Facebook Dating Is a Surprise Hit For the Social Network
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Facebook Dating, which debuted in 2019, has become a surprise hit for the company. It lets people create a dating profile free in the app, where they can swipe and match with other eligible singles. It has more than 21 million daily users, quietly making it one of the most popular online dating service … ⌘ Read more

AMD Sends Out Initial GNU Binutils Patch For AMD Zen 6 - Confirms New AVX-512 Features
AMD has begun their open-source compiler enablement upstreaming effort for Zen 6 processors! The first “Znver6” patch was sent out on Friday in preparing for new instructions to be found with these next-generation AMD Ryzen and EPYC processors… ⌘ Read more

oneDNN 3.10 Continues Preparing For Future Intel CPUs With AVX 10.2
Released one Friday was the newest version of oneDNN as this library started off by Intel and now officially under the UXL Foundation umbrella for serving as building blocks for deep learning software… ⌘ Read more

Linux Kernel Patches & Device Tree Additions For PCIe M.2 Connectors
On ACPI-enabled systems Linux users can enjoy PCIe M.2 connected peripherals that “just work” without any extra fuss. But for those relying on Device Tree (DT) handling by the kernel, new patches from Qualcomm are working on representing PCIe M.2 connectors within DT files… ⌘ Read more

Qt Merges Wayland Color Management “color-management-v1”
The Qt toolkit has merged support for Wayland’s color-management-v1 protocol to replace the former xx-color-management-v4 protocol shipped by this open-source toolkit. The change was merged for Qt 6.11 development but also back-ported for the Qt 6.10 series… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Shaving Off 100MB Of Memory Use, Fixing DrKonqi Crash Reporter Crashing
KDE developers were off to a busy start for the month of November. A lot of feature activity continues happening for Plasma 6.6 while a lot of bug fixing is still going on for Plasma 6.5 and related KDE components… ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.0 Beta 5 Released With Build Fixes For Google & Azure Clouds
FreeBSD 15.0-RC1 had been expected this weekend but instead a fifth beta release of FreeBSD 15.0 was deemed warranted… ⌘ Read more

Unesco Adopts Global Standards On ‘Wild West’ Field of Neurotechnology
Unesco has adopted the first global ethical standards for neurotechnology, defining “neural data” and outlining more than 100 recommendations aimed at safeguarding mental privacy. “There is no control,” said Unesco’s chief of bioethics, Dafna Feinholz. “We have to inform the people about the risks, the potential benefits, the alterna … ⌘ Read more

Lego Unveils First-Ever Star Trek Set
New submitter semper_statisticum shares a report from the Independent: Lego is releasing its first-ever Star Trek-inspired model – with an incredible recreation of the signature ship from the ‘80s TV series. Made from 3,600 pieces, the [first-ever] Star Trek inspired Lego set is of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, the spaceship that serves as the main setting of Star Trek: The Next Generation … ⌘ Read more

The First New Subsea Habitat In 40 Years Is About To Launch
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides behind a curtain. But some clues hint that you can’t just f … ⌘ Read more

‘Vibe Coding’ Named Word of the Year By Collins Dictionary
Collins Dictionary has named “vibe coding” its 2025 word of the year – a term coined by Andrej Karpathy for when a user makes an app or website by describing it to AI rather than writing programming code manually. The term, which is confusingly made up of two words, was “one of 10 words on a shortlist to reflect the mood, language and preoccupations of 2025,” repo … ⌘ Read more

James D. Watson, Co-Discoverer of the Structure of DNA, Is Dead At 97
ole_timer shares a report from the New York Times: James D. Watson, who entered the pantheon of science at age 25 when he joined in the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of the most momentous breakthroughs in the history of science, died on Thursday in East Northport, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 97. His death, in a hospice, was c … ⌘ Read more

GTK Adds “Reduced Motion” Accessibility Option To Follow macOS, Windows & Others
In addition to GNOME’s Mutter compositor removing its X11 back-end support to focus exclusively on Wayland while keeping around XWayland client support, another notable GNOME change this week was the GTK toolkit adding a “reduced motion” accessibility option… ⌘ Read more

‘Nintendo Has Too Many Apps’
The Verge’s Ash Parrish writes: Nintendo has released a new store app on Android and iOS giving users the ability to purchase hardware, accessories, and games for the Switch and Switch 2. When I open my phone and scroll down to the N’s, I get a neat, full row dedicated entirely to Nintendo. That’s four apps: the Switch app, the music app, the Nintendo Today news app, and now the store. (The tally increases to five if … ⌘ Read more

