Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Programming/Development

  • Rust

    • The New Stack ☛ Why Your Rust Adoption Will Probably Fail (And How To Beat the Odds)

      Why would anyone throw away working code? Because the new team looked at the Rust codebase and saw a foreign ecosystem, they would have to learn from scratch. They had deadlines to meet and considerable Python expertise already in-house. The Rust rewrite made zero business sense, he noted.

Leftovers

• Hackaday ☛ Spinning Top Chair Revisited

  Designer furniture generally comes with excellent aesthetics and (sometimes) functionality. However, such furniture comes with a price to match. One such piece of furniture is the Magis Spun Chair. It’s a striking piece with a fun party trick to match: it works like a top spinning while you sit inside. However, it has a prohibitively expensive price tag of $1,200 to match. That’s why [Morley Kert] is on a mission to build one for less. 

• Hackaday ☛ Knowing That It Is Possible

  We like to think that we can do almost anything. Give me a broken piece of consumer electronics, and I’ll open it up and kick the capacitors. Give me an embedded Linux machine, and I’ll poke around for a serial port and see if it’s running uboot. But my confidence suddenly pales when you hand me a smartphone.

• Hackaday ☛ The Most Personalized Font Is Your Own Handwriting

  When making a personal website, one will naturally include a personal touch. What could be more personal than creating a font from your own handwriting? That’s what [Chris Smith] has done, and it looks great on his blog, which also has a post summarizing the process.

• Tracy Durnell ☛ It’s ok to not read your read later backlog

  So, read your saved articles if you want, but this is permission to let yourself release them, if you prefer. Your free time is not a job. Is reading that article what you need, or is your instinct guiding you elsewhere?

• Hackaday ☛ Reverse Engineering A (Toy) Fire Engine

  Your kid has a toy remote control fire truck. You have an RTL SDR. See where this is going? [Jacob] couldn’t resist tearing into the why and how of the truck’s remote control protocol.

• Hackaday ☛ No Plans For The Weekend? Learn Raytracing!

  Weekends can be busy for a lot of us, but sometimes you have one gloriously free and full of possibilities. If that’s you, you might consider taking a gander at [Peter Shirley]’s e-book “Learning Raytracing in One Weekend”.

• Science

  • Techdirt ☛ Light Pollution From Elon Musk’s Starlink Continues To Harm Astronomy

    Again, it’s worth reiterating that Musk initially stated this would never be a problem. While the study found that the brightness levels of Starlink satellites have improved some, the lower orbiting altitude of some of the newer Starlink satellites means the brightness impact is actually worse.

  • 404 Media ☛ The Biological Rulebook Was Just Rewritten—by Ants

    Scientists have discovered a gnarly reproductive strategy that is unlike anything ever documented in nature: Ant queens that produce offspring from two entirely different species by cloning the “alien genome” of males from another lineage. This unique behavior has been dubbed “xenoparity,” according to a new study.

  • Paul Krugman ☛ Science Under Siege: A Talk With Peter Hotez and Michael Mann

    Peter Hotez, who has done yeoman work defending vaccines, and Michael Mann, a hero of the climate change wars, have a new book about the assault on science. I spoke with them and emerged both enlightened and frightened. Transcript follows: [...]

• Career/Education

  • TruthOut ☛ Harvard Dominates Headlines, But Other Schools Are Quietly Battling Trump

    (L-R) George Washington University students Eveline Straub, Kaitlyn Gang, and Sonia Lerner holds a signs next to Julie Byrne during the "Hands Off Our Schools" rally in front of the U.S. Department of Education on April 4, 2025, in Washington, D/C. Students from Georgetown University, Howard University, American University, George Washington University, George Mason University, and Temple University gathered to protest President Donald Trump dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education.

  • Seth Godin ☛ System architect/system victim

    If the deck is stacked against you, a smart option is to go to a different table and play with a different deck.

  • Seth Godin ☛ Self awareness and the luck-skill gap

    Luck is unevenly distributed, unpredictable and unfair. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be luck.

  • Chris Enns ☛ Still Producing Lemons 14 Years Later

    14 years ago I posted this blog post in late August, 2011, announcing my intentions to go all in on my own business: [...]

