as Jane Austen but happens to include giant mech suits **
A friend recently asked how to get started watching Gundam, and as I tripped all over myself, equal parts excitement and not wanting to sound like a lunatic, I fumbled around for a good answer.

What I landed at was inelegant and I eventually panicked and found a watch list online. BUT! BUT! What is a blog for if not do overs!? Also, what follows has literally no i … ⌘ Read more

I guess I won’t be going on a trip ⌘ Read more

Five People Plead Quilty To Helping North Koreans Infiltrate US Companies
“Within the past year, stories have been posted on Slashdot about people helping North Koreans get remote IT jobs at U.S. corporations, companies knowingly assisting them, how not to hire a North Korean for a remote IT job, and how a simple question tripped up a North Korean applying for a remote IT job,” writes longtime Slashdot … ⌘ Read more

Milan investigates 1990s trips where tourists allegedly paid to kill civilians in Sarajevo ⌘ Read more

This new robot has a clever spin on lunar mining
Work continues on designs for robots that can help assist the first human explorers on the moon in over half a century. One of the most important aspects of that future trip will be utilizing the resources available on the moon’s surface, known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). This would give the explorers access to materials like water, structural metals, and propellant, but only if they can recover it from the rock and regolith that make up the moon’s surfa … ⌘ Read more

Trying to pack for a trip tomorrow…they won’t let me leave… ⌘ Read more

We had some gray soup with the occasional fine rain with strong wind gusts. Despite the bad forecast we took the train to Geislingen/Steige and strolled up to the Helfenstein castle ruin. All the colorful leaves were so beautiful, it didn’t matter that the sun was behind thick layers of clouds.

We then continued to the Ödenturm (lit. boring tower). By then the wind had picked up by quite a bit, just as the weatherman predicted. We were very positively surprised that the Swabian Jura Association had opened up the tower. Between May and October, the tower is typically only manned on Sundays and holidays between 10 and 17 o’clock. But yesterday was Saturday and no holiday. The lovely lady up there told us that they’re currently experimenting with opening up on Saturday, too, because there are some highly motivated members responsible for the tower.

We were the very first visitors on that day. Last Sunday, when the weather lived up to the weekday’s name, they counted 128 people up in the tower. Very impressive.

The wind gusts were howling around the tower. Luckily, there are glass windows. So, it was quite pleasant up in the tower room. Chatting with the tower guard for a while, we got even luckier: the sun came out! That was really awesome. The photos don’t do justice. As always, it looked way more stunning in person.

Thanks to all the volunteers who make it possible to enjoy the view from the thirty odd meters up there. That certainly made our day!

After signing the guestbook we climbed down the staircase and returned to the station and headed back. The train even arrived on time. What a great little trip!

https://lyse.isobeef.org/wanderung-auf-die-burgruine-helfenstein-und-den-oedenturm-2025-10-25/

A bike ride to reset
After a tough last weekend, a little cold, and bad weather, I was really exhausted and not in the best mood this week. But I knew the weather would be great on Friday, so I planned a bike tour. A 47-kilometer round trip north where there aren’t many hills. ⌘ Read more

** A week notes to round out the summer **
I haven’t posted anything remotely resembling week notes since the middle of June! Since then many things have happened including, but not limited to: a trip to Minnesota to visit Isaac, a couple trips to New Hampshire for work, a family trip to Mount Desert Island to revisit our old stomping grounds, a whole heap of bicycle riding, I finished a couple great books, played some games, made some games, and wrote what is probably an unhealthy a … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I usually only have my GPS tracker with me. That trip yesterday was probably a one-time thing. 😅 It was fun, but I’d rather not carry so much stuff around. 🥴

@dce@hashnix.club Glad you liked it. 😅

Erlang Solutions: MongooseIM 6.4: Simplified and Unified
MongooseIM is a scalable and efficient instant messaging server. With the latest release 6.4.0, it has become more powerful yet easier to use and maintain. Thanks to the internal unification of listeners and connection handling, the configuration is easier and more intuitive, while numerous new options are supported.

