In the News Archive
I have yet to see any of these creepy camera glasses Facebook (and a few other companies) are selling. One of the many benefits of living in Arctic Sweden, where people are reserved, keep their their distance, and try not to draw attention to themselves, is that new technology fads don’t really permeate society here. The odds of me spotting one of these creepy predator glasses in my remote town are incredibly slim, and to me, that’s a feature, not a bug. Meanwhile, in places where these creepy things can actually be found in the wild, a backlash is thankfully growing. Will Kujawa, a freelance video producer, said that he has been thinking about buying a pair of Meta glasses with prescription lenses to film behind the scenes content during his shoots, but the online backlash has given him second thoughts. He says he was “blown away by how mean some of the people were” in response to his social media posts about considering buying a pair. “I saw all these comments about if you wear those glasses you’re basically a predator or a creep, and I was like, ‘oh, maybe it’s not a good idea to have those,'” he told Engadget. But he says he understands why people have concerns. “I didn’t really think that through all the way … there are a lot of times where it’s not appropriate to wear cameras on your face. And even though I would have no intention of do anything creepy with them, it didn’t even occur to me other people just assume that automatically.” ↫ Karissa Bell at Engadget I can maybe see a use for these things in specific professional environments, but even then, obviously not ones made by Facebook, one of the, if not the creepiest companies in technology history. If I were to see anyone out here in the real world using one these things, I, too, would automatically assume that the guy (statistically speaking) wearing them is a creep. I can only imagine what the people most often targeted by creepy men would think encountering some rando wearing these. Clearly, these things should be made illegal outside of specific professional environments where they could potentially be useful. While it’s impossible to stop tools like these from making their way into the hands of creeps, it at least provides the justice system with a clear method of nailing them to the wall. They didn’t get Al Capone for any of his violent crimes – they nailed him for tax evasion.
Oracle is sticking to its promise of more regular Solaris updates with the release of Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU93. This release, like other SRU releases, is for paying Solaris customers, as the CBE releases for enthusiasts are on a different cadence. With Solaris’ focus being on enterprise server environments, it should come as no surprise that most of the changes and improvements are focused on things like enterprise networking and security, such as changes to how policy settings for the Kernel Crypto Framework (KCF) are stored, moving from using RPC over sockets instead of STREAMS, and more. Of course, there’s also the long list of updated open source packages. SRU 93.221.2 updates a broad set of platform, runtime, developer, networking, desktop, and open source components. Notable updates include Apache Tomcat to 9.0.116, bash to 5.3 patch 9, BIND to 9.20.18 and 9.20.21, Django 4.2 to 4.2.30, Django 5.2 to 5.2.13, Firefox to 140.8.0esr, Golang to 1.25.8, Node.js 20 to 20.20.2, Node.js 22 to 22.22.2, Node.js 24 to 24.14.1, NSS to 3.119.1, Perl to 5.42, Python 3.11 to 3.11.15, Python 3.13 to 3.13.12, RabbitMQ to 4.2.4, Thunderbird to 140.8.0esr, vim to 9.2.0340, and zlib to 1.3.2. Additional updates include development tools, Python modules, X11 utilities, printing components, libraries, cryptographic packages, networking tools, and desktop-related packages. ↫ Colin Kavanagh at the Oracle Solaris Blog Existing Oracle Solaris customers can update to the new release through pkg update.
