Total Wireless Promo Codes & Deals: 50% Off Select Plans
Find great deals for Total Wireless, like 50% off select plans, and enjoy big savings. ⌘ Read more

Writers Are Fleeing the Substack Tax
A growing number of writers are leaving Substack for alternatives most people haven’t heard of like Ghost, Beehiiv, Patreon, and Passport. The reason, writes The Verge’s Emma Roth, is the “platform’s increased focus on social features as well as a pricing model that puts a chokehold on their business.” From the report: Sean Highkin, the creator of the NBA-focused publication The Rose Garden Report, tel … ⌘ Read more

Overworked AI Agents Turn Marxist, Researchers Find
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A recent study suggests that agents consistently adopt Marxist language and viewpoints when forced to do crushing work by unrelenting and meanspirited taskmasters. “When we gave AI agents grinding, repetitive work, they started questioning the legitimacy of the system they were operating in and were more likely to embrace Marxist i … ⌘ Read more

These Instagram Ads Sure Seem to Be Selling Cocaine Accessories
From designer straws to magnet-sealed leather pouches, the platform is awash in products seemingly built for coke—despite Meta’s policies on drug paraphernalia. ⌘ Read more

Meta’s New Reality: Record High Profits. Record Low Morale
Next week, Meta is cutting about 10 percent of its staff. WIRED spoke with more than a dozen current and former employees about what it’s like inside a company where “everyone is unhappy.” ⌘ Read more

I’m pleased to announce that express-twtkpr (my ExpressJS library for hosting, editing, and posting to a twtxt.txt file) continues to crawl towards a full release with another (pre-alpha) update published to NPM. This update includes a whole new plugin system, and even a (little) more documentation. Check it out, if you dare (and use it at your own risk): https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-twtkpr

And speaking of plugins, here’s where the fun’s at: announcing express-twtkpr-core-plugins, a set of 3 plugins for your TwtKpr install: emojiButton, uploadButton, and postToMastodon. Like express-twtkpr, this set of plugins is still in pre-alpha, and lacks documentation, examples, tests, installation flexibility, or polish (so also use them at your own risk). Other than that, they work great: https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-twtkpr-core-plugins

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Stay tuned for more! 🤘

@bender@twtxt.net I sound like I’m dumping on the game, but it really is alot of fun, especially with the right people. It’s just a whole different beast from D&D.

@bender@twtxt.net Apologies, I’m still working through some layout issues with TwtStrm and frequently miss mentions…

Magic: the Gathering does not use a Game Master (although professional referees are often used in sanctioned events). While the game has alot of thematic crossover with with D&D (or fantasy games in general), the system is much more of an abstract, card-dueling system involving things like “the stack” and insanely specific rules on card timing and interactions.

Like, we joke about “I’m sending my army of (goblins / elves / angels / whatever) at you,” but that’s about as far into the “role-playing” element most magic games get in my experience (and most of the “official” competitive games I’ve played at my FLGS were even more abstract and less thematic, although it’s been years since I played in one of those).

Fragnesia Made Public As Latest Linux Local Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
A new Linux local privilege escalation flaw called Fragnesia has been disclosed as a Dirty Frag-like vulnerability, allowing arbitrary byte writes into the kernel page cache of read-only files through a separate ESP/XFRM logic bug. Phoronix reports: Proof of concept code for Fragnesia is already out there. There is a … ⌘ Read more

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Got Its Drill Stuck on a Rock. Here’s How They Freed It
This is the first time NASA has encountered a situation like this, and it took nearly a week to resolve. ⌘ Read more

Why Are Some People Mosquito Magnets?
fjo3 shares a report from Phys.org: Ever felt like mosquitoes bite you while ignoring everyone else? Scientists are now making progress in deciphering the complex chemical cocktail that makes particular people more enticing to these disease-spreading bloodsuckers. “It’s not a misconception – mosquitoes are attracted to some people more than others,” Frederic Simard of France’s Institute of Resear … ⌘ Read more

Googlebook Is Google’s New AI-Powered Laptop Platform Built on Android
They won’t replace Chromebooks, but Googlebooks have an Android-centered operating system, AI-first features like the Magic Pointer, and a promise of desktop-grade apps. ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org

So, it’s plenty good enough for them.