You Can’t Leave Unless You Buy Something
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGATE: At the Safeway on San Francisco’s King Street, you now can’t leave the store unless you buy something. The Mission Bay grocery store recently installed new anti-theft measures at the entrance and exit. New gates at the entrance automatically swing open when customers walk in, but they’re set to trigger an alarm if someone attempts to back out. And … ⌘ Read more

Texas Sues Roblox For Allegedly Failing To Protect Children On Its Platform
Texas is suing Roblox, alleging the company misled parents about safety, ignored online-protection laws, and allowed an environment where predators could target children. Texas AG Ken Paxton said the online game platform is “putting pixel pedophiles and profits over the safety of Texas children,” alleging that it is “flagrantl … ⌘ Read more

Gemini Starts Rolling Out On Android Auto
Gemini is (finally) rolling out on Android Auto, replacing Google Assistant while keeping “Hey Google,” adding Gemini Live (“let’s talk live”), message auto-translation, and new privacy toggles. “One feature lost between Assistant and Gemini, though, is the ability to use nicknames for contacts,” notes 9to5Google. From the report: Over the past 24 hours, Google has quietly started the rollou … ⌘ Read more

Denmark’s Government Aims To Ban Access To Social Media For Children Under 15
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Denmark’s government on Friday announced an agreement to ban access to social media for anyone under 15, ratcheting up pressure on Big Tech platforms as concerns grow that kids are getting too swept up in a digitized world of harmful content and commercial int … ⌘ Read more

States Seek Extension of Ecommerce Tariff Moratorium at WTO
An anonymous reader shares a report: A group of states is seeking to extend a World Trade Organization agreement to refrain from placing customs duties on digital transmissions, a World Trade Organization document showed on Thursday. The proposal submitted by Barbados on behalf of a group of African, Caribbean and Pacific states proposed to extend the current m … ⌘ Read more

NILFS2 File-System Seeing Renewed Interest With Additional Maintainer
It’s been a while since having anything major to talk about with the NILFS2 file-system but it looks like that could be changing. NILFS2 as a reminder is a log-structured file-system with continuous snapshotting with its NILFS predecessor having been in the mainline kernel for two decades since the mid Linux 2.6 days… ⌘ Read more

Nintendo Won’t Shy Away From Continuing To ‘Try Anything’
An anonymous reader shares a report: Nintendo has always been a company willing to try just about anything. Cardboard cutout toys that mesh with games? Done. A console called the Wii with a remote-shaped controller? Massive success. Legendary game designer and Nintendo executive Shigeru Miyamoto offered more insight into how the company operates in a recent fina … ⌘ Read more

Direct File Won’t Happen in 2026, IRS Tells States
NextGov: The IRS has notified states that offered the free, government tax filing service known as Direct File in 2025 that the program won’t be available next filing season. In an email sent from the IRS to 25 states, the tax agency thanked them for collaborating and noted that “no launch date has been set for the future.”

“IRS Direct File will not be available in Filing Se … ⌘ Read more

Video Games’ Hottest New Platform is an Old One
Web-based video games are experiencing an unexpected revival as the broader $189 billion industry stagnates. Sales for browser-based titles like GeoGuessr and chess were expected to triple from 2021 to 2028, reaching $3.09 billion, according to Google and Kantar. Playgama hosted more than 15,000 new web games in the first half of 2025, exceeding the combined total from 2021 throug … ⌘ Read more

macOS Tahoe’s Terrible Icons
An anonymous reader shares a report: On the new MacOS 26 (Tahoe), Apple has mandated that all application icons fit into their prescribed squircle. No longer can icons have distinct shapes, nor even any fun frame-breaking accessories. Should an icon be so foolish as to try to have a bit of personality, it will find itself stuffed into a dingy gray icon jail.

