Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 13/1/2010: Linux 2.6.33 RC4, Zenwalk 6.2 Reviewed



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Tegra 2 supports Ubuntu Linux
    According to this faq-like post on the official Nvidia Tegra developer site, Ubuntu Linux is supported as an operating system for Tegra 2 based devices.


  • Android tablet sports Pixel Qi dual-mode display
    At CES, Nvidia demonstrated tablet-PC prototypes incorporating its Tegra 250 processor, including a Linux-based model from Foxconn, and Android-based models from ICD and Notion Ink, the latter using Pixel Qi display technology. Meanwhile, an Android version of HP's Windows-based "Slate" computer is on the way, say several reports.


  • Opsera and The Linux Box Partner to Expand U.S. Market for Opsview Open Source System Management Suite
    The Linux Box is partnering with Opsera Limited to become an official Opsview reseller in the United States, with the goal of expanding the national presence of this award-winning network and infrastructure monitoring software suite.

    Opsview provides comprehensive system management capabilities used to monitor the health of today's most complex data centers. It enables IT managers to identify and fix issues with their systems before they impact system availability. Opsview enhances the widely used Nagios€® monitoring framework by adding many additional configuration, graphing and management capabilities, while remaining 100 percent compatible. Opsview earned the Product Excellence award for Best System Management Tool at LinuxWorld Expo in 2008.


  • Linux Will Save The World
    You know what stories perform the worst on Linux Today? Anything that pertains to freedom- software freedom, the GNU Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center, civil rights, and law. Technology is front and center on the big issues of the day. If we didn't have FOSS we would be in an even worse mess as a society, because then technology would all be centralized and controlled by a very few people who have proven their hostility to civil liberties, privacy, and basic decency.

    I don't believe it is exaggerating to say that Linux/FOSS is all that stands between technology tyranny, corporate tyranny, and the hope of something better.


  • My favourite Linux podcast.
    I’ve sampled a variety of podcasts about Linux, including FLOSS Weekly and TuxRadar, but the Outlaws are by far and away my favourite. At first blush an excitable German University student and baritone Liverpudlian might seem like an odd choice to host such a thing, but you’ll quickly realize that both share an equal passion for all things open. They also put on a great show.

    Here’s a quick tour of the Outlaw universe to get you up to speed:

    One of my favourite recent episodes of the podcast featured an extended interview with Bradley Kuhn & Aaron Williamson from the Software Freedom Law Center. Did you know that a whole whack of television and set-top box manufacturers are using GPL code without giving back to the community? The lesson to be learned here is that open-source has deeper pockets than you might think.


  • Linux.conf.au kicks off next week aiming for open source roadmap goal
    Annual conference expected to attract 600-strong crowd with diverse mix of international, Australian and NZ delegates




  • Desktop

    • Digital Tipping Point – A Q&A with Christian Einfeldt
      Have you any other projects at the moment?
      There is an effort that some of us have started for the purpose of bringing GNU-Linux to low income benefits groups. We have made contact with one of the largest charities in San Francisco. This is an organization that feeds thousands of people every month. They also have a jobs program. In connection with that jobs program, they have a computer lab. We are in the process of rolling out GNU-Linux in that context because we feel that Linux computers could do so much for people who are trying to lift themselves up off of the street.


    • You don't need to 'know' Linux to use Linux
      Lately, I've been noticing stories about how to use Linux you need to know half-a-hundred Linux shell commands and the like. Ah, what century are you from? Today, if you can see a window and handle a mouse you're ready to use Linux.

      And, no, I'm not talking about how we're all already using Linux in devices like the TiVo or the Droid smartphone and through Linux-powered Web sites like Google. I'm talking about using Linux on the desktop.

      There is nothing, I repeat nothing, that requires any special knowledge to use Linux on the desktop today. If you've already mastered Windows XP, you'll have little more trouble moving to a Linux desktop like Red Hat's Fedora 12; Novell's openSUSE 11.2; or Canonical's Ubuntu 9.10 than you would in switching over to Windows 7.






  • Kernel Space

    • Subject Linux 2.6.33-rc4
      Hmm. Odd release. Something like 40% of the patches are in DRM (mostly nouveau and radeon, both staging, so it's a bit less scary than it sounds. But there's a noticeable i915 component too). That's all pretty unusual, afaik.