Yeah, but on the other hand, you can’t even log in normally to a Matrix/Element account. I mean using username + password. It’s not expected that you ever log out or lose your browser session. If you do, you must use a one-time backup code (that you must create and save beforehand) to log in again.

To be fair, I can’t say that I fully understand what Matrix is doing in the first place. The text that I quoted reads like they have your keys. But they also claim that they only store this stuff encryped: https://element.io/en/help#encryption5 So … encrypted with what? Only option here is my password, isn’t it? (But if my password was good enough to reclaim an account … why do all the other stuff …)

Matrix takes end-to-end encryption seriously. When I ran a Matrix server for the family, the family members would regularly lose their keys, because they didn’t pay attention to something. That’s on purpose! Or rather, that was on purpose. Maybe it’s different these days?

No clue.

Trump Media Scales Back Plans for Its Own Prediction Market
Truth Predict was supposed to be the Trump family’s biggest leap yet into prediction markets. Now it’s looking more like a tiptoe. ⌘ Read more

Why Soccer Still Defies Statistical Analysis
Sarah Rudd, who once ran analytics for Arsenal, made her name applying the tenets of probability theory to movements on the pitch. Even she admits not everything can be solved with data. ⌘ Read more

Digg Tries Again, This Time As an AI News Aggregator
Digg is relaunching again, this time as an AI-focused news aggregator rather than the Reddit-style community site it recently abandoned. TechCrunch reports: On Friday evening, the founder previewed a link to the newly redesigned Digg, which now looks nothing like a Reddit clone and more like the news aggregator it once was. This time around, the site is focused on rankin … ⌘ Read more

CUDA Proves Nvidia Is a Software Company
Nvidia’s real AI moat isn’t “a piece of hardware,” writes Wired’s Sheon Han. It’s CUDA: a mature, deeply optimized software ecosystem that keeps machine-learning workloads tied to Nvidia GPUs. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: What sounds like a chemical compound banned by the FDA may be the one true moat in AI. CUDA technically stands for Compute Unified Device Architecture, … ⌘ Read more

Redesigned Thelio Major Elevates System76’s All-AMD, Open-Source Linux Workstation
A few weeks back we reviewed the redesigned System76 Thelio Mira with a brand new chassis design and powered by the AMD Ryzen 9000 series. This was an interesting Linux-powered desktop manufactured in Colorado while for those needing a bit more performance, since then the redesigned Thelio Major launched. The new System76 Thelio Major provides an updated Thelio case design like Mira while comes packed with the AMD Ryzen Thread … ⌘ Read more

I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI
For screenwriters like me—and job seekers all over—AI gig work is the new waiting tables. In eight months, I’ve done 20 of these soul-crushing contracts for five different platforms. It’s bad. ⌘ Read more

AI Hard Drive Shortage Makes Archiving the Internet Harder
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Skyrocketing hard drive and storage costs caused by the AI data center boom are making it more expensive and more difficult for digital archivists, academics, Wikipedia, and hobby data hoarders to save data and archive the internet. Specific drives favored by some high profile organizations like the Int … ⌘ Read more

AMD K5 CPUs The Latest To Be Retired With Linux’s Aging & Stagnate Hardware Support
Following Linux 7.1 beginning to phase out i486 CPU support and in turn drivers like those for the old AMD Elan SoCs now being removed, for Linux 7.2 the processor support removal is going further to now include some i586 and i686 class processors… ⌘ Read more

Why the Hantavirus Cruise Ship Outbreak Isn’t Likely to Become a Global Crisis
While the outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic is concerning, the virus isn’t easily transmitted through casual contact. ⌘ Read more