It’s just a ruling from a lower court, but it sets the stage for how European courts are going to deal with the question of who is liable for whatever slop “AI” generates. The Regional Court of Munich hit Google with a temporary injunction barring the company from spreading false claims about two Munich-based publishers through its AI-generated search overviews (case no. 26 O 869/26). The court classified Google as a direct infringer because the “AI overview” is its own content, not just a list of search results. Google’s AI overviews had falsely tied two publishing companies to scams, subscription traps, and shady business practices for certain search queries. According to the court, the AI mixed up information about other, genuinely sketchy companies with the plaintiffs and drew connections that didn’t appear in any of the linked sources. The publishers sent Google a cease-and-desist letter, but Google didn’t respond appropriately. ↫ Matthias Bastian at The Decoder Google tried to argue it doesn’t carry any responsibility or liability for whatever slop its “AI” generate, but the German court does not agree. According to the court, “AI” overviews are not the same as regular search results, because they rewrite findings and just make shit up, thereby making claims that are nowhere to be found in any search results (or in reality in general). Furthermore, the court states that Google develops the “AI”, it runs it, it offers it to users, and Google alone controls its output, and as such, Google is liable for whatever their “AI” produces. Google also tried to argue that users know not to trust anything an “AI” produces, which is hilarious considering how hard Google is pushing these tools, but the courts state that the ability of users to do further research does not absolve Google of liability. In addition, the court made it very clear that free speech protections absolutely do not apply, because the “AI” expressions are coming from an algorithm, not a person, and are above all an expression of Google’s business activities”. In other words, if an “AI” tool generates false accusations and misleading statements, the creator of said “AI” is liable. With this ruling in hand, countless other people have a stronger case to make whenever Google or any other company tries to absolve itself from liability from slop just because a pachinko machine generated it. Excellent news, and the only fair outcome.
Flathub, by the most popular (effectively only) repository for Flatpak applications, has changed its policies to include a strict ban on “AI” use for both application submissions as well as the application code itself. This policy applies to both the application being submitted to Flathub and the Flathub submission itself, including the manifest, metadata, patches, build scripts, and pull request. For the purpose of this policy, applications include BaseApps, extensions, and any other artifacts that can be produced by flatpak-builder. Submission pull requests must not be generated, opened, or automated using AI tools or agents. Please also do not request review from any AI tools in the submission PR. Automated Copilot reviews on GitHub can be disabled by the submitter by going here and changing Repository access to exclude the repo or disabling the global “Automatic Copilot code review” found here. Applications containing AI-generated or AI-assisted code, documentation, or other content are not allowed. ↫ Flathub policy diff This is a fairly strict policy, but they do leave some wiggle room by also including the following line: Exceptions may be granted for mature, well-maintained projects. ↫ Flathub policy diff I don’t think they had any choice adding this exception, but it does feel a little bit like “rules for thee but not for me”. I can easily see the relatively small in-crowd of developers around Flathub and Flatpak, and their friends, handing each other exceptions, while enforcing the much stricter rules when it comes to outsiders. Say a well-known GNOME application from a long-time GNOME contributor adds “AI”-generated code, will it really be banned from Flathub? I have my doubts. Regardless, it’s mostly good news. It’s important to note that this policy change won’t be applied retroactively, so slopcoded applications already on Flathub won’t be removed.
Suppose your manager asks you next week to demonstrate that the AI coding tools your company signed up for are worth the subscription cost. Would you measure lines of code generated, or tickets closed? Or would you send out a survey asking whether developers feel more productive? Each of those approaches is flawed in a different way; the sections below explain why. ↫ Greg Wilson Every single study that claims to prove “AI” has a positive effect on productivity falls into one or more of these categories. Again, nobody has ever used “AI” to produce anything of value.
Modern laptops promise a kind of magic. Shut the lid or press the sleep button, toss it in a backpack, and hours, days, or weeks later, it should wake up as if nothing happened with little to no battery drain. This sounds like a fairly trivial operation — y’know, you’re literally just asking for the computer to do nothing — but in that quiet moment when the fans whir down, the screen turns dark, and your reflection stares back at you, your computer and all its little components are actually hard at work doing their bedtime routine. ↫ Aymeric Wibo at the FreeBSD Foundation A look at how suspend and resume works in practice, from the perspective of FreeBSD. Considering FreeBSD’s laptop focus in recent times, not an unimportant subject.
It seems the widespread efforts in Europe to drastically reduce its dependency on US technology companies is starting to worry some people. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies’ handling of foreigners’ data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters that such efforts could interfere with artificial intelligence-related services. Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approach as some foreign countries seek limits around how Silicon Valley firms process and store their citizens’ personal information – initiatives often described as “data sovereignty” or “data localization.” ↫ Raphael Satter and Alexandra Alper at Reuters It’s going to take time, but untangling the EU from the US – especially technologically and militarily – is worth the effort. I’ll gladly pay more taxes to make this happen.