    • Graphics Stack

      • Pulled: DRI 2.2 Protocol Requests, Swap Events
        The other part of this work is the new protocol requests for DRI2 2.2 and they include DRI2SwapBuffers, DRI2GetMSC, DRI2WaitMSC, DRI2WaitSBC and DRI2SwapInterval. These requests are used for supporting the SGI_video_sync, SGI_swap_interval, and OML_sync_control GLX extensions. It was back in October that we originally talked about these DRI2 sync and swap extensions.




      • Gallium3D

        • Gallium3D Feature Levels Plotted, Discussed
          The last time we talked about Gallium3D work being done by Zack Rusin was just before the holidays when he was hacking on new geometry shader support. Zack's latest work on Gallium3D though is for defining "feature levels" that provides a table for what features can be supported by a given driver / graphics processor.


        • New EGL Gallium3D State Tracker Pushed
          The latest work by Chia-I Wu is a new EGL driver / state tracker (named "egl_g3d") that has just been pushed into Mesa. For those unfamiliar with EGL, as described by the Khronos Group, "EGL is an interface between Khronos rendering APIs such as OpenGL ES or OpenVG and the underlying native platform window system."














  • Applications







  • K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

    • More KDE 4
      Here's my current desktop, which mostly shows off the "Naked" plasma theme and my desktop widgets...








  • Distributions

    • Mandriva opts for the green solution with packaging for the Mandriva Linux 2010
      Mandriva, Europe's leading Linux publisher, offers clients recyclable, environmentally-friendly packaging for its latest distribution: Mandriva linux 2010.

      At a time when bringing in sustainable development policies is imperative for business, Mandriva has gone for entirely recyclable packaging for its latest distribution to meet customer wishes.


    • Review: Zenwalk 6.2
      Conclusions: This is hands-down one of the most user-friendly distributions I've tried. This long-term test drive had a few relatively minor bugs, and they were far outweighed by Zenwalk's overall friendliness and ease of use. The distro is bright and well-designed, and is backed by strong documentation and a newby-friendly community. In my installation it had a very high “just worked” factor, although obviously individual results may vary for other users and machines. If XFCE isn't your cup of tea, Zenwalk is also available in a GNOME version.




    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat repurchases $33.4M of shares
        The Raleigh-based Linux provider’s stock purchases were made as part of a previously announced repurchasing plan that was last amended in November 2008. The program authorizes the repurchase of up to $250 million worth of common stock. The program expires Oct. 31, 2010, unless the company’s board and executives discontinue the program sooner.






    • Debian Family

      • The Plight of Ubuntu Users in Developing Countries
        Shockingly, Ubuntu dropped wvdial and gnome-ppp -- the command-line and GUI ppp connectors, respectively -- from the distro years ago. In order to connect to the Internet, most African users must therefore connect to the Internet (see the problem?), download the appropriate packages, and configure their dial-up or 3G connection. Just about anyone who has used Ubuntu knows that it's not particularly capable out of the box without Internet access.


      • Give Boxee Beta an Ubuntu Ride
        Boxee Beta is now open to all. Even its alpha release was rock solid, so one could think of the kind of expectation everyone has for Boxee Beta. From the first look, I have to say, Boxee beta has pretty much lived up to the hype.


      • Boxee opens beta to all
        Below are several screenshots of the Boxee Beta’s movies, videos, queue, and apps selection screens...












  • Devices/Embedded

    • 5 Special Devices from CES 2010 that Run on Linux
      Lots of fascinating new devices were showcased during past week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. In addition to marketing new products events like the CES serve as an opportunity to demonstrate what technology can do. Naturally, some of those feats may not prove particularly useful, but they are fun to watch anyway.


    • ARM9 industrial SoC gains video chops
      Atmel announced a version of its ARM926EJ-based "SAM9" line of industrial-focused system-on-chips, this time integrating a video decoder and graphics acceleration. The SAM9M10 ships with a Linux evaluation board and BSP, and supports video at up to 720 x 576 pixels and 30 frames per second, says the company.


    • Android-ready PMP sports AMOLED display
      One of these Windows-oriented devices -- the Viliv P3 PMP (portable media player) -- also runs Android, and offers an 800MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, WiFi, and a 3.7-inch AMOLED display.




    • Phones

      • Google releases Nexus One SDK
        The Android 2.1 SDK includes APIs for creating animated wallpapers, as well as some additional telephony functions and a couple of improvements to interaction with the WebKit browser, all of which are used by Google's own Nexus One applications and are now available to other developers too.


