The GNOME team has released GNOME 50, the latest version of what is probably the most popular open source desktop environment. It brings fine-grained parental controls, and the groundwork for web filtering so that in future releases, parents and guardians can set content filters for children.
Swordsmen and Supermen (Centaur Press, February 1972). Cover by Virgil Finlay Swordsmen and Supermen 1972, subtitled “Swashbuckling Fantastic Anthology.” From Centaur Press, edited by Donald M. Grant. Cover from Virgil Finlay.
PosrtmarketOS, the Linux ‘distribution’ for mobile devices, now also has an immutable variant, called Duranium. Duranium is an immutable variant of postmarketOS, built around the idea that your device should just work, and keep working.
DOS didn’t have sudo yet. This gross oversight has been addressed. SUDO examines the environment for the COMSPEC variable to find the default command interpreter, falling back to C:\COMMAND.COM if not set.
Once again, social media giants Facebook and TikTok have been caught red-handed. More than a dozen whistleblowers and insiders have laid bare how the companies took risks with safety on issues including violence, sexual blackmail and terrorism as they battled for users’ attention.
The Perseverance rover has found tiny crystals that seem to be rubies or sapphires inside pebbles on Mars, where they have never been seen before
The neurodegenerative condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy appears to be driven by damage to the blood-brain barrier due to repetitive head injuries, like those that occur in boxing. This suggests that drugs that strengthen this barrier could prevent or slow the condition
Tar made from birch tree bark is commonly found at Neanderthal sites, and experiments show that it kills some bacteria that cause skin infections
Disruption to shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has led to a spike in oil and natural gas prices, which could spur countries to boost the rollout of renewable energy and electric vehicles
When particles in volcanic ash cloud rub together, some pick up positive charge and others negative – now physicists have finally elucidated how these different charges are determined
For the first time, scientists have measured atmospheric gases from the late Pliocene, yielding data that could help to predict the future climate
Abigail Marsh has found that many psychopaths don’t want to be cruel and uncaring, and argues that they deserve support to help them get there
Drugs like psilocybin that induce psychedelic effects have shown promise for treating depression. Now, a review of the evidence suggests that they are effective, but no more so than traditional antidepressants
A weather-forecasting AI was used to recommend routes for American Airlines flights between the US and Europe to reduce the formation of contrails, which contribute to global warming
Modern kernel anti-cheat systems are, without exaggeration, among the most sophisticated pieces of software running on consumer Windows machines. They operate at the highest privilege level available to software, they intercept kernel callbacks that were designed for legitimate security products, they scan memory structures that most programmers never touch in their entire careers, and they do all of this transparently while a game is running.
Around Thanksgiving, the fifth Thomas Adam Grey thriller by Duane Laflin, The Medusa Sting, came out. As I’ve been enjoying this series, I quickly got and read it. This series continues to be great, and I look forward to the next ones.
Tribblix, the Illumos distribution focused on giving you a classic UNIX-style experience, has released a new version. There are several noticeable version updates in this release. The graphical libraries libtiff and OpenEXR have been updated, retaining the old shared library versions for now.
Java 26 delivers thousands of improvements that boost developer productivity, simplify the language, and help developers integrate AI and cryptography functionality into their applications. To help developers further streamline and enhance their development initiatives, Oracle is also announcing the new Java Verified Portfolio, which provides developers with a curated set of Oracle-supported tools, frameworks, libraries, and services, including commercial support for JavaFX, a Java-based UI framework, and Helidon, a Java framework for microservices.
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Two lawsuits are being brought against giant tech firms for the dangers their apps pose to young people. Columnist Annalee Newitz says the outcome of those cases could dramatically change social media for the better
You can now buy a humanoid robot housekeeper for less than the price of a second-hand car. But before splashing out, there’s something you need to know
People who share a bed with a partner are woken by them multiple times per night, but don’t remember most of these disturbances
Physicists working on the LHCb experiment have spotted an elusive and fleeting particle, a heavier and more charming cousin to the proton, that has been sought for decades
Kingdom of Heaven (Director’s Cut) (194 minutes; 2005) Written by William Monahan. Directed by Ridley Scott. (There is a shorter theatrical cut, which should be avoided at all costs, like the plague it is.) What is it? Ridley Scott’s epic saga of the Crusades, as seen through the eyes of a simple French blacksmith who travels to Jerusalem in an attempt to save the soul of his late wife, and ends up as the defender of the city against the...
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The levels of a heavy form of hydrogen in 3I/ATLAS are 30 to 40 times higher than in Earth's oceans, suggesting the comet has a cold and distant origin
Since many of the platforms and conventions that came to dominate computing came from the western world, we never give it a second thought that virtually everything related to programming is written in English using the English alphabet.
It’s only a small annoyance in the grand scheme of the utter idiocy that is modern Windows, but apparently it’s one enough people complained about Microsoft is finally addressing it. In all of its wisdom, Microsoft doesn’t allow you to set the name of your user’s home folder during the installation procedure of Windows 11.
A radical idea that resolves many quantum paradoxes suggests there is no objective view of reality. How can the cosmos be stitched together from interlocking perspectives?
All five of the canonical nucleobases – the underpinnings of DNA, RNA and life on Earth – have been found in samples from the asteroid Ryugu
Scientists disagree whether human-made climate change or natural fluctuations are mostly to blame for worse-than-expected heat in recent years
On Black Friday weekend 2025, Steeger Books put out their next two sets of Argosy Library volumes, Series XVIII and XIX, getting closer to 200 volumes. As always, with each series, we get 10 books of great and sometimes overlooked fiction that appeared in the early pulps.
With the Trump administration’s attacks on so-called woke AI it is becoming even harder to make the technology we use fairer and more diverse. Leading voices are speaking out, reports Catherine de Lange
Ancient DNA reveals that the Goths of eastern Europe, some of whom would ultimately sack the city of Rome, may have been a mix of peoples from three continents
Firefly For a show that hardly anybody watched (it was reportedly 98th in the Nielsen Ratings for 2002-2003. The TV Guide Ratings page has it at 125th, and Fox’s lowest-ranked show), that one word carries a lot of weight 23 years later.
Dimensions beyond the four we’re familiar with could solve a host of problems in physics and cosmology. Columnist Leah Crane explores what a higher-dimensional universe might be like – and how we could find out if we live in one
A complete set (18 issues) of Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published 1947-1952 Donald A. Wollheim edited a magazine between the years 1947 to 1952 called Avon Fantasy Reader for Avon Publishers.
Has Donald been reading the Prussian military theorist?*
China’s Xi Jinping is also benefiting.
Niki in It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons:
The main function of an icon is to help you find what you are looking for faster.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, adding an icon to everything is exactly the wrong thing to do. To stand out, things need to be different. But if everything has an icon, nothing stands out.
Come on Apple, get your shit together.
PS: The title of Niki's post is excellent. Works in every way. I normally try to tweak the titles of these link posts a bit, but had to quote this one verbatim because it's so great.
Via.
What if you have a very modern machine that is entirely UEFI-only, meaning it has no compatibility support module and thus no way of enabling a legacy BIOS mode? Well, install a CSM as an EFI application, of course! CSMWrap is an EFI application designed to be a drop-in solution to enable legacy BIOS booting on modern UEFI-only (class 3) systems.
Arcane Arts and Cold Steel (Pulp Hero Press, December 24, 2025) David C