I was trading New Year’s resolutions with a circle of friends a few weeks ago, and someone mentioned a big one: sleeping better. I’m a visual neuroscientist by training, so whenever the topic pops up it inevitably leads to talking about the dreaded blue light from monitors, blue light filters, and whether they do anything. My short answer is no, blue light filters don’t work, but there are many more useful things that someone can do to control their light intake to improve their sleep—and minimize jet lag when they’re traveling. My longer answer is usually a half-hour rant about why they don’t work, covering everything from a tiny nucleus of cells above the optic chiasm, to people living in caves without direct access to sunlight, to neuropeptides, the different cones, how monitors work, gamma curves, what I learned running ismy.blue, corn bulbs, melatonin, finally sharing my Apple Watch & WHOOP stats. What follows is slightly more than you needed to know about blue light filters and more effective ways to control your circadian rhythm. Spoiler: the real lever is total luminance, not color. ↫ Patrick Mineault And yet, despite a complete and utter lack of evidence blue-light filters do anything at all, even the largest technology companies in the world peddle them without so much as blinking an eye. It’s pure quackery, and as always, we let them get away with it.
I nominate this for the “Most Expected News Of The Decade” award. Today, The Tech Oversight Project published a new report spotlighting newly unsealed documents in the 2026 social media addiction trials. The documents provide smoking-gun evidence that Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok all purposefully designed their social media products to addict children and teens with no regard for known harms to their wellbeing, and how that mass youth addiction was core to the companies’ business models. The documents contain internal discussions among company employees, presentations from internal meetings, expert testimony, and evidence of Big Tech coordination with tech-funded groups, including the National Parent Teachers Association (PTA) and Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), in attempts to control the narrative in response to concerned parents. ↫ The Tech Oversight Project Modern social media companies are not entirely different from tobacco companies. They and everyone else know full well just how dangerous social media is, and how being addicted to it has disastrous consequences for the people involved. Tobacco companies, too, knew how dangerous smoking was decades before the general population was aware, and yet they kept pushing cigarettes, even to kids, deaths be damned. In fact, they’re still doing the same thing today with “vapes”, and we’re kind of letting it happen all over again. Social media is directly responsible for genocides, extreme polarisation, the spread of endless amounts of lies causing parents to harm their children, mass generation of child pornography, and much, much more. All of this is not a coincidence, mere side-effects, unintended consequences – social media are designed and optimised specifically to achieve these goals, like cigarettes and now “vapes” are designed specifically to be as addictive as possible. The people responsible – social media companies, their executives, their employees – need to face justice, answer for what they’ve done, and face the legal consequences. Of course, that’s not going to happen. Billionaires and their megacorporations are untouchable, too big to fail, too closely tied to especially the current regime in the US. I don’t think social media bans for people under 16 are the answer, since they tend to come with onerous and invasive online identity checks and because they cut vulnerable people off from their support networks, but it’s clear we need to do something.
We need to consume. The average American now holds onto their smartphone for 29 months, according to a recent survey by Reviews.org, and that cycle is getting longer. The average was around 22 months in 2016. While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run, especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations. ↫ Kevin Williams at CNBC Line must go up. Ļ̷̩̺̾i̶̼̳͍͂̒ͅn̵͕̉̾e̴̞͛̓̀̍ ̴͙̙̥͋͐m̸͚̉̆u̴̖̰̪̽̔ͅs̶̨̛̾ţ̷̢̂͛̆͝ ̵̱̐̓̾̔͜ğ̷͕̮̮͆o̷̟͈̐̏̄͝ ̷̢̨̞̉u̴̢̪̭̱̿͑͛̌p̴͈̜̫̖̌.