New features include support for TLS 1.3 with optional channel binding for improved security, single round-trip authent … ⌘ Read more

james K – Doom Bikini
james K follows up one of the songs of the year with new single “ Doom Bikini”. The trip-hop renaissance peaking on this one… Continue reading… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Heey… Welcome back!! 🫡 How was the trip? I Hope you’ve had a good time!

As promised, here’s some photos of love you!! camping trip to Canarcon George in QLD, Australia.

@prologic@twtxt.net Heyho, welcome back. 👋 Did you guys have a nice trip? 😊

@prologic@twtxt.net Enjoy your road trip! Have fun!! 🤘

Gone on a road trip. Be back in a week 👋

Investing in comfort
Getting ready for Scotland involved buying some gear – next to the required things also a headlamp, a powerbank and Merino clothes. On the surface, maybe a bit much. Did I need a new powerbank? Technically no, but the right size makes a difference for tracking, navigating, and tent-charging on a trip like this. Merino? It means less sweat, less odor, more comfort over days of exploring. ⌘ Read more

Confession:

I’ve never found microblogging like twtxt or the Fediverse or any other “modern” social media to be truly fulfilling/satisfying.

The reason is that it is focused so much on people. You follow this or that person, everybody spends time making a nice profile page, the posts are all very “ego-centric”. Seriously, it feels like everybody is on an ego-trip all the time (this is much worse on the Fediverse, not so much here on twtxt).

I miss the days of topic-based forums/groups. A Linux forum here, a forum about programming there, another one about a certain game. Stuff like that. That was really great – and it didn’t even suffer from the need to federate.

Sadly, most of these forums are dead now. Especially the nerds spend a lot of time on the Fediverse now and have abandoned forums almost completely.

On Mastodon, you can follow hashtags, which somewhat emulates a topic-based experience. But it’s not that great and the protocol isn’t meant to be used that way (just read the snac2 docs on this issue). And the concept of “likes” has eliminated lots of the actual user interaction. ☹️

Floating point round trip radix conversion
Comments ⌘ Read more

Just had a freak storm ⛈️ with lots of horizontal rain ☔️ that took out and tripped our internal RCD (again) 😱 Took out our Fibre too (servers were fine, good ‘ol UPS). Need to get a UPS for the Fibre box 📦 Haha 🤣

Planning for Scotland, second try
My fiancée and I were in Scotland in 2023 on an Interrail trip. But with some bad luck, we got COVID-19 after half of the trip and had to go home and recover. We always said we wanted to finish our trip in one of the next years. ⌘ Read more

Am I tripping or rsync is actually THIS effing faster than scp!!? 🫨

We’ve been on a trip to another city this weekend and one thing struck me as really odd:

The lack of “public water” in our cities.

Almost no way of washing your hands or going to the toilet or whatever. You can’t even pee in a bush, because a) that’s illegal and b) there are no bushes!

(It’s always been that way, I just never noticed before. 🥴)

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org The bird in the wallpaper? That’s a photo from a trip to a local zoo. 😃 This little guy was sitting in one of the bushes and didn’t mind people getting rather close. Full version and more from that day.

Business trips / Off-Sites can be rather exhausting 😴
Business trips / Off-Sites can be rather exhausting 😴 ⌘ Read more

Pinellas County - 5 miles: 5.03 miles, 00:08:58 average pace, 00:45:03 duration
late run do to work and life. had my daughters field trip this morning which was fun. definitely going to sleep hard tonight.
#running

Another year, another trip around the Sun for me. These old bones definitely feel the journey, but I am happy!

Mathieu Pasquet: XMPP Summit 27 and FOSDEM 25 Report
Here is an account of my trip to FOSDEM & XMPP Summit this year.
Note: for privacy reasons on the broader internet, I am keeping names out of
my description of the events, but my goal here is not to diminish anyone’s merit.

I use a bit of acronyms and jargon in this article because it talks about technical things,
so I will define them here:

• XMPP: eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, the internet standard for
  instant messaging and much more. … ⌘ Read more

Pinellas County - Long Run: 11.04 miles, 00:11:22 average pace, 02:05:22 duration
body was a bit worn out today. switched it up to walk-run after about 5 miles because i have a daddy-daughter dance this afternoon and did not want to be too stiff. met another runner who actually only lives about a mile or less from me. maybe i will try to meet with him after my business trip next week.
#running