      • Android tablet and kitchen computer debut
        At CES, Innovative Converged Devices (ICD) demonstrated two Android-based touchscreen computers based on Nvidia's Tegra 250 processor -- a 15.6-inch Vega kitchen computer and a seven-inch Ultra tablet. Also at CES, ICD and T-Mobile UK announced that the latter will launch the Vega later this year in the U.K.








    • Sub-notebooks

      • OLPC Doesn't Need a Global Business Case Challenge
        One Laptop per Child Association will be gathering 300 MBA, graduate and undergraduate business students to develop innovative business cases for XO laptop deployment under the auspices of the Global Case Challenge. But I wonder why.










Free Software/Open Source

  • FOSS is rejected by CAN InfoTech Nepal
    Every year, for the last couple of years, FOSS community Nepal has been getting a small stall to showcase whatever they have to the unusually large mass that come to witness the event. Not that FOSS is going anywhere in Nepal, but still that opportunity to try and create awareness existed. From this year onwards FOSS community is not going to be able to do that too as they have been told that due to lack of space they will not be able to put up a stall.


  • Attractive Open Source Search Interfaces?


  • Flightcaster Open-sources Crane
    A big concern with the modern JVM languages like Scala and Clojure is the ability to scale out from the single JVM address space into distributed environments. Different approaches include a distributed JVM (terracotta), distributed actors (akka), message queues (AMQP/rabbitmq), or solutions for specific computational models, like hadoop.


  • Make your own lifestream with open source Storytlr
    The arrival of a new year is often viewed as an opportunity for self improvement. According the US government, some of the population's top new year's resolutions for 2010 include plans to lose weight, improve finances, and reduce stress. I imagine that our audience of super-geeks have a few goals that aren't on the list. This year, I decided to finally fix up my personal Web site. An open source lifestream framework called Storytlr made my goal easy to accomplish.




  • Mozilla

    • Review: Firefox 3.6 RC gives new life to an old browser
      The Web browsing world is exciting again. Google's Chrome browser is faster than fast and there's serious thought that Internet Explorer may actually lose its top spot in the browser market-share wars. But for all the excitement, it would be a real mistake to overlook Firefox; with the forthcoming release of Firefox 3.6, which is now available as a release candidate, Mozilla's flagship browser is looking better than ever.


    • The Future of Add-ons
      The Firefox Add-on platform is the most vibrant source of browser innovation in the world, with over 1.5 billion downloads and tens of thousands of add-ons. There’s been a lot of speculation over the past couple of days around the future of Firefox Add-ons, and how Jetpack fits into that future. There’s currently a lot of misinformation swirling about this topic and it’s making people very unhappy. We’re going to attempt to clear things up below…








  • Databases

    • Save MySQL would not spare open source M&A
      A recent pitch from the folks opposing Oracle’s ownership of MySQL via acquisition of Sun Microsystems got me thinking. The plea, ‘Oracle can have Sun, but not MySQL’ may make sense to some, but to me it speaks to the irony of closing out Oracle or any company or anyone from open source. Upon further reflection and given 2010 is off to a roaring pace of M&A, I also began to wonder what the impact of the ‘Save MySQL’ campaign could be on open source in M&A, particularly if it was to successfully derail the acquisition or somehow decouple MySQL from Sun under Oracle?


    • Do Databases Lie at the Heart of Open Source?
      Now, obviously I'm delighted to see Jordan aspire to become the open source “hub” for the Middle East, as the press release puts it: we sorely need a focal point for free software there.








  • Government

    • Will Open Government Directive drive Drupal usage?
      Acquia will also offer a seminar series for U.S. federal, state, and local governments to discuss adoptions and best practices for government use. This is definitely a smart move, as risk-averse government agency IT decision makers will take comfort in the successes of their peers with Drupal Social Publishing.

      Acquia appears poised to take advantage of the growing interest in open source and social media. Increased use of Drupal will open the door further to open source adoption within governments in the United States and worldwide. In doing so, Acquia is definitely playing its part as a founding member of Open Source for America.








  • Programming

    • PHP 5.3.1 Released, Security Beefed Up
      The PHP development team recently introduced the latest version of the new PHP 5.3 branch, PHP 5.3.1. This version essentially does not change the essential core 5.3 PHP engine, but by focusing on stability and security, the PHP team has introduced more than 100 bug fixes and tweaks to the overall framework.








  • Standards/Consortia







Leftovers

  • Have computers become a commodity item?
    Somebody made a comment the other day about computers being a commodity item. It was stated that computers are thought of as no different to a television or radio. This comment sort of alarmed me because I do not think of computers in this manner. I don't think that computers should be classed as a commodity item and below I say why.