[…] While Apple had previously urged developers to use … ⌘ Read more

As Brazil Cracks Down on Forest Clearing, Emissions Fall
Last year Brazil saw its biggest drop in emissions since 2009, new data show. The decline comes in the wake of a crackdown on deforestation. From a report: Since returning to power in 2022, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has moved to stem illicit clearing of forest by miners, loggers, and farmers, stepping up enforcement that had been weakened under his pred … ⌘ Read more

Mesa 25.3-rc4 Brings Fix For Many Steam Play Games To Properly Run On Intel Linux Driver
Mesa 25.3-rc4 is available for testing as the latest weekly candidate as we work toward the Mesa 25.3 stable release this month… ⌘ Read more

Corporate Profits Surge as Companies Cut Nearly 1 Million Jobs
U.S. corporate profits have risen to record levels this year as companies eliminated nearly 1 million jobs. Chen Zhao of Alpine Macro calls the disconnect a “jobless boom.” Companies typically cut workers when profits decline. Amazon laid off 30,000 employees despite strong earnings. Zhao attributes the pattern to AI adoption boosting productivity across … ⌘ Read more

IncusOS Announced As Immutable Linux OS With ZFS For Running Containers
It has been two years already since the Linux Containers project forked Canonical’s LXD project as Incus. Now joining the Incus family is IncusOS as an immutable Linux OS built atop a Debian base with OpenZFS file-system support and designed around running containers with Incus… ⌘ Read more

Amazon Takes Low-Cost Ecommerce Service Global
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon on Friday expanded the reach of its low-cost ecommerce service to 14 additional markets and will call it Amazon Bazaar, as part of a push to compete with Chinese rivals including Shein and PDD Holding’s Temu. The expansion of the service comes at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping import tariffs are denting consumer sentiment, … ⌘ Read more

Rideshare Giant Grab Moves 200 Macs Out of the Cloud, Expects To Save $2.4 Million
Singaporean super-app company Grab has dumped 200 cloudy Mac Minis and replaced them with physical machines, a move it expects will save $2.4 million over three years. From a report: Grab is Southeast Asia’s leading rideshare and food delivery outfit and therefore needs to build apps for iOS to connect with custom … ⌘ Read more

Intel’s Rewrite Of Linux MM CID Code Showing Some Nice Gains For AMD
Posted last month were new Linux kernel scheduler-related patches rewriting the MM CID management code. The main takeaway for end-users from this set of 19 Linux kernel patches from an Intel engineer was seeing 14~18% improvement in a PostgreSQL database benchmark but that more benchmarks were needed. Curiosity got the best of me and I recently tested these patches on an AMD EPYC server to seeing some very enticing results for this in-development c … ⌘ Read more

Polymarket Volume Inflated by ‘Artificial’ Activity, Study Finds
An anonymous reader shares a report: The volume of activity on Polymarket, one of the most popular prediction markets, has been significantly inflated by so-called wash trading in which users rapidly buy and sell the same contracts, according to a new study by Columbia University researchers. The “artificial trading,” as the authors call it, varied … ⌘ Read more

Intel’s Rewrite Of Linux MM CID Code Showing Some Nice Gains For AMD
Posted last month were new Linux kernel scheduler-related patches rewriting the MM CID management code. The main takeaway for end-users from this set of 19 Linux kernel patches from an Intel engineer was seeing 14~18% improvement in a PostgreSQL database benchmark but that more benchmarks were needed. Curiosity got the best of me and I recently tested these patches on an AMD EPYC server to seeing some very enticing results for this in-development c … ⌘ Read more

Grand Theft Auto 6 Delayed Again Until November 2026
Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto VI won’t launch in May of next year as planned. Kotaku: The highly anticipated sequel is now set to arrive in November 2026. On Thursday, Rockstar announced on social media that the long-awaited next entry in its open-world blockbuster franchise would need a bit more time, delaying the game an additional six months from … ⌘ Read more

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I’m going to bed, but I’ll have a closer read/think tomorrow 🤞

Linux To Gain ML-DSA/Dilithium Post-Quantum Cryptography For Module Signing
New code likely to be submitted for the upcoming Linux 6.19 kernel would introduce ML-DSA/Dilithium post-quantum cryptography to be initially used for dealing with kernel module signing… ⌘ Read more

Dutch Ready To Drop Nexperia Control If Chip Supply Resumes
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Netherlands is prepared to suspend its powers over Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia in a move that would de-escalate a fight with Beijing that threatens to disrupt automotive production around the world. The Dutch government is ready to shelve the ministerial order that gave it the power to block or change key corporate … ⌘ Read more

… and now I just read @bender@twtxt.net’s other post that said the Gemini text was a shortened version, so I might have criticized things that weren’t true for the full version. Okay, sorry, I’m out. (And I won’t play that game, either. Don’t send me another AI output, possibly tweaked to address my criticism. That is besides the point and not worth my time.)