Back in January 2025, the Python Software Foundation applied for a $1.5 million grant from the US government’s National Science Foundation, under the Safety, Security, and Privacy of Open Source Ecosystems program, to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and PyPI. After a lot of paperwork, their application was approved, but upon receiving the contractual agreement, the Python Software Foundation decided to back out. Why? We became concerned, however, when we were presented with the terms and conditions we would be required to agree to if we accepted the grant. These terms included affirming the statement that we “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” This restriction would apply not only to the security work directly funded by the grant, but to any and all activity of the PSF as a whole. Further, violation of this term gave the NSF the right to “claw back” previously approved and transferred funds. This would create a situation where money we’d already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk. In the end, however, the PSF simply can’t agree to a statement that we won’t operate any programs that “advance or promote” diversity, equity, and inclusion, as it would be a betrayal of our mission and our community. ↫ Loren Crary at the PSF blog The fact that this is news at all is a deeply sad state of affairs, but it’s great to see at least some organisations in tech still have a spine. In a world where tech giants and their sleazy CEOs are falling over each other to lather the US president in bribes and tasteless gifts, it’s refreshing to see someone passing up on what would be an enormous amount of money for them. The PSF operates on a budget of $5 million a year, so $1.5 million would be a massive boon for the effort. The efforts of the PSF regarding outreach have been incredibly successful over the years. PyCon US had 1% female speakers in 2011, 7% in 2012, 15% in 2013, 33% in both 2014 and 2015, and 40% in 2016. “DEI” efforts usually just mean the gruntwork of reaching out to members of underrepresented groups within your community, and ensuring they feel welcome, safe, and respected. Monocultures tend to be self-destructive, whether we’re talking about operating systems or people. Having perspectives from people with different backgrounds, different life experiences, and different approaches is a massive net benefit to your organisation. Making efforts to foster such environments illegal is absolute batshit insanity, and I’m glad that unlike cowards like Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai, the Python Software Foundation has a spine and is standing up for what’s right.
We removed ads from OSNews. Donate to our fundraiser to ensure our future! An internal Meta Platforms document detailing policies on chatbot behavior has permitted the company’s artificial intelligence creations to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people.” These and other findings emerge from a Reuters review of the Meta document, which discusses the standards that guide its generative AI assistant, Meta AI, and chatbots available on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, the company’s social-media platforms. ↫ Jeff Horwitz at Reuters The only way one can describe the examples of allowed behaviour towards minors is absolutely fucked up. If I’d find any person talking to my kids like Facebook and Zuckerberg apparently think it’s okay to talk to children, I’d be calling the police to file a report. I know I shouldn’t be surprised considering it’s Facebook and Zuckerberg, a company with a history of knowingly inciting violence and genocide and a founder who created his website to creep on women, but the lows to which this company and its founder are willing to go are just so unimaginable to even people with just a modicum of morality, I just can’t wrap my brain around it. The treatment of people of colour isn’t any better. Facebook will happily argue for you that black people are dumber than white people without so much as batting an eye. Again, none of this should be surprising considering it’s Facebook, but add to it the fact that “AI” is the endgame for totalitarians, and it all makes even more sense. These tools are explicitly designed to generate totalitarian propaganda, because they’re trained on totalitarian propaganda, i.e., most of the internet. The examples of “AI” being fascist and racist are legion, and considering the people creating them – Zuckerberg, Altman, Musk, and so on – all have clear fascist and totalitarian tendencies or simply are overtly fascist, we, again, shouldn’t be surprised. Totalitarians hate artists and intellectuals, because artists and intellectuals are the ones who tend to not fall for their bullshit. That’s why one of the first steps taken by any totalitarian regime is curtailing the arts and sciences, from Pol Pot to Mao, from Trump to Orban. Promoting “AI” as a replacement for exactly these groups in society – “AI” generating “art” to replace artists, “AI” doing “research” to replace actual scientists – fits within the totalitarian playbook like a perfectly fitted glove. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. This apparently also applies to “AI”.
Over the years, we’ve seen a good number of interfaces used for computer monitors, TVs, LCD panels and other all-things-display purposes. We’ve lived through VGA and the large variety of analog interfaces that preceded it, then DVI, HDMI, and at some point, we’ve started getting devices with DisplayPort support. So you might think it’s more of the same. However, I’d like to tell you that you probably should pay more attention to DisplayPort – it’s an interface powerful in a way that we haven’t seen before. ↫ Arya Voronova at HackADay DisplayPort is a better user experience in every way compared to HDMI. I am so, so sad that HDMI has won out in the consumer electronics space, with all of its countless anti-user features as detailed in the linked article. I refuse to use HDMI when DisplayPort is available, so all of my computers’ displays are hooked up over DP. Whenever I did try to use HDMI, I always ran into issues with resolution, refresh rates, improper monitor detection, and go knows what else. Plug in a DP cable, and everything always just works. Sadly, in consumer electronics, DisplayPort isn’t all that common. Game consoles, Hi-Fi audio, televisions, and so on, all push HDMI hard and often don’t offer a DisplayPort option at all. It takes me back to the early-to-late 2000s, when my entire audio setup was hooked up using optical cables, simply because I was a MiniDisc user and had accepted the gospel of optical cables. Back then, too, I refused to buy or use anything that used unwieldy analog cables. Mind you, this had nothing to do with audio quality – it was a usability thing. If anyone is aware of home audio devices and televisions that do offer DisplayPort, feel free to jump into the comments.