  • Security

    • Solution for SSL/TLS design weakness in sight
      A solution to the TLS renegotiation vulnerability discovered in the design of the SSL/TLS protocol early last November is on the horizon. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has ammended the RFC 5246 specification (Transport Layer Security [TLS] Protocol Version 1.2) and introduced a new renegotiation_info TLS extension which will store a connection's cryptographic information. The problem was caused by a flaw in the TLS protocol design that affects the parameter renegotiation of an existing TLS connection. Previously, the TLS protocol offered no conclusively authenticated associations between the client requests before and client requests after a TLS renegotiation. The new extension stores additional information to describe the state of a TLS connection ("secure_renegotiation", "client_verify_data" and "server_verify_data").


    • Trouser-bomb clown attacks - how much should we laugh?
      As the smoke clears following the case of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the failed Christmas Day "underpants bomber" of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 fame, there are just three simple points for us Westerners to take away.

      First: It is completely impossible to prevent terrorists from attacking airliners.

      Second: This does not matter. There is no need for greater efforts on security.

      Third: A terrorist set fire to his own trousers, suffering eyewateringly painful burns to what Australian cricket commentators sometimes refer to as the "groinal area", and nobody seems to be laughing. What's wrong with us?


    • The Spies Who Got Left in the Cold


    • Undressing the Terror Threat
      Consider that on this very day about 6,700 Americans will die.... Consider then that around 1,900 of the Americans who die today will be less than 65, and that indeed about 140 will be children. Approximately 50 Americans will be murdered today, including several women killed by their husbands or boyfriends, and several children who will die from abuse and neglect. Around 85 of us will commit suicide, and another 120 will die in traffic accidents.

      [...]

      Indeed, if one does not utter the magic word "terrorism," the notion that it is actually in the best interests of the country for the government to do everything possible to keep its citizens safe becomes self-evident nonsense. Consider again some of the things that will kill 6,700 Americans today. The country's homicide rate is approximately six times higher than that of most other developed nations; we have 15,000 more murders per year than we would if the rate were comparable to that of otherwise similar countries. Americans own around 200 million firearms, which is to say there are nearly as many privately owned guns as there are adults in the country. In addition, there are about 200,000 convicted murderers walking free in America today (there have been more than 600,000 murders in America over the past 30 years, and the average time served for the crime is about 12 years).








  • Environment

    • 17,000 potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under obscure law
      Of some 84,000 chemicals being used commercially in the United States, some 20 percent -- or 17,000 -- are kept secret not only from the public, but from medical professionals, state regulators and even emergency responders, according to a report at the Washington Post.








  • Finance

    • 25 experts who denied the housing bubble
      It cautions, "The list includes only pundits and (supposed) experts. That means the list doesn't include policymakers such as Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, because however wrong they may have been, policymakers and especially Fed chairmen are undeniably constrained in what they can say publicly. I strongly suspect that both Greenspan and Bernanke honestly believed that there was no housing bubble, but alas, we'll never know for sure. The list also doesn't include pundits/experts who were wrong only about the fallout of the collapse of the housing bubble that is, the extent to which the collapse of the housing bubble would harm the economy."








  • PR/AstroTurf

    • Ads to Protest Smoking in ‘Avatar’
      Those who oppose smoking in movies aimed at young people planned to step up their assault on the science-fiction epic “Avatar” on Tuesday with advertisements in Hollywood trade papers that accuse the film of providing the equivalent of $50 million in free tobacco advertising.


    • Taxpayers Subsidize Smoking in "Avatar," Other Youth-Rated Movies
      The information about taxpayers subsidizing smoking in big-screen movies comes from a November, 2009 report by the University of California San Francisco titled "Taxpayer Subsidies for US Films with Tobacco Imagery" that examined taxpayer subsidies for youth-rated films (G, PG and PG-13).


    • Conservative backlash against "Avatar"
      A right-wing nightmare: The free market has spoken -- anti-American lefty green propaganda sells!


    • Breaking News: Insurance Industry Launders $10M to $20M in Attack Ads
      Just as we cannot let the health insurance companies pretend they are "for reform" while secretly buying millions of dollars worth of attack ads against reform, we also cannot stand silent when newspapers outsource the writing of the "news" to groups advised by health insurance companies.