@prologic@twtxt.net Let’s go through it one by one. Here’s a wall of text that took me over 1.5 hours to write.

This section says AI should not be treated as an authority. This is actually just what I said, except the AI phrased/framed it like it was a counter-argument.

The AI also said that users must develop “AI literacy”, again phrasing/framing it like a counter-argument. Well, that is also just what I said. I said you should treat AI output like a random blog and you should verify the sources, yadda yadda. That is “AI literacy”, isn’t it?

My text went one step further, though: I said that when you take this requirement of “AI literacy” into account, you basically end up with a fancy search engine, with extra overhead that costs time. The AI missed/ignored this in its reply.

Okay, so, the AI also said that you should use AI tools just for drafting and brainstorming. Granted, a very rough draft of something will probably be doable. But then you have to diligently verify every little detail of this draft – okay, fine, a draft is a draft, it’s fine if it contains errors. The thing is, though, that you really must do this verification. And I claim that many people will not do it, because AI outputs look sooooo convincing, they don’t feel like a draft that needs editing.

Can you, as an expert, still use an AI draft as a basis/foundation? Yeah, probably. But here’s the kicker: You did not create that draft. You were not involved in the “thought process” behind it. When you, a human being, make a draft, you often think something like: “Okay, I want to draw a picture of a landscape and there’s going to be a little house, but for now, I’ll just put in a rough sketch of the house and add the details later.” You are aware of what you left out. When the AI did the draft, you are not aware of what’s missing – even more so when every AI output already looks like a final product. For me, personally, this makes it much harder and slower to verify such a draft, and I mentioned this in my text.

You, @prologic@twtxt.net, also mentioned this in your car tyre example.

In my text, I gave two analogies: The gym analogy and the Google Translate analogy. Your car tyre example falls in the same category, but Gemini’s calculator example is different (and, again, gaslight-y, see below).

What I meant in my text: A person wants to be a programmer. To me, a programmer is a person who writes code, understands code, maintains code, writes documentation, and so on. In your example, a person who changes a car tyre would be a mechanic. Now, if you use AI to write the code and documentation for you, are you still a programmer? If you have no understanding of said code, are you a programmer? A person who does not know how to change a car tyre, is that still a mechanic?

No, you’re something else. You should not be hired as a programmer or a mechanic.

Yes, that is “skill evolution” – which is pretty much my point! But the AI framed it like a counter-argument. It didn’t understand my text.

(But what if that’s our future? What if all programming will look like that in some years? I claim: It’s not possible. If you don’t know how to program, then you don’t know how to read/understand code written by an AI. You are something else, but you’re not a programmer. It might be valid to be something else – but that wasn’t my point, my point was that you’re not a bloody programmer.)

Gemini’s calculator example is garbage, I think. Crunching numbers and doing mathematics (i.e., “complex problem-solving”) are two different things. Just because you now have a calculator, doesn’t mean it’ll free you up to do mathematical proofs or whatever.

What would have worked is this: Let’s say you’re an accountant and you sum up spendings. Without a calculator, this takes a lot of time and is error prone. But when you have one, you can work faster. But once again, there’s a little gaslight-y detail: A calculator is correct. Yes, it could have “bugs” (hello Intel FDIV), but its design actually properly calculates numbers. AI, on the other hand, does not understand a thing (our current AI, that is), it’s just a statistical model. So, this modified example (“accountant with a calculator”) would actually have to be phrased like this: Suppose there’s an accountant and you give her a magic box that spits out the correct result in, what, I don’t know, 70-90% of the time. The accountant couldn’t rely on this box now, could she? She’d either have to double-check everything or accept possibly wrong results. And that is how I feel like when I work with AI tools.

Gemini has no idea that its calculator example doesn’t make sense. It just spits out some generic “argument” that it picked up on some website.

The AI makes two points here. The first one, I might actually agree with (“bad bot behavior is not the fault of AI itself”).

The second point is, once again, gaslighting, because it is phrased/framed like a counter-argument. It implies that I said something which I didn’t. Like the AI, I said that you would have to adjust the copyright law! At the same time, the AI answer didn’t even question whether it’s okay to break the current law or not. It just said “lol yeah, change the laws”. (I wonder in what way the laws would have to be changed in the AI’s “opinion”, because some of these changes could kill some business opportunities – or the laws would have to have special AI clauses that only benefit the AI techbros. But I digress, that wasn’t part of Gemini’s answer.)