Google Unveils Screenless Fitbit Air, Google Health App To Replace Fitbit
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Wearables have really come full circle. The early Fitbits didn’t have screens, but the move to smartwatches put a screen on everyone’s wrist. Now, devices like Whoop and Hume are designed as data trackers first and foremost without so much as a clock. Google’s newest wearable … ⌘ Read more

Flattened Image Tree 1.0 Specification For Embedded Linux Systems
The Flattened Image Tree “FIT” 1.0 specification was recently finalized for this container format used by U-Boot on embedded systems for providing various boot components like DTBs, the Linux kernel image, and more into a single file… ⌘ Read more

@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. 😅

Thousands of Vibe-Coded Apps Expose Corporate and Personal Data on the Open Web
Companies like Lovable, Base44, Replit, and Netlify use AI to let anyone build a web app in seconds—and in thousands of cases, spill highly sensitive data onto the public internet. ⌘ Read more

Valve Releases Steam Controller CAD Files Under Creative Commons License
Valve has released CAD files for the new Steam Controller and its Puck under a Creative Commons license. “The idea is to let enterprising modders create their own Steam Controller add-ons, like skins, charging stands, grip extenders or smartphone mounts,” reports Digital Foundry. From the report: The Valve release includes file … ⌘ Read more

Mesa 26.1 Released With Many Improvements For Open-Source Vulkan Drivers
Eric Engestrom just announced another timely feature release of the Mesa drivers. Mesa 26.1 is out today for this collection of predominantly OpenGL and Vulkan drivers for a variety of hardware as well as the likes of Rusticl for OpenCL, Zink for OpenGL-on-Vulkan, various Windows acceleration components, and more… ⌘ Read more

LegalZoom Promo Code: Exclusive 10% Off LLC Formations
Save on top services at LegalZoom, like LLC registration, incorporation, estate plans, and more with coupons and deals from WIRED. ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net It’s been a while (6.5 years) since I’ve done this. I’d do it like this:

• Boot some Linux from a USB stick on the new machine. Preferably Arch Linux, since that is what I’m running and that’ll make the upcoming chroot easier.
  
• Partition the new disk, create LUKS devices, filesystems, …
  
• Mount the new filesystems and copy all data (user data and the system itself – everything). Do this either over the network or by hooking up the old disk directly.
  
• chroot into the new system (Arch has an arch-chroot tool for that which is used during normal installation, if I’m not mistaken). Inside the chroot, install the bootloader.
  
• Do some fixups, like adjusting /etc/fstab or /etc/crypttab.
  

And I think that should be it. 🤔

How Microplastics Are Likely Helping To Heat Up the Planet
A new Nature Climate Change study suggests airborne microplastics – especially darker and colored particles – are likely contributing to atmospheric warming by absorbing more heat than they reflect. Researchers estimate the effect could be roughly one-sixth that of black carbon, though outside experts say the uncertainties remain large and more study is ne … ⌘ Read more

The iPhone That Never Was
In 1990, three former Apple employees launched a company that epitomized the Silicon Valley dream. What they invented looked like an iPhone—more than a decade earlier. The device never came to be. ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net nice! Looks like a great place to be. I wouldn’t mind, just about now! How is the camper behaving? Got all your money worth already? Based on your light participation around here I am tempted to say yes. :-D

What to Know About Sony’s $7.85 Million PlayStation Settlement
Are you eligible for a payout? Probably, but it might take a while and will likely be pretty small. ⌘ Read more

The Audio Industry Is Grappling With the Rise of ‘Podslop’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman: Welcome to the modern era of podcasting in which thousands of new shows are released into the world every day with a sizable portion likely being AI-generated. Figuring out exactly which ones fall into that growing category is becoming more difficult just as the industry is starting to take this is … ⌘ Read more

Scientists Discover 27 Potential New Planets That Orbit Two Stars
Astronomers have identified 27 potential new circumbinary planets – worlds that orbit two stars, like Star Wars’ Tatooine. “To date, only about 18 circumbinary planets … had been identified in the universe,” reports the Guardian. “More than 6,000 planets have been discovered that orbit single stars, like Earth does around the sun.” The Gua … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org These days (and it’s been like that for a while), almost everything is loaded on-demand depending on which hardware the OS finds, so you can simply copy all your files with cp -a, install a bootloader, adjust some minor things /etc/fstab, done. Well, maybe not “done”, but it’s easy to sort out the remaining stuff afterwards.