  • The Digital Antiquarian ☛ » Choose Your Own Adventure

    Edward Packard, the father of it all, is still with us at age 94, still blogging from time to time, still a little bemused at how he became one of the most successful working authors in the United States during the 1980s. In a plot twist almost as improbable as some of his stranger Choose Your Own Adventure endings, his grandson is David Corenswet, the latest actor to play Superman on the silver screen. Never a computer gamer, Packard would doubtless be baffled by most of what is featured on this website. And yet I owe him an immense debt of gratitude, for giving me my first glimpse of the potential of interactive storytelling, thus igniting a lifelong obsession. I suspect that more than one of you out there might be able to say the same.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ Teardown Of A Cheapish EBL Multi-Cell NiMH Charger

    People think about NiMH cell chargers probably as much as they think about batteries, unless it’s time to replace the cells in whatever device they’re installed in. This doesn’t make a teardown of one of these marvels any less interesting, especially when you can get an 8-bay charger with eight included NiMH cells for a cool $25 brand new. The charger even has USB ports on it, so it’s got to be good. Cue a full teardown by [Brian Dipert] over at EDN to see what lurks inside.

  • Hackaday ☛ Camera And ChArUco Keep The Skew Out Of Your 3D Prints

    Do you or a loved one suffer from distorted 3D prints? Does your laser cutter produce parallelograms instead of rectangles? If so, you might be suffering from CNC skew miscalibration, and you could be entitled to significant compensation for your pain and suffering. Or, in the reality-based world, you could simply fix the problem yourself with this machine-vision skew correction system and get back to work.

  • Digital Camera World ☛ The brand behind the iconic Gorillapod flexible tripods has just been sold to a China-based photography accessory company | Digital Camera World

    The move means that Joby gear will be under new ownership and marks a shift to focusing on high-end pro gear for Videndum – the company that owns Avenger, Gitzo, Lowepro, Manfrotto, Savage, Sachtler, Litepanels and several other photo and video brands.

  • Ken Shirriff ☛ A Navajo weaving of an integrated circuit: the 555 timer

    The noted Diné (Navajo) weaver Marilou Schultz recently completed an intricate weaving composed of thick white lines on a black background, punctuated with reddish-orange diamonds. Although this striking rug may appear abstract, it shows the internal circuitry of a tiny silicon chip known as the 555 timer. This chip has hundreds of applications in everything from a sound generator to a windshield wiper controller. At one point, the 555 was the world's best-selling integrated circuit with billions sold. But how did the chip get turned into a rug?

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • The Register UK ☛ HHS to US health care: Share patient data or face $1M fines

    The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took a break from dismantling the US public health system this week to announce plans to take "an active enforcement stance" against health care actors [PDF] that "restrict patients' engagement in their care by blocking the access, exchange, and use of electronic health information," the agency said in a press release.

    "Patients must have unfettered access to their health information as guaranteed by law," acting HHS Inspector General Juliet Hodgkins said in an agency press release. "Providers and certain health IT entities have a legal duty to ensure that information flows where and when it's needed."

  • The Independent UK ☛ These common sugar substitutes are linked to faster brain health decline

    The sweeteners – aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame-K, erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol, and tagatose – are found in ultraprocessed food and drinks like soda, protein bars, yogurt, and low-calorie desserts.

    People who ingested more than 190 milligrams of the sweeteners, on average each day for a year, showed 62 percent faster declines in thinking and memory skills than those who consumed 20 mg. A can of diet soda contains about 200 mg of sweetener and a packet of Sweet’N Low has 20 mg.

• Proprietary

  • India Times ☛ reliance: IT Inc worries as US may slap tariffs on software exports

    India's IT sector faces potential US tariffs on software exports, threatening its largest market and impacting firms already struggling with global uncertainty and AI-driven automation. The proposed tariffs could lead to double taxation and increased costs due to visa restrictions, potentially harming the growth of India-based service providers and GCCs, while raising delivery costs.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) / LLM Slop / Plagiarism

    • Jacobin Magazine ☛ If the AI Bubble Pops, It Won’t Be the End

      A report from MIT says that the overwhelming majority of generative artificial intelligence implementations are failing — 95 percent of them, in fact. That’s a lot of failure. For a series of technologies touted as the answer to every question ever asked, literally and figuratively, the incapacity of companies to effectively integrate AI into their work says a lot about the next stage of industrial mechanization, our economic system, and us. But what it doesn’t say, whatever one may hope, is that AI is doomed.

    • Dark Reading ☛ Anyone Using Agentic AI Needs to Understand Toxic Flows

      Toxic flows are one of the emerging classes of agentic AI risks that researchers say need to be on the radars of executives, engineers, and security people alike. Flows between AI agents, IT tools, and enterprise software are beset by a risky combination of exposure to untrusted input, excessive permissions, access to sensitive data, and external connections that can be used by attackers to steal data.