    • Obama received $20 million from healthcare industry in 2008 campaign
      Currently, the Center's website shows that Obama received $19,462,986 from the health sector, which includes health professionals ($11.7m), health services/HMOs ($1.4m), hospitals/nursing homes ($3.3m) and pharmaceuticals/health products ($2.1m). Miscellaneous health donations (from which Obama received $860,411) are also factored into the current total health sector numbers but are not accessible on the site.








  • Censorship/Civil Rights

    • Google to Embargo China
      14-01-10: Still conflicting reports coming out. It could be that Google has already lifted its own censorship measures. Or it could be that the censorship measures are still up, but because of the intense interest generated (and click-thrus) on sensitive subjects, small holes in the wall are being publicised and magnified.

      It doesn't matter any more: People are getting through the wall.


    • Google.cn Has Already Lifted Censorship
      "In an update to Google's withdrawal from China, there are reports that censorship has already been lifted. It's probably taken a while to report because of Google's ranking system."








  • Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights

    • Lessig on Copyright and Science at the University of Amsterdam
      Last Friday, January 8, the University of Amsterdam (I'm with the competition) handed out an honorary doctorate to Harvard prof. Lawrence Lessig, known to you all (I may hope!) as one of the founding members of the wildly successful Creative Commons project. During the acceptance ceremony, he held one of his keynote presentations - and one that is required listening material for everyone. And with everyone - I mean everyone.


    • Writers Can Prosper Without Intellectual Property
      It is commonly supposed that, whatever its moral and theoretical standing, intellectual property is necessary for creators of written works to make a living and — even more importantly — to continue to create. Here, I will set aside the theoretical status of copyright, which is amply discussed in Stephan Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property and Michele Boldrin and David Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly. I will focus on existing and emerging possibilities for writers to earn a living in a world where no copyrights exist.










Week of Monsanto: Video



Monsanto: End of Life



Recent Techrights' Posts

Some Slopfarms and Some Real News Sites Cover Richard Stallman’s (RMS) Talk
If his message about Software Freedom spreads, then we're all better off
Richard Stallman's Experiences With 'Cancel Brigades' Ought to Educate Linus Torvalds
Now they talk about "if Linus dies" scenarios
 