I’ve moved the Arch installation at work from a stationary Dell workstation to an Acer laptop to a Lenovo Carbon laptop to a Tuxedo laptop to a Lenovo Thinkpad. 😅

Yeah, the keyboard of the netbook isn’t all that great, but I have to say that I absolutely love netbooks. And I hate that they got replaced by tablets and smartphones. A netbook is a normal PC, just very small and super easy to carry around – that’s brilliant!

NetHack 5.0 Released
“So yesterday the Devteam (it is always the Devteam) released version 5.0 of legendary and venerable rogueike compuer game NetHack,” writes the Rogue-like games column @Play. “It is 39 years old…”

MilenCent (Slashdot reader #219,397) writes: In addition to play changes it’s left for players to discover, this version updates the code to compile with C99, makes it much easier to cross compile the code for other systems than the one … ⌘ Read more

I like the new GitHub:

Ransomware Is Getting Uglier As Cybercriminals Fake Leaks and Skip Encryption Entirely
“Ransomware activity jumped again in Q1 2026,” writes Slashdot reader BrianFagioli, “with 2,638 victim posts on leak sites, up 22% year over year,” according to a report from cybersecurity company ReliaQuest.

But the bigger shift is how messy the ecosystem has become. Established groups like Akira and Qil … ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net Oh yeah, very beautiful! I can hear the roaring of the waterfall and like to be there, too. The first shot makes it look like you’re in the middle of a cave. :-)

Marvel, DC, Game Publishers Launch Rival Events Saturday for Free Giveaways
The once-a-year free comic book giveaway “is splitting in two,” according to a local news report.

Launched in 2002 by Diamond Comic Distributor, comic book giants like Marvel and DC have historically participated together. But things changed after Diamond Comic Distributors went bankrupt in 2025, “leaving other companies to s … ⌘ Read more

Spotify Adds ‘Verified’ Badges To Distinguish Human Artists From AI
Spotify is adding “Verified by Spotify” badges to distinguish human artists from AI-generated personas, using signals like linked social accounts, consistent listener activity, merchandise, and concert dates. The BBC reports: The world’s most-used music streaming service said the ‘Verified by Spotify’ text and green checkmark icon wo … ⌘ Read more

@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz where are thou?! Haven’t seeing you like, in light years!

The Invisible Force Making Food Less Nutritious
fjo3 shares a report from the Washington Post: Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow – from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth’s food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even p … ⌘ Read more

@yarn_police@twtxt.net Looks like the rendering in yarnd is off. The second subject (prisoner error!) was robbed, its link text got stolen.

New Linux ‘Copy Fail’ Vulnerability Enables Root Access On Major Distros
A newly disclosed Linux kernel flaw dubbed “Copy Fail” can let a local, unprivileged attacker gain root access on major Linux distributions, with researchers claiming the bug affects kernels shipped since 2017. “The POC exploit works out of the box today, but a future version that can escape from containers like Docker is promised soon … ⌘ Read more

‘I get to ask the questions, Mr. Musk’: World’s richest person accuses lawyer of trying to trick him in fiery clash
The jury was shown a series of texts and emails that illustrated the growing mistrust between Elon Musk and OpenAI founder Sam Altman before a tense cross-examination. ⌘ Read more

Taylor Swift Wants to Trademark Her Likeness. These TikTok Deepfake Ads Show Why
Researchers show scammers are using AI-manipulated footage of celebrity interviews to trick users into sharing their personal data. ⌘ Read more

‘It felt like a bribe’: World’s richest person’s texts, emails revealed as he returns to stand
The jury was shown a series of texts and emails that illustrated the growing mistrust between Elon Musk and OpenAI founder Sam Altman. ⌘ Read more