@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

lproven

@[email protected]

Tall, once dark, black-clad atheist skeptic SF fan; writes (mostly about computers) for a living. Grizzled internet veteran, online since 1985. Current primary email is from 1991.

All opinions expressed are my own & not those of any employer.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

On craft and AI

https://slightknack.dev/daily/2026-02-04/

<- an interesting and measured post

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

― Frank Herbert, Dune

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Windows 8 revival on Linux

https://github.com/er-bharat/Win8DE

«If you are one of who enjoyed the windows 8 and miss its fluid animations but have since moved to linux. And cant go back to windows 8, because all apps are non functional there. And if you can bear that you cant install it on the newer hardware. This is for you it is a shell for wayland window managers like Labwc hyprland etc.»

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Discord is running a survey about integrating generative "AI" into its service. Please do go tell them what you think.

https://discord.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5BGtstVUidXadts

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

RE: https://oldbytes.space/@flexion/115752573933914452

The oldest Unix written in C was successfully recovered from tape this weekend -- and here it is running on IRIX.

The amazing bit is the contents of the big window in the middle, for children under 50, not the windows themselves.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

FreeBSD 15 trims legacy fat and revamps how OS is built

https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/05/freebsd_15/

Project retires 32-bit ports, embraces pkgbase, and modernizes build process

<- by me on @theregister

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

RE: https://mastodon.social/@bobthomson70/115632986864363036

Even the Economist says it's flagging.

It's a a con, folks. Generative AI is a total scam. Can't summarise, can't answer questions, can't think, can't count, can't program. Anyone who says it can is either [a] a liar or [b] wrong, with no exceptions.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Meet the Woman on a Mission to Photograph Every Species of Hummingbird in the World

https://www.audubon.org/magazine/meet-woman-mission-photograph-every-species-of-hummingbird-world

In less than a decade amateur photographer & Hummingbird Spot founder Carole Turek has photographed more than 250 hummingbird species, including one that was long considered extinct.

lproven ,
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@meejle@lemmy.world avatar meejle @onlooker@lemmy.ml avatar onlooker

> The current state of AI is impressive to me

Really? Seriously? It's just a fake, every bit as much as ELIZA was -- just with a vastly bigger set of responses it generates on the fly from a vast database of stolen material.

lproven ,
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@Ferk@lemmy.ml avatar Ferk @meejle@lemmy.world avatar meejle

> … people are not unimpressed by AI

I disagree strongly. Smart people who understand how it works, and the cost, are DEEPLY and profoundly unimpressed by it.

I want to see it banned.

lproven ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

@Ferk@lemmy.ml avatar Ferk Ah, I see.

I suppose so.

As a one-time committee member on Skeptics in the Pub, there are a lot of things in life that demonstrably Do Not Work, never did work, and can be proved not to ever be possible, which all the same, billions of people are very impressed by.

Homeopathy is my go-to example -- see:

https://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/

This is true of all Supplementary, Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It's all a S.C.A.M. ;-)

But it goes much further. Gods, for example. All 100% made up.

And yet...

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Latest Servo release hints at a real Rust alternative to Chromium

https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/18/servo_002_arrives/

As Mozilla stumbles into 'AI everywhere,' you might be glad of a non-Google browser engine

<- by me on @theregister

Microsoft Offers Chrome Users ‘Real Cash’ Rewards To Change Browser ( www.forbes.com )

Microsoft has launched a new rewards program offering Chrome users "real cash value" points to switch to Edge browser[^1]. When users search for "Chrome" on Bing, they receive a prompt offering 1,300 Microsoft Rewards points that can be exchanged for gift cards, including on Amazon[^1]. ...

lproven ,
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@null@piefed.nullspace.lol avatar null @Zerush@lemmy.ml avatar Zerush Well I mean it's very good at silently downloading files from remote servers without telling you, if that's what you mean. It does it for other people all the time.

lproven ,
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@Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml avatar Core_of_Arden @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar Appoxo The only people I know who don't use WhatsApp are the very technophobic or rich, antisocial Apple users. It's ubiquitous. It is the standard method of international texting. I know a few people who use Signal (mostly who work in or around FOSS or security) and a few who use Telegram. They're all nerds. But friends and family and social contacts and to a degree companies are WhatsApp.

