While Premier François Legault hopes to give his government new momentum by reshuffling his cabinet, fewer than one in four Quebecers believe this game of musical chairs will have a real impact.
After seeing 10+ articles pop up today about AI bubble bursting and wondering if we're heading into a black Friday, here's a not at all helpful thought.
If all the money spent on AI was instead spent on food, housing, basic infrastructure and support for the poor, even with the worst possible assumption that this yields zero profits for everyone involved, there is no aspect of the economy that wouldn't be dramatically better off.
I'm literally not taking their calls or texts. They lost the opportunity of getting my business. Crazy aggression that makes me super uncomfortable. It's like... scammer-type behavior.
BookingKoala is the evil bastard service that enables this behavior.
@mWare FreeBSD changed it for their deployment, which is interesting because there were complaints by others that it wasn't "easy" to change. I haven't bothered to look at the code to see
@mWare You need to rebuild the software to remove or change it. It's trivial to change but then you are managing your own packages of it just to not see an anime girl.
Google launches its first magnetic wireless charging accessories under the Pixelsnap brand; the Pixel 10 phones are compatible with Qi2 and MagSafe accessories (Andrew Liszewski/The Verge)
Google removes support for physical SIM cards on the Pixel 10 series in the US, relying solely on eSIM; Apple removed it with the iPhone 14 series in the US (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)
Google unveils $130 Pixel Buds 2A with a Tensor A1 chip, Gemini features, seven hours of battery life with ANC, and a replaceable battery, available October 9 (Victoria Song/The Verge)
Google unveils the $999 Pixel 10 Pro and $1,199 10 Pro XL, with 6.3" and 6.8" OLED displays, Tensor G5 chips, Zoned UFS storage, available on August 28 (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)
Google unveils the $799 Pixel 10, featuring a new Tensor G5 chip, 6.3" OLED display, Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and Qi2 support, available on August 28 (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)
To celebrate 25 years, we are now offering Studio Recorder at a new low price! Studio Recorder is an easy-to-use accessible software to record and edit your ...
Cold blue swastika tattooed on my skin / The ice in my veins the staples in my chin / I've got it carved in my forehead "Slave To My Sin" / Too violent for the brotherhood to ever
I just saw that it's possible to do inline perl in Apache configs and now I'm horrified but intrigued. I have never needed this before, so I guess I never looked into it...
@m I went back to Apache from Nginx for some things because it just works better.
Nginx still doesn't have a built in ACME client (coming soon now?? recent news says so, anyway). Apache has had one for a long time now called mod_md, and it also lets me point to an internal CA/ACME server for issuing private certificates on a per-vhost basis.
I couldn't do that with Caddy either last I tested. You can't choose which one to use per vhost, it's a global configuration.
Using SSL v2 (and even v3) is essentially as secure as using plaintext. The only use case I'd see for these old protocols would be to connect to some extremely cursed antique software which only supports these old protocols and don't allow to disable them. In that case, the person wanting to interact with said cursed software could simply use an older release of curl.
if you also have BoringSSL and AWS-LC support, then I don’t see much reason to keep supporting ancient OpenSSL versions. But then, curl and Netty are used very differently.
just wait until you learn how slow corporate life is moving towards never OpenSSL versions. You can still get paid support from OpenSSL for at least 1.1.1 release.
@ondrej in general LibreSSL is far behind all the other forks in the family feature wise and I expect that it basically never will catch up. I recommend not using LibreSSL. Plain QUIC works however fine with LibreSSL with ngtcp2.
in my special experience (industry OT), if you don't cut the support, no one else will. You have to force push the updates in that kind of legacy systems
I was just looking around at small diaphragm condenser microphones again, because I really don't have a good pair of those. My needs now are not what they were a few years ago, but I still like to keep up with these things.
So, I looked at the specifications for a matched pair of Shure KSM137's compared to the capsules of my Rode NT4, and the X/Y microphone module from the Zoom H5 Studio, which is among the best I've heard included with a digital recorder.
Basically, for about twice the price of the NT4, you get a little less self-noise, a bit more sensitivity, and quite a lot more SPL handling with pads, only a couple more DB without. You also get a lot more flexibility, though, as the NT4's capsules are in a fixed pattern, where you can change the configuration of a pair of SDCs. I think the KSM137's just sound better, taking all that out of the picture.
Comparing those to the XYH-5s, the microphone system that comes with the Zoom H5 Studio, both the NT4 and the KSM137 have higher SPL tolerance, and are more sensitive.
The XYH-5s is rated as follows: Sensitivity –41 dB/Pa at 1 kHz Maximum sound pressure 140 dB SPL Self-noise is not listed.
