Eek!

What the…? I feel old.

Dev here, building a public SaaS app. I’m aware of the centralization arguments, but CF seems to be the least worst of all the options in terms of alternatives. CAPTCHAs are awful, and I can’t put up my own multi-Tbps DDOS buffer. I also regularly access my own resources from behind multiple VPNs; other than having to click the human button it doesn’t consign me to an evening of identifying traffic lights.

This adds a lot of detail: https://www.pbo.co.uk/boats/the-worlds-smallest-boat-how-andrew-bedwell-built-his-100cm-boat-to-sail-across-the-atlantic-101664 . I can’t help but wonder about the lavatory situation, which isn’t discussed.

Take a look at https://recapamac.com.au/ . The chap is no longer in the recapping business, but offers some helpful resources. Also consider replacing the PRAM battery – I’m not a vintage iMac expert but know that this has been an issue with other older Macs.

Yup, and Ars has followed up with an initial explanation at https://arstechnica.com/staff/2026/02/editors-note-retraction-of-article-containing-fabricated-quotations/ . Hopefully they’ll go into greater detail about what happened.

If I had to guess, I’d say that you’re referring to StuffIt archives (with a .sit file extension). They were the most common classic MacOS archive format. Copies of StuffItExpander (free, if I remember correctly) are readily available, however unrar on *nix platforms will also extract them and retain the Mac resource fork according to https://github.com/PiSCSI/piscsi/issues/630 . Good luck!

I can’t speak for cross-compilation, but I was a serious Mac developer on System 7 - MacOS 9 back in the day, and Metrowerks CodeWarrior was my tool of choice for C/C++ . A thread on 68KMLA from a few years ago has an extensive discussion of CodeWarrior: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/metrowerks-codewarrior-best-version-and-updates.42338/

Bravo for keeping this great old software and hardware going (System 7 is perhaps my favorite OS of all time). Let us know what you build!

Nothing is a panacea against slop, but for general search, I’ve become a huge fan of Kagi. Gave up Google years ago, went to DDG, but Kagi is a cut above. There is a subscription fee, however. (Not shilling - no association with them, just a happy user).

Watched the Ars conversation on this one. Aurich pulled the article after a firestorm in the comments, in which the quotes attributed to the AI agent operator appeared to be non-existent (the human subject of the article weighed in to corroborate this). Ars Technica has promised to investigate and update readers after the weekend.

Similar memories here. The first time I went on IRC using a Palm Pilot connected to a Ricochet modem, while in a moving vehicle (not driving!) felt like magic.

All valid points.

However, the actual capabilities of the AIs might not matter with respect to job displacement, since the people making the hiring decisions are absorbing the marketing hype but not using the tools.

Even if folks are still hired, they might experience second order effects like increased job stress and burnout: https://fortune.com/2026/02/10/ai-future-of-work-white-collar-employees-technology-productivity-burnout-research-uc-berkeley/

I’m rather glad that I’m reaching the end of my career and not trying to break into the market as a junior software engineer.

Indeed, it’s amazing how much stuff was / is out there in the open.

Hobbyist use of unencrypted protocols like telnet can be very educational, and the other commenter is right that not everything needs to be encrypted, especially within the confines of a homelab, for instance.

My support for ending telnet use is much more about things like IoT systems, industrial hardware and so on talking in the clear and being vulnerable to compromise.

This isn’t about telnet, per se, but is a good example of the problem: https://news.satnews.com/2026/02/04/russia-intercepts-europes-key-satellites-placing-nato-satellite-at-risk/

LodeMike, I’m curious about something. What’s the latest set of AI models and tools you’ve used personally? Have you used Opus 4.5 or 4.6, for instance?

I am not disagreeing with the points you’ve made, but it’s been my experience that the increase in capabilities over the last six months has been so rapid that it’s hard to realistically evaluate what the current frontier models are capable of unless you’ve uused them meaningfully and with some frequency.

I’d welcome your perspective.

Good point. I was referring more to telnetd as an unencrypted client-server protocol, typically to port 23. Often unauthenticated, ripe for MITM attacks.

That needs to end.

I share the author’s nostalgia for Telnet, as a kid who spent many lost hours trying to telnet into “interesting things” at the dawn of the internet. It is, however, long past time for the protocol to die and force ancient and insecure things to be retired. Thus might just do it.

Looks delicious. Enjoy!

I’m eagerly awaiting the pendulum swinging back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIX_Interactive_Desktop

Thanks for the clickbait headline. TL;DR - “custom firmware project resurrects the Nokia N8, transforming it from a drawer-dwelling relic into a functional device.”

With the departure of Alan Dye from Apple (https://daringfireball.net/2025/12/bad_dye_job ) hopefully sanity will return to their UI/UX, but it might take a few iOS versions (read: years) to break the glass.