      These toxic flows could be at the heart of what many believe will be the path to better agentic AI risk management, provided the industry can implement controls for them.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • Light Blue Touchpaper ☛ Taking Down Booters: The Cat-and-Mouse Game

      In December 2022, we first blogged about a law enforcement takedown of DDoS-for-hire services (often known as “booters”), sharing details about their changing landscape shortly after the initial seizures. Now that we have more data covering a longer period post-takedown, we can form a clearer picture of the impact.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • YLE ☛ Scammers impersonating Yle journalists on social media

      Fraudsters' ads circulating on social media have used the names and photos of Yle journalists to trick people into "investing" through bogus platforms.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • MB ☛ Website Account Shenanigans

      Unfortunately, it wasn’t always simple. I discovered there are many websites that don’t give you the ability to change your email, and/or be able to delete your account. Many I encountered were the food apps that provided neither option, and wouldn’t let you use the same phone number on multiple accounts. So (for the ones I wanted to keep), I just changed the phone number associated with the old email to my Google Voice number, and signed up again with my new email address. I discovered a few that I could only make changes via their phone app. But, there still were many others that I just wanted deleted. After some research, I discovered a way; leveraging the website’s Privacy Policy page. This is a much longer process, and can take upwards of 30 days or possibly more (depending on where you live).

• Defence/Aggression

  • India Times ☛ Elon Musk's $1-trillion paycheck dwarfs GDF of 91% nations in the world

    Billionaire Elon Musk may soon become the world's first trillionaire. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive officer is set to receive a $1 trillion compensation package from Tesla, if the company achieves some extraordinary growth targets over the next decade.

  • YLE ☛ SVT: Over 120,000 flights hit by Russian signal interference in Baltic region this year

    The Swedish public broadcaster draws on a report submitted by Baltic Sea countries to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The report outlines incidents in Swedish, Finnish, Baltic and Polish airspace. The affected countries described the incidents as a growing threat to aviation safety.

    In April of this year, an average of 27.4 percent of flights in the Baltic Sea region were affected by interference.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ Jihadis kill dozens in Nigeria's northeast, residents say

    The attack took place on Friday night in the town of Darul Jama, in Borno state. Reuters and DW reporters identified the jihadist attackers as members of the notorious Boko Haram group.

    Many of the victims had returned to the town only recently after years of displacement.

  • TMZ ☛ J.D. Vance Says He Doesn't Care If People Call Authorized Military Actions 'War Crimes'

    Worth noting ... the administration hasn't provided any evidence to corroborate the claims, and the strike caused outrage online ... with many calling it an attack on civilians. Gang members in this situation are not technically enemy combatants under international law, many argue.

• Environment

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Futurism ☛ Boat-Attacking Orcas Are Back for Vengeance

      "They don't care if it's a sailboat or motorboat," Spanish conservation group CIRCE president Renaud de Stephanis told the CBC last year. "They look for the rudders to break them. They just push it with their head until they break it and that's it."

      Most recently, local newspaper Faro de Vigo reported over the weekend that orcas had ripped off a wooden sailing ship's rudder off the Galician coast in northwestern Spain.

    • The Independent UK ☛ Warning after killer whales seen ‘ramming’ boats in two attacks off coast of Spain

      Leading marine biologist Alex Zerbini, chair of the scientific committee at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) said the killer whale behaviour was most likely to be a new “cultural tradition”, or a “fad” without an obvious purpose.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • M G Siegler ☛ A Cynical Read on Anthropic's Book Settlement

    And so you can't help but wonder if part of the equation in this settlement wasn't decidedly more cynical. Fresh off a new massive fundraise – one in which they raised far more than they were initially targeting, I might add – Anthropic has a lot of money. More than perhaps all but one of their competitors on the startup side. By settling for $1.5B, is Anthropic sort of pulling up a drawbridge, making it so that other startups can't possibly come into their castle? I mean, am I crazy?

  • CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: Stock buybacks are stock swindles

    So what's a stock buyback, then? On the surface, it's pretty straightforward: during a stock buyback, the company uses its cash reserves to buy its own stock. When they do this, the supply of shares goes down, so the price per share goes up.

    Say a company has issued 1,000 shares, and they're selling at $1,000 per share. That company has a "market cap" of $1,000,000 (1,000 x 1,000). Now the company takes $500,000 out of its bank account and buys half of those shares. Now you have a million-dollar company with only 500 shares, so each of those shares is now worth $2,000 (1,000,000/500 = 2,000).