Except for one point, I don’t accept any of Gemini’s “criticism”. It didn’t pick up on lots of details, ignored arguments, and I can just instinctively tell that this thing does not understand anything it wrote (which is correct, it’s just a statistical model).

And it framed everything like a counter-argument, while actually repeating what I said. That’s gaslighting: When Alice says “the sky is blue” and Bob replies with “why do you say the sky is purple?!”

But it sure looks convincing, doesn’t it?

This took so much of my time. I won’t do this again. 😂

US Congressional Budget Office Hit By Suspected Foreign Cyberattack
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms it suffered a cybersecurity incident after a suspected foreign hacker breached its network, potentially exposing sensitive data. In a statement shared with BleepingComputer, CBO spokesperson Caitlin Emma confirmed the “security incid … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Contributing “RAMDAX” Driver For Upcoming Linux 6.19 Kernel
A new driver planned to be sent to the mainline Linux kernel for the upcoming Linux 6.19 merge window is yet another new contribution from Microsoft… ⌘ Read more

Mesa Lands Fixes For HDR With Vulkan Drivers
Merged overnight to Mesa 26.0-devel and likely to be back-ported for the upcoming Mesa 23.3 release are a few fixes around high dynamic range (HDR) support within the common Vulkan windowing system integration (WSI) / display code… ⌘ Read more

Ikea’s Big Smart Home Push Arrives With 21 New Matter Devices
The Scandinavian furniture giant has unveiled 21 new ultra-affordable Matter-over-Thread smart home devices across three launch segments: lighting, sensors, and control. With prices starting at just a few dollars, Ikea is pushing hard to replace its old Zigbee lineup and become a serious player in the Matter ecosystem. Forbes reports: Back to the 21 n … ⌘ Read more

Why Does So Much New Technology Feel Inspired by Dystopian Sci-Fi Movies?
In a recent article published in the New York Times, author Casey Michael Henry argues that today’s tech industry keeps borrowing dystopian sci-fi aesthetics and ideas – often the parts that were meant as warnings – and repackages them as exciting products without recognizing that they were originally cautionary tales … ⌘ Read more

Mark Zuckerberg Opened an Illegal School At His Palo Alto Compound. His Neighbor Revolted
Mark Zuckerberg opened an unlicensed school named after the family’s pet chicken – and it was the final straw for his neighbors, writes Slashdot reader joshuark, citing a report from Wired. The magazine obtained 1,665 pages of documents about the neighborhood dispute – “including 311 records, leg … ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I am genuinely curious as to why you think Geminis summarization and the categorization of your gopher post was and is as you say misunderstood?

I asked this very genuinely because before reading @bender@twtxt.net’s comments and Gemini summarization I actually went and unplugged your post into flood gaps go for proxy, and then listen to the text intently with my own human ears 👂

Ubuntu Server 25.10 Performance On AMD EPYC With “amd64v3” Optimized Packages
Last week Canonical announced Ubuntu “architecture variants” with initially supporting “amd64v3” optimized packages built using the x86_64-v3 micro-architecture feature level. For this initial debut in the Ubuntu 25.10 archive an initial subset of packages are built using that higher feature level that can assume AVX/AVX2 and other more recent CPU ISA additions. More details on that and some initial desktop benchmarks can be found w … ⌘ Read more

How the US Cut Climate-Changing Emissions While Its Economy More Than Doubled
alternative_right shares a report from The Conversation: Countries around the world have been discussing the need to rein in climate change for three decades, yet global greenhouse gas emissions – and global temperatures with them – keep rising. When it seems like we’re getting nowhere, it’s useful to step back an … ⌘ Read more

Ford Considers Scrapping F-150 EV Truck
According to the Wall Street Journal, Ford executives are considering scrapping the electric version of the F-150 pickup truck as losses, supply setbacks, slow sales, and the arrival of a cheaper midsize EV truck undermine the business case for its full-size electric pickup. Reuters reports: Last month, a union official told Reuters that Ford was pausing production at the Dearborn, Michigan, pla … ⌘ Read more

Magika 1.0 Goes Stable As Google Rebuilds Its File Detection Tool In Rust
BrianFagioli writes: Google has released Magika 1.0, a stable version of its AI-based file type detection tool, and rebuilt the entire engine in Rust for speed and memory safety. The system now recognizes more than 200 file types, up from about 100, and is better at distinguishing look-alike formats such as JSON vs JSONL, TS … ⌘ Read more