Steven Field (Red Hat) Speaks of "Recent Layoff" (RA/Wave) in Red Hat
IBM really doesn't like it when people talk about "RAs"
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XIII - Is EPO Vice-President Steve Rowan in Cahoots With the "Alicante Mafia"?
that deserves much media attention, political intervention, and condemnation
A Week Ago We Contacted the EPO's Stephen (Steve) Rowan About Cocainegate
Tomorrow we'll write some more about Rowan
“Wikilaundering” Explained
"London PR firm rewrites Wikipedia for governments and billionaires"
IBM Reports 'Results' Tomorrow, Expect More "RAs" (Mass Layoffs)
they use words like "efficiency", "optimisation", "AI", "pivot", "modernisation" and so on
Earlier This Month Microsoft Lunduke Said in Public It Was Good That Renee Good Was Murdered, Now He Mocks or Demonises People for Saying the US is Unsafe
Don't be easily conned by demagogues
Google News and "Linux" Slop
Why won't Google be interested in tackling this issue? Instead Google has been trying to participate in this issue.
IBM Kills Red Hat in the Darkness
What IBM does to Red Hat is malicious
IBM Red Hat's Goal Is Not Real Security (It Probably Never Was)
Spies and trolls are very malicious people and sometimes they're the same thing
With Absurd Lies About Slop, Which Lacks Intelligence or Financial Potential, GAFAM and IBM Will Twist Mass Layoffs as 'Efficiency Drive' or 'AI Pivot'
More layoffs are on the way
Animal Advocacy Works
All it takes is effort and determination
EPO Strike This Week
What has happened to Europe?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 26, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, January 26, 2026
For the EPO to Survive, António Campinos and the "Alicante Mafia" Must Fall on Their Sword
There are EPO insiders who are convinced Campinos too is (or was) a cocaine addict
Gemini Links 26/01/2026: Pocket Power Pack, Batteries, and Breaks
Links for the day
"Microsoft Vista 11 Emergency Update" as Windows Fails to Boot (Again)
Microsoft is desperately trying to find some new business model as the debt soars
4 Hours Ago The Register MS Published Paid-for Spam About "AI" (Slop, Buzzwords)
"AI" mentioned 13 times in the page
IBM 'Results' Due Wednesday Evening, Expect Clues About Mass Layoffs
Don't expect IBM to say anything about "layoffs" or "RAs"
The Fall of the EPO (or the "Alicante Mafia" at EPO) Will be Due to This Reckless Lawyer Who Does Cocaine in Public While Speaking for the EPO
The longer European politicians (and media) turn a blind eye to this corruption, the worse it'll get
Why RMS is Scary to GAFAM 'Engineers' and the GAFAM Apologists (or Addicts)
especially because of his ideas and his way of life
Firefox 'Market Share' Down to All-Time Low in 2026, Adding to It User-Hostile 'Features' Only Worsens Things
What is the goal of Mozilla at this point?
Links 26/01/2026: Windows Back Doors, American Winter Storm, and Report Says Iran's "Protest Death Toll May Exceed 30,000"
Links for the day
Life Got Simpler and Therefore Also Healthier and Happier
Some people envy not wealth but happiness (which they're unable to attain, even with hoarding and accumulation)
Links 26/01/2026: Financial Stress in German Farms and Germany Wants to Take Its Gold Reserves Out of the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/01/2026: "Lack of Meaningful Things" and Getting Back to Programming
Links for the day
Strong Correlation Between the Slop Ponzi Scheme (or Bubble) and Major Disasters
BitCoin ruins the planet; so does slop
We Will Never Allow the "Alicante Mafia" to Hide "Cocainegate"
transparency typically scares malicious actors
Fewer Involuntary Interruptions This Year
This year we're doing much better
Prisons Are for Dangerous People Who Pose a Threat to the Public, Not People Who Inform the Public
At the end of the week EPO workers go on strike
Microsoft Loses Grip on Indian Ocean
Many countries, including in older allies of the US (such as Canada and the US), look for ways to get out of Microsoft dependence urgently
XBox Consoles Nearly Dead by Now, the 'XBox' (ex-Box) Brand Now Stands for Something Full of Slop, Spam, Filler, and Chaff
We're seeing the last day (maybe year) of "XBox"
The Great "AI" CON Explained by Dr. Andy Farnell
LLMs are basically advertisers of sorts
Links 26/01/2026: "Journalists Detained", in Germany "Unjustly Jailed Man Gets €1.3 Million Compensation"
Links for the day
Red Hat Quietly Going Extinct After Bluewashing in 2026
At this point it would be rather foolish to assume that IBM will let Red Hat just "do its own thing" or maintain its corporate culture, identity, projects etc.
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XII - Kris De Neef and Roberta Romano-Götsch, Who Stepped in for the Cokehead, Have No Comment on His Cocaine Usage (and the EPO's Cover-up)
Sh-t floats to the top.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 25, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, January 25, 2026
Gemini Links 26/01/2026: Cold Perception, Software Patches in NixOS, and Sunk Cost Fallacy
Links for the day
Fake IBM Retirements (IBM Gives Older Workers Ultimatums, Deadlines, and Carrots on Sticks)
As they point out, IBM is desperate to lower costs
Linuxiac is Basically a Fake News Site, But It's Being Fed by Google News
Because Google News is run by Google, a slop pusher
Links 25/01/2026: Slop "Tribalism", Nike Apparently Cracked
Links for the day
Claims That PIPs Are Abused for Silent Mass Layoffs at IBM (Without Severance) or Forced Retirements
Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) "clearly bogus as everyone on my team who has been on one has been fired"
WebM Version of Richard Stallman's Latest Talk (Georgia Tech Talk)
The file size is smaller
After Half a Decade Vista 11 is Still a Giant Failure
Don't expect Microsoft to gain a foothold
Details on IBM Layoffs in the EU Last Week, Same Allegedly Coming to the US Shortly
"Around 50 people affected in Belgium."
Technology Trends Driven by DRM Giants, Planned Obsolescence, Not the Needs of the Buyers
The "pushers" think of customers as "users"; and they encourage passivity, Stockholm Syndrome
Links 25/01/2026: Microsoft BitLocker Backdoored for Decades Already, Microsoft-Backed ICE Still Murders Civilians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/01/2026: "Expert in a Dying Field" and Global Commands
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 24, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, January 24, 2026
After the Slop Bubble
At the end, looking back, we'll all generally understand that the net effort of slop was environmental destruction
IBM CEO Says IBM is Just Reliant on Buzzwords That Are Overhyped
IBM has nothing to show anymore and telling fairytales to shareholders is a temporary 'fix'
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XI - No Comment From Steve Rowan, Niloofar Simon, and Christoph Ernst About Cocaine Inside EPO
What kind of patent office is this?