The NT4 is rated as such: Maximum SPL 143dB SPL -38.0dB re 1 Volt/Pascal (12.00mV @ 94 dB SPL) +/- 2 dB @ 1kHz Equivalent Noise Level (A-Weighted) 16dBA
And finally, the KSM137 has this to say about itself: Sensitivity -37 dBV/Pa (14.1 mV) Maximum SPL (1 kHz @ 1% THD) No Pad 145 dB 139 dB 134 dB -25 dB Pad 170 dB 164 dB 159 dB Self Noise equivalent SPL, A-weighted, typical 14 dB
Basically, this all means that the KSM137 has a better signal-to-noise ratio and lower self-noise than the Rode NT4, which is, in turn, a bit hotter and probably slightly less noisy than the XYH-5s. The NT4, by the way, is basically like having a pair of NT5's with their cardioid capsules in a fixed 90 degree X/Y pattern.
I'm not really sure why I looked this stuff up. I'm not doing projects that are interesting enough to warrant such investigation, really, but maybe one day, I will. At least I've got something portable with a pair of preamps that makes it worth buying super clean condenser microphones if needed, and the recorder won't be the biggest bottleneck.
In other news, probably none of this actually matters. I can point the H5 Studio's included X/Y mics at something and get a great recording, and that's probably what I'll do most of the time anyway, even though that, as nice as it is, is most likely the noisiest part of the whole thing.
Trump Mobile has posted a new image of the T1 phone. But the picture might simply be a rushed Photoshop job using a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. pcmag.com/news/trump-mobile-po…
Someone recently described me as a "left wing nut," I presume for having radical political beliefs like "slavery was bad" and "maybe genocide isn't a great idea" and "hey, wouldn't due process be great for everybody" and probably also "presidents and their advisors shouldn't be hopelessly corrupt and should probably also follow the Constitution," you know, real out there stuff like that
O Rust siempre no es tan seguro como lo publicitan o los de Microsoft fueron capaces de meter vulnerabilidades aún y con Rust
"Check Point Research uncovered what is probably the first-ever publicly disclosed security flaw in a Rust-based component of the Windows kernel—Microsoft’s foundational operating system layer. This vulnerability can cause a total system crash, forcing a hard reboot and instantly knocking users offline."
Dear Linux friends - every time you see a curmudgeon complaining about wayland or systemd or whatever else that broke their technical world view, take some solace in knowing that in Windows land some people who learned Office in the 1990s still complain about the Ribbon, despite all the UX research that went into it.
I can't tell if you're being serious about the Ribbon. Is there evidence, from third-party research once Office 2007+ was actually released, that the Ribbon was actually easier to use?
FWIW, I quite like systemd compared to SysVinit. But, at least when using a screen reader, the Ribbon isn't better in any way than the straightforwardly hierarchical menus IMO.
@matt the Ribbon is quite possibly the most extensively user tested bit of design of the past 15-20 years. This is a good jump off point: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/arch…
I once asked VariCAD makers to consider using a ribbon instead of the absolute clusterfuck of unremarkable icons *everywhere*. They acted like I’d shagged their mothers in front of them
@fluke I understand being annoyed when a tool you already know changes its controls. But once you understand how contextual commands make more sense than you figuring out what commands are available, when and where... it's so much better that way.
(Also, actual user-driven testing and analysis instead of just shoving extra commands wherever there is space on the screen.)
@fluke There was definitely some issues right away with the ribbon bar in that some options just didn't show up. I don't remember the specifics, but I want to say it was like being able to insert a picture into a table. You got all the table options but not all the inserts. I think those have been cleaned up, but I also don't use Office as much any more.
"If you decide to spend dozens or hundreds of billions of euros right now, you are likely buying meetings and failure. No one is ready to sell you a European Amazon equivalent." - from an upcoming post that talks about how hard it is to change your industry/industrial culture.
I find that statement so black and white... You are right, there is no drop-in perfect replacement to AWS. But by the 'perfect' standard, a BMW X3 is not a drop-in replacement for a Mercedes S class.
Yet both can drive just fine.
Many workloads now on Amazon **can** move to local clouds. Maybe not all, but, say, half. And yes, at a cost, IT migrations are always costly.
I'm afraid that your statement can cause people to not start to move that 50%. And that perpetuates a cycle!
I don't care that people might be offended by how bad things are. As long as we aren't straight on this, we won't get a solution. And the assumption that "50% could move", this is not what I hear from most deployments. "citation needed".
If the effect of your positioning of the problem is lethargy and helplessness you are not a positive force for change, even if you might be technically correct.
WRT the 50% - I can't really speak to all 'cloud', if you talk AWS and such. Industry ppl tell me they are, at most, 3 years behind. You might know better.
I do know that 50% is realistic for the digital workplace - that's how our customers use Nextcloud after all.
"To try to live without using plastic now (at least in the US) is an extremely expensive endeavor, both in terms of money and n terms of time. Plastic is so deeply integrated into so many of our systems that it is very difficult to avoid. But we are at a moment with "AI" where things aren't so deeply integrated, though corporate interests are pushing for them to be. So I believe that every act of refusal is especially powerful and meaningful now..."