It’s become almost impossible to avoid the “AI” evangelists spreading the gospel of how “AI” tools are helping them work faster and get more stuff done in less time, but do any of those claims have any basis in reality? Should we really be firing countless people and replace them with “AI” tools? Should we spend god knows how much money on “AI” tools and force employees to use them? Well… When developers are allowed to use AI tools, they take 19% longer to complete issues—a significant slowdown that goes against developer beliefs and expert forecasts. This gap between perception and reality is striking: developers expected AI to speed them up by 24%, and even after experiencing the slowdown, they still believed AI had sped them up by 20%. ↫ Joel Becker, Nate Rush, Beth Barnes, and David Rein We’re very much in the early days of proper research into the actual effectiveness and real-world benefits of “AI” tools for all kinds of professions, so a study like this definitely isn’t a smoking gun, but it does fly in the face of the tech companies and their evangelists shoving “AI” down our collective throat. With how much these tools get even the most basic stuff wrong, with how often they lie and make stuff up, I just can’t imagine them speeding up as many tasks as people claim they do. At the same time, “AI” tools do definitely have a place for very specific tasks, and I think that studies like these will look different for every single profession and even every single task within a profession. It’s going to be incredibly hard or even impossible to come to a “theory of everything” on the effectiveness and usefulness of “AI” tools. It won’t be until this idiotic hype dies down before we can have a grounded, honest, fact-based discussion about which “AI” tools make sense where.
Your operating system may be the most undervalued factor in your crypto success. While everyone else debates which coins they are going to buy or how to build the perfect mining rig, the software that is running underneath everything is determinative in how smooth, secure, and profitable that experience becomes. A poorly chosen operating system can not only cost you money with system crashes and falling prey to potential security compromises, but can also cost you through missed opportunities, like when your computer freezes in the middle of a trade. The crypto world doesn’t treat all operating systems equally. Windows is the leading desktop operating system in terms of share of usage globally. Nevertheless, it does not mean that Windows is automatically the best choice for digital assets. Linux has actually established itself as a unique competitor among crypto diehards, and macOS sits in an interesting middle ground. Each operating system presents uniquely positive and negative characteristics that are bound to impact your crypto behaviour. For example, security should become your highest priority when actively managing or storing significant amounts of cryptocurrency, especially in a non-custodial wallet. These wallets usually give you more control over security, with you being the only one in possession of your private keys. So, Linux operating systems go well with them as they are less vulnerable to computer viruses and malware, giving users better protection when maximum security is a priority. The open-source nature means security holes get patched much quicker, and users aren’t limited to just one company’s security development. Since 2005, over 13,500 developers have contributed to Linux, allowing it to be patched much quicker. For mining operations, the decision becomes even more consequential. Dedicated mining operating systems based on Linux offer clear benefits over Windows. Mining platforms like HiveOn and minerstat have risen in prominence due to their ability to manage multiple mining rigs from a single interface, automatically optimise settings for profitability, and eliminate unnecessary processes that can impact mining efficiency. Windows maintains advantages for newcomers to crypto. If you’re new to crypto interfaces and Linux-based systems, Windows has the lowest learning curve. In fact, most crypto exchanges and trading platforms develop their desktop applications primarily for Windows users. Windows provides the most secure option for general platform support, and Microsoft has integrated well with multi-monitor trading setups to minimise configuration headaches. Another thing you should have your mind on is stability. A system crash during volatile markets could cost you thousands in missed trades or liquidations. Linux systems typically run for months without requiring reboots, while Windows systems need constant restarts for updates and maintenance. This reliability factor becomes crucial for automated trading bots or managing active positions across multiple exchanges. What also goes in Linux’s favour are the stats. More than 91% of the world’s supercomputers and more than 70% of worldwide web servers were powered by Linux in 2024, signalling trust in its stability. Lastly, don’t forget hardware compatibility. Windows supports far more mining hardware without technical configuration or tweaking, whereas Linux users sometimes encounter driver issues with newer graphics cards or ASIC miners, but support for that has improved greatly. The fundamental trade-off is whether you need plug-and-play simplicity or optimal performance.