The US is one continent sized country. The ROTW is mostly lots of small countries and lots of movement between them. That means that SMS costs money, sometimes a lot of money, and the Google and Apple systems mean you need to know what type of device the recipient has. If you don't know, don't care, and don't want to know, then you WhatsApp them.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Mr TIFF – from Inventing The Future

https://inventingthefuture.ghost.io/mr-tiff/

<- tracing Stephen Carlsen, the man who invented the TIFF picture file while at Aldus, just before he died

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time (MIT Technology Review)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1127057/agi-conspiracy-theory-artifcial-general-intelligence/

The idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry. But look closely & you’ll see it’s a myth that persists for many of the same reasons conspiracies do.

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced "Librephone," a new project aimed at achieving complete mobile phone freedom for users from Google and Apple. The initiative will work to reverse engineer obstacles until its goal of a fully free mobile phone environment is realized. Can they be successful where industry leaders like Ubuntu failed previously?

https://www.fsf.org/news/librephone-project

lproven ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

@nixCraft A Linux phone you say?

Like a Furilabs phone?

https://furilabs.com/

Or a Fairphone with postmarketOS?

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-fp5)

Or a Jolla phone?

https://jolla-devices.com/jolla-jolla/

Or a Pinephone?

https://pine64.org/devices/pinephone/

Or any supported device with UBports?

https://ubports.com/

Seriously, there are multiple options out there.

I didn't back the Ubuntu phone because it didn't offer anything to me that existing phones didn't already do. Like, say, a physical keyboard, which I'd happily pay for. (I own a Gemini.)

@cstross@wandering.shop avatar cstross , to random

Bubble's gonna burst!

OpenAI generated US$4.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2025, according to financial disclosures to shareholders.

The artificial intelligence firm reported a net loss of US$13.5 billion during the same period, with more than half attributed to the remeasurement of convertible interest rights.

Research and development expenses were its largest cost, totaling US$6.7 billion in the first half.

(OpenAI current valuation: $500Bn.)

https://www.techinasia.com/news/openais-revenue-rises-16-to-4-3b-in-h1-2025

lproven ,
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@scottgal @cstross Nah. This is True Believer stuff playing dress-up as scepticism.

It doesn't matter where you run the model and whether it takes milliwatts or gigawatts. What matters is that LLMs are not AI, don't work, and are no use for 99% of the things AI boosters claim they are.

It's still just bullshit and lies based on theft and hype. Doesn't matter if large, small, remote, local, or nasally inserted. It's still bullshit.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

The great Dr Jane Goodall, ethologist and campaigner for great apes and much else, has died at the age of 91.

She loved this Far Side cartoon, and wrote a foreword for a later Gary Larson collection.

A chimp couple are sitting in a tree. The female is grooming the male and finds a hair on his back. She says: "Well, well — another blonde hair... Conducting a little more “research” with that Jane Goodall tramp?”
ALT
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Seen two people talking about a new, paid-for "AI" powered browser from "Norwegian browser company Opera" today.

  1. Opera sold out to China in 2016. It's a Chinese browser company now.

  2. This is a key indicator the "AI" bubble is about to pop: when they start charging the rubes for the snake oil that was previoiusly free...

lproven ,
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@PanArab@lemmy.ml avatar PanArab @yogthos@lemmy.ml avatar yogthos 20M units in China is too small to count as a rounding error.

When one Chinese phone company hired an American CEO he talked in interviews about how experimentally selling 50M units of a test prototype suggested it might have potential.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Contrafactuals: Making a list of pros and cons of getting in a time machine and going back to 1992 to run a nightclub.

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/10/contrafactuals/

<- by the inimitable JWZ

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

What's the oldest piece of machinery that you own that still works, for its original purpose, in (mostly!) its original state?

lproven ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

@NanoRaptor My family just bought a "new" house. It's around the corner from where I currently rent. The street was built in 1949-1851 (from the dates on some buildings.)

So I own a dwelling from ~1850. It has an original fireplace and stove in the cellar.

Does that count?

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Yesterday I nuked the Windows partition on another of my Thinkpads & replaced it with Windows 10 IoT LTSC.

Now I have a clean Win10 system, no Modern apps, no Windows store, no OneDrive, & it'll get updates until 2032.