By Emily Alex and I were at WorldCon (the World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention) last week, talking about The AI Con with people whose livelihood...
This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).
* WakeUpScreen: unmaintained since 2021 & almost no downloads * LiveDisplay: unmaintained since 2022 & GMS+Tracking+Debuggable * RECORDA: unmaintained since 2023 & almost no downloads * Deduplicate SMS: unmaintained since 2019 & almost no downloads * WindFish: unmaintained since 2016 & almost no downloads * TinyList: unmaintained since 2017 & almost no downloads
Today I learned. Claude code has a "plan mode", and it honestly seems to make the output 10x better.
Now I just wish there was a quick way to switch between the $15/mo plan and a "Pay to Go" account, as the latter offers a hybrid "Opus for planning, Sonnet for execution" mode.
I'm always resistant to look at these packaged apps when an API is available, but everything I hear about Claude is really unique and really cool. Right now I just run it from PalChat or the GPTCMD shell, which is just direct API interaction. ChatGPT doesn't offer much that makes it worth $20/month, but Claude seems to have gone way above and beyond a chat client.
@simon I mean, I'm a fan of simonw/llm for direct model interaction (what people would use the web UI for), but using either for coding is not worth it IMO.
The advantage of Claude code (or any of its open source competitors, like Google's Gemini CLI, OpenAI's Codex, Aider etc) is that they have access to your repo's context.
I somehow didn't realize OpenAI had a version of that. I know there are different GUI and CLI options out there, and at least one that ties straight into VSCode and seems to try and provide copilot-like functionality through the API, but is Claude the only one who has bundled that into a subscription or am I just out of the loop? I saw someone assign an issue to Copilot on a repo I'm following, and copilot just casually submitted a working PR and documented the whole thing. I fully recognize that AI coding is still far from perfect, but I think it's at the point where it has the potential to be helpful if it's driven by a human with coding skills and critical thinking abilities.
@simon The problem with OpenAI's offering is that it is not "privileged" in any way, and uses the same API key as everything else. Because people are essentially stealing OpenAI's models through distillation, they had to limit API access to the most powerful models to those who have verified their ID.
@simon ID Verification for banks and financial institutions is actually covered by the European Accessibility Act, so I expect most providers to get their act together on that front in the somewhat near future.
Most of them probably have a covered client or two, and nobody wants to lose valuable and paying enterprise customers over something like this.
very glad to hear that. It seems like the first big accessibility act that has teeth, and I hope other countries learn from it. I didn't know that particular thing was covered, but it sure does need to be. I don't even mind video-chatting someone if I have to take a photo of my ID or something, but if I literally can't get the system to acknowledge that I'm looking at the camera, that's a problem. I have some control over the movement of my eyes too, they just look a little bit too abnormal for these systems to recognize them.
@simon ADA, section 508, and whatever the education / transportation ones are have teeth too. We just don't really notice, because we take the accessibility of these services for granted.
E.G. You used to be able to instantly tell if a carrier offered flights to the US or not, juyst by the state of their web accessibility.
The European EEA just expands the categories of services which need to be accessible, but it's actually far less comprehensive than people think.
Yeah, I guess they all do have teeth, but from what I'm reading at least, there is less ambiguity with the EAA. It feels like there are still too many US lawsuits where the court has to spend a long time establishing that there is an ADA violation to begin with.
@simon My problem with the EEA (and all other European legislation) is that there's very little incentive for you to report beyond getting the issues fixed.
With the ADA, there's plenty of money on the table, and plenty of money means good lawyers on commission, who will actually try to get things done. In the EU, it's all burreaucrats who always get the same salary, regardless ow how many violations they prosecute per day.
@simon This feels like nitpicking, but to be entirely honest, I think the most crucial and underappreciated feature that an AI agent can have is the ability to beep at you when its done working. Otherwise, you'll start doing something else and never return. Claude is the only one I've tried that has this.
Honestly, working with AI made me appreciate the pain of C++ developers and their long compile times.
"The lesson is this: never fight a corporation's customer service department. Fight its legal department or its PR department. They don't care about your inconvenience, but they are terrified of a broken promise."
This is a Sony Anycast Station AWS-G500HD from 2007. It's essentially a Sony luggable PIII 933Mhz PC that runs Linux 2.4.20 with a ton of FPGAs to do the heavy lifting of a video switcher. Plus glorious physical buttons, faders, dials, and removable keyboard. Oh, and a jog wheel.
I don't include my git checkouts in my backups, but I need to change that because I just accidentally deleted all my local branches of my main project with a mistyped `rm -rf` command.
Is it possible to tell Borg to exclude any files that are matched by a `.gitignore`? Or am I stuck manually writing out exclude rules?
Patrick
in reply to Hubert Figuière • • •