Recently, a Reddit user discovered a rare RCA Spectra 70/35 computer control panel from 1966 in their family’s old collapsed garage, posting photos of the pre-moon landing mainframe component to the “retrobattlestations” subreddit that celebrates vintage computers. After cleaning the panel and fixing most keyswitches, the original poster noted that actually running it would require “1,500lbs of mainframe”—the rest of the computer system that’s missing. ↫ Benj Edwards at Ars Technica Apparently, no photos of this panel existed online, and it may be one of the few – if only – ‘surviving’ example of such a panel. Of course, it’s effectively useless without all of the other chunks that make up the entire Spectra mainframe, but it’s still an interesting find. The person who found it intends to turn it into what is essentially a piece of home decor, but maybe we’ll get lucky and someone else out there who has been collecting parts and pieces to assemble a working RCA Spectra 70/35 can do something more productive with it.
We’ve had a lot of fun with VTech’s computers in the past on this blog. Usually, they’re relatively spartan computers with limited functionality, but they did make something very interesting in the late 80s. The Socrates is their hybrid video game console/computer design from 1988, and today we’ll start tearing into it. ↫ Leaded Solder web log Now we’re in for the good stuff. A weird educational computer/game console/toy thing from the late ’80s, by VTech. I have a massive soft spot for these toy-like devices, because they’re always kind of a surprise – will it be a stupidly simple hardcoded device with zero input/output, or a weirdly capable computer with tons of hidden I/O and a full BASIC ROM? You won’t know until you crack it open and take a peek! VTech still makes things like this, and I still find them ever as fascinating.
Isaac Marovitz, the developer of Whiskey, a frontend for Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit and Wine, has decided to throw in the towel. The developer is advising users to buy CrossOver instead, which provides the same service. The reasoning behind their decision seems sound, and are actually quite noble and considerate. First and foremost, it’s the usual problem lone developers run into: they lost interest in the project, and to make matters worse, they’re only a student and simply lack the time to keep working on a project they’re simply not really into anymore. Running a complicated project like this on your own, unpaid, while also having to study is hard at the best of times, and if you’re also not interested in it anymore it quickly becomes a massive burden. The second reason is that originally, Whiskey was just supposed to be a frontend for Wine on the Mac, without actually making any changes to Wine itself. The release of Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit changed the game, though, and all of a sudden Whiskey ended up shipping not just a nice frontend, but also custom versions of Wine. Marovitz states he doesn’t have the required knowledge and expertise to work on Wine, and as such, can’t contribute back to Wine and CrossOver, which feels bad. By contrast, Whisky is based on CrossOver, but we don’t produce any bespoke fixes. I, quite frankly, do not have the requisite skills or time to do so. As a result, the amount that Whisky as a whole contributes to Wine is practically zero. This is not a fair trade, and continuing this parasitic relationship could easily harm CrossOver’s continued profitability and the existence of Wine on Mac as a whole. ↫ Isaac Marovitz Wine, of course, has a ton of funding behind it these days, especially from Valve, but Valve’s interest lies solely and exclusively on Linux. While all of Valve’s funds and the work of Wine developers does benefit the Mac, much of the Wine on Mac work is done by CrossOver. I find it incredibly honest and respectful of Marovitz to make it clear he doesn’t want to leech off other people’s work without providing anything in return. So, Whiskey is no more, but for the few Mac users who want to play Windows games on their Mac, CrossOver exists as a refuge that should work just fine.
There isn’t a lot to this story beyond the fact that in around 1990 I helped debug someone’s Lotus 1-2-3 set up via fax. But it’s a good reminder of how important the Zeroth Law of Debugging is (see below). Without some sort of online connection with these folks, and with transatlantic phone calls being very, very expensive (I was in the UK, they were in the US) fax was the obvious answer. ↫ John Graham Honestly, this would still be easier today than some of the bug reporting systems I’ve seen.