The download & the tools to activate it are here:

https://massgrave.dev/

Need Windows? Do it. Do it now.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Do I Need Kubernetes?

https://doineedkubernetes.com/

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Please don't promote Wayland

An open letter from developers and users to the wider Linux community

https://stoppromotingwayland.netlify.app/

<- oh, this is going to go down just great. I can't imagine any bad reaction at all, oh no.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Some users report their Firefox browser is scoffing CPU power

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/13/firefox_ai_scoffing_power/

You guessed it: looks like it's a so-called AI

<- by me on @theregister

lproven ,
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GregorGizeh @Sxan@piefed.zip avatar Sxan Old English (and current Icelandic) letters. English had these until we bought printing presses from the Germans, who lack these sounds.

þ represents unvoiced th, ð voiced ð.

So, more logical spellings than the bodge of "th" for both.

So why not?

lproven ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

@Sxan@piefed.zip avatar Sxan Immaculate reasoning. Can't fault it. Well done. 😁

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

The sudo systemctl soft-reboot on Linux is used for performing a userspace only reboot operation. It will reboot the Linux distro without the BIOS, UEFI or the hardware having to perform a complete cold boot. As a result your system reboots in seconds but will not load a new Linux kernel. It is useful to reset userspace (e.g. VMs, docker, any other process).

A screenshot of manual page named `systemd-soft-reboot.service` that reads: Such a userspace-only reboot operation permits updating or resetting the entirety of userspace with minimal downtime, as the reboot operation does not transition through: •The second phase of regular shutdown, as implemented by systemd-shutdown(8). •The third phase of regular shutdown, i.e. the return to the initrd context. •The hardware reboot operation. •The firmware initialization. •The boot loader initialization. •The kernel initialization. •The initrd initialization. However, this form of reboot comes with drawbacks as well: •The OS update remains incomplete, as the kernel is not reset and continues running. •Kernel settings (such as /proc/sys/ settings, a.k.a. "sysctl", or /sys/ settings) are not reset.
ALT
lproven ,
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@nixCraft Until it got broken some years back (possibly by systemd) the kexec command could do this too, but including the kernel, so nearly as fast but much more thorough.

@tante@tldr.nettime.org avatar tante , (edited ) to random

I was talking to someone yesterday (let's call them A) and they had another "AI" experience, I thought might happen but hadn't heard of before.

They were interacting with an organization and upon asking a specific thing got a very specific answer. Weeks later that organization claimed it had never said what they said and when A showed the email as proof the defense was: Oh yeah, we're an international organization and it's busy right now so the person who sent the original mail probably had an LLM write it that made shit up. It literally ended with: "Let's just blame the robot ;)".

(Edit: I did read the email and it did not read like something an LLM wrote. I think we see "LLM did it" emerging as a way to cover up mistakes.)

LLMs as diffusors for responsibility in corporate environments was quite obviously gonna be a key sales pitch, but it was new to me that people would be using those lines in direct communication.

lproven ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

@tante IBM called this one successfully in 1979:

“A computer can never be held accountable. Therefore a computer must never make a management decision.”

https://blog.apaonline.org/2023/04/13/responsibility-and-automated-decision-making-draft/

@davidgerard@circumstances.run avatar davidgerard , to random

Xlibre claims it will keep X11 alive

turns out to be run by a huge asshole who can't code

huge asshole turns out to be literal Nazi

X11 fans blame Red Hat

lproven ,
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@davidgerard I do not have any firmly-held position on this, but wow... aside from writing about Xlibre bringing out antivaxxers like pale squirming things after lifting a large rock...

Sheesh the personal abuse I've had from the GNOME and Wayland fans after daring to point out problems in their babies.

I never had to start blocking people on the Fediverse before, but now I do.

Thou Shalt Not Criticise Wayland. It Is The Truth And The Light. Thou mayst Not Criticise GNOME Unless Thou Art One Of The KDE Tribe For That Is The Only Other Clean Tribe In The Eyes Of The Lord.

The Xlibre followers are often Not Nice People, but the folks that Wayland criticism uncovers are not that much less unpleasant to deal with.

lproven ,
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@dvogel @davidgerard Could well be and that's a damned shame.

But I hope some alternative doses become available. Apart from the fact that there's nothing that runs via Wayland that I would be willing to use, frankly the Wayland people are alienating me fast.

It seems like a system designed by kids who don't know how to use mice or keyboards properly for other kids with keen eyes, almost with the goal of pissing off old timers.

lproven ,
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@gamingonlinux @dvogel @davidgerard

I speak as I find. I am not being mean or nasty. I am being honest.