    Why is this so bad?

  • The Verge ☛ Tech leaders take turns flattering Trump at White House dinner

  • European Commission ☛ Qualified electronic ledgers

    To ensure the integrity and the accuracy of the chronological order of electronic data, this initiative sets out a list of reference standards for the requirements on qualified electronic ledgers. These reference standards and specifications will ensure that data recorded in an electronic ledger is chronologically ordered, while remaining immutable, consistent and reliable.

  • European Commission ☛ Evaluation and Revision of the Chips Act ("Chips Act 2.0")

    The EU's competitiveness is tied to semiconductors. The Chips Act was successful in attracting a number of manufacturing investments and in launching activities aiming at bridging the gap from the laboratory to the factory. Yet challenges remain, especially in advanced manufacturing and Artificial Intelligence chips. Further steps are necessary to strengthen the EU's role in a wide selection of chips technologies and the full semiconductor value chain including materials, equipment, design and manufacturing.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Pivot to AI ☛ Edward Saatchi: maybe not the Orson Welles of AI

      Saatchi’s pitch is that he’ll reconstruct the lost version of the film — with AI!

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • The Moscow Times ☛ Pussy Riot Member Detained at Polish Border on Turkmenistan’s Request

    Pussy Riot said the charges against Niyazova were fabricated and politically motivated.

    “Deportation to Turkmenistan is equal to death for her,” Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina told The Moscow Times.

  • Techdirt ☛ When Trolls Take On Tyrants: 4chan and Kiwi Farms Sue the UK Over Extraterritorial Censorship

    The 22-page complaint, filed in Washington D.C., doesn’t mince words about what Ofcom has been up to. According to the filing, Ofcom has been sending “legally binding information notices” to both sites demanding they comply with UK law, despite having no operations, infrastructure, or legal presence in Britain beyond being accessible to UK [Internet] users.

  • New Yorker ☛ Harvard’s Mixed Victory

    A resounding win for the university in court still leaves the Trump Administration with plenty of ways to force schools into submission.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ I was arrested after refusing to remove my Union flag – I thought I’d be the next Lucy Connolly

    On each march she says, someone has placed a flag on a pole on the steps of the civic centre before a few people gather around for photographs. As she didn’t have a pole, she decided to go hang the flag over the balcony.

    White says a police officer came onto the balcony and told her to remove the flag. “I said: ‘I’m not removing it, I’m not breaking any laws.’”

    She was confused. Going up the steps with a flag had, she says, been part of these protests before. “They said ‘you’re going to get arrested’. Everybody’s chanting and shouting and that was all a bit of a blur. All I remember was getting my arms roughed up my back.”

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • El País ☛ Sebastião Salgado’s final thoughts: ‘If we lived thousands of years, we would think differently: we would understand the mountains’

    From the age of 29 until he was 81, Salgado walked enough to circumnavigate the globe several times over. He lived to chase frames. The documentary The Salt of the Earth (2014), directed by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Sebastião’s son, captured his passion for moving, crawling, and creeping in pursuit of a shot. In one scene, he rolls on a pebble beach so that the walruses he intends to photograph won’t notice his presence.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Daily Beast recruits Tom Latchem as lead global correspondent

    The move comes amid a period of editorial expansion for the politics and pop culture publisher under chief content officer Joanna Coles and chief executive Ben Sherwood.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Bloomberg ☛ ICE to Gain Access to Paragon Spyware After Biden Order Dropped - Bloomberg

    The Trump administration reactivated an ICE contract for spyware from Tel Aviv-based Paragon on Saturday that had previously been blocked due to a stop order, according to procurement records posted on a government website.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Copyrights

  • India Times ☛ Warner Bros Discovery sues AI photo generator Midjourney for stealing Superman, Scooby-Doo

    In a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Warner Bros said the theft enabled Midjourney to train its image and video service to offer subscribers high quality, downloadable images of its characters in "every imaginable scene."

  • India Times ☛ Apple sued by authors over use of books in AI training

    The proposed class action, filed in the federal court in Northern California, said Apple copied protected works without consent and without credit or compensation.

    "Apple has not attempted to pay these authors for their contributions to this potentially lucrative venture," according to the lawsuit, filed by authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ U.S. Government's Focus on Sports Piracy Puts Spotlight on Streameast Saga

    The operation, carried out by Egyptian authorities at the end of August, resulted in two arrests and the seizure of roughly 80 domain names.