How do you create a brain drain and lose your status as eminent destination for scientists and researchers? The United States seems to be sending out questionnaires to researchers at universities and research institutes outside of the United States, asking them about their political leanings. Dutch universities are strongly advising Dutch researches not to respond to the questionnaires, and warn that they are designed to stifle free speech and independent research through intimidation. Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) has also warned researchers about the questionnaire. The USGS questionnaire asks, for example, whether the researcher’s organisation works with ‘entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties’, whether the research project has taken ‘appropriate measures’ to ‘defend against gender ideology’ and whether the project has ‘measurable benefits for US domestic industries, workforce, or economic sectors’. ↫ Universiteit Leiden Researchers trying to enter the United States are also facing intimidation tactics, with the United States government going so far as to refuse entry to scientists critical of the Trump regime: A French scientist was denied entry to the US this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration, said a French minister. “I learned with concern that a French researcher who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled,” Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, said in a statement on Monday to Agence France-Presse published by Le Monde. ↫ Robert Mackey at the Guardian Being denied entry is one thing – being arrested and sent to a string of prisons is another, like this Canadian woman: Our next stop was Arizona, the San Luis Regional Detention Center. The transfer process lasted 24 hours, a sleepless, grueling ordeal. This time, men were transported with us. Roughly 50 of us were crammed into a prison bus for the next five hours, packed together – women in the front, men in the back. We were bound in chains that wrapped tightly around our waists, with our cuffed hands secured to our bodies and shackles restraining our feet, forcing every movement into a slow, clinking struggle. ↫ Jasmine Mooney at the Guardian If you’re a scientist or researcher planning on going to a conference in the US (or, say, a developer wanting to go to a tech conference), you should reconsider. Even if your papers are in order, you could end up on a plane to a concentration camp in El Salvador before you can even call a lawyer – while being told that any judge standing up for your rights should be impeached. The United States’ war on free speech, science, and research goes far beyond intimidating individual scientists and researchers. The Trump regime is actively erasing and deleting entire fields of science, most notably anything involving things like climate and gender, and openly attacking and cutting funding to universities that disagree with the Trump regime. Almost immediately after being sworn in as president on 20 January, Trump put his signature to piles of executive orders cancelling or freezing tens of billions of dollars in funding for research and international assistance, and putting the seal on thousands of lay-offs. Orwellian restrictions have been placed on research, including bans on studies that mention particular words relating to sex and gender, race, disability and other protected characteristics. ↫ Nature US President Donald Trump’s latest war on the climate includes withdrawing support for any research that mentions the word. He has also launched a purge on government websites hosting climate data, in an apparent attempt to make the evidence disappear. ↫ Corey J. A. Bradshaw at The Conversation The Trump administration has fired hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency housed within the Department of Commerce, the Guardian has learned. “There is no plan or thought into how to continue to deliver science or service on weather, severe storms and events, conservation and management of our coasts and ocean life and much more,” he said. “Let’s not pretend this is about efficiency, quality of work or cost savings because none of those false justifications are remotely true.” ↫ Dharna Noor and Gabrielle Canon at the Guardian Intimidating current scientists isn’t enough, either – the scientists of the future must also suffer: US President Donald Trump has signed an executive orderto dismantle the Department of Education, fulfilling a campaign pledge and a long-cherished goal of some conservatives. In its statement, the American Federation of Teachers said: “No-one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favour of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that. “But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities.” ↫ Ana Faguy at the BBC But what about intimidating university students who don’t fall in line with the regime? Well, we can’t forget about those, now, can we? After immigration agents detained Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil over his involvement in pro-Palestine protests on campus, President Donald Trump promised it was just the beginning. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has since arrested at least two more students who are in the country on visas — one of whom had recently sued the Trump administration on First Amendment grounds. ↫ Gaby Del Valle at The Verge A Cornell University PhD student earlier this month sued the Trump administration seeking to stop the president’s order aimed at foreign students accused of “antisemitism”. Days later, lawyers at the justice department emailed to request that the student “surrender” to immigration officials ↫ Maanvi Singh at the Guardian These are just a small selection of stories, and I could’ve picked a dozen more still if I wanted to. The point should be squarely (roundly?) driven home by now: the United States government seems to be doing everything in its power to scare off the very people an economy based on science,