A lot of people are not used to that, especially younger ones, and especially Americans.

That is not my problem; it is theirs. In my world, honesty and openness are good things.

It is not just in FOSS: it's equally true of modern releases of MS Windows and MS Office, for instance.

lproven ,
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@gamingonlinux @dvogel @davidgerard I am not trying to be funny or sarky.

When I say that it feels to me like the GNOME developers do not care about the preferences of people who've been using computers for a few decades, I say that because that is how I feel after using every version and INTERVIEWING THE GNOME PROJECT LEADS.

When I say that it is not very accessible, that is based on talking last year, face to face, to the sole Red Hat employee working on accessibility, after attending his panel on accessibility: @tyrylu

I am not making this stuff up. It needs to be aired and discussed.

@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Forked-off Xlibre tells Wayland display protocol to DEI in a fire

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/10/xlibre_new_xorg_fork/

Project to modernize the X.org X11 server seems to actively court controversy

<- by me on @theregister

lproven OP ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

@alatiera @theregister I don't know what you're on about, but once you calm down, you can email me and EXPLAIN what you mean.

But if you continue with social-media name-calling, then I'm just going to ignore you or maybe block you if you go any more ad-hom.

It's fine; I'm talking with Steven Deobald about a11y issues, and he's actually responding like an adult, rather than swearing and telling me I make stuff up.

Not amused.

lproven OP ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

@gamingonlinux @alatiera @theregister

I strongly disagree.

Anything that hinders accessibility, removes or disables assistive tech, and so excludes people with disabilities is much, much worse.

I deplore anything that does that, whatever the intentions. Even if the plan is to put it back later, that's not good enough.

Always remember the philosophy of Kaizen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

Continual advancement by small changes, never going backwards.

It is my duty as a reporter to call this sort of thing out and criticise it.

It is fifteen years since GNOME 3.0 and today MATE still has better a11y than GNOME.

@404mediaco@mastodon.social avatar 404mediaco , to random

Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki, Who Said AI Is ‘Insult to Life Itself,” Reduced to AI-Generated Meme by OpenAI

https://www.404media.co/hayao-miyazaki-who-said-ai-is-insult-to-life-itself-reduced-to-ai-generated-meme-by-openai/

lproven ,
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@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar lproven , to random

Why I recommend against Brave

https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/

<- this is serious. Said it before, I will say it again. Do not use the Brave browser. It is a corrupt product which is insecure, repeatedly steals from others, founded & run by an immoral & unethical bigot.

DO NOT USE BRAVE.

lproven ,
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LandedGentry Makan Did you really mean "get"? If so, I think I didn't understand. .

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

Moral for programmers

A line graph describes programmer morale plummeting while searching for a bug and sharply rising once the bug is fixed.
ALT
lproven ,
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@nixCraft "moral" != "morale" ;-)

lproven ,
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@UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml avatar UltraGiGaGigantic @geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml avatar geneva_convenience France did have a commercial scale fast breeder reactor, Superphénix.

lproven ,
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@jeena@piefed.jeena.net avatar jeena @freeguru@lemmy.ml avatar freeguru He really is. He was once a vaguely sane FOSS industry commentator. Then he lost/left his job, and had to monetise his blog & channel. Result: 90% of it is frothing hatred and insanity.

@MrLovenstein@mastodon.social avatar MrLovenstein , to random

Secret Panel HERE 🔪 https://tapas.io/episode/756447

lproven ,
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@MrLovenstein No more!

lproven ,
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kristoff purplemonkeymad But watch out: you will need a huge root partition, because it's very easy to fill it with snapshots and if it reaches 100% it will corrupt.

Btrfs is tricksy: it won't give a straight answer to df -h and there is no working equivalent of fsck.

lproven ,
@lproven@vivaldi.net avatar

kristoff purplemonkeymad All of these are in-place same-disk snapshots. The ChomeOS system is simpler and so can be automated but you only get 1 level of undo.

I don't know any mainstream OS that does dual-failover. Deepin Linux has 2 root partitions but I don't know how it uses them.

I think Valve SteamOS does something like this. It's not just for games: it has KDE built in. There are guides to getting it running on your own hardware. You will want AMD graphics, though.

lproven ,
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kristoff Not really... On ChromeOS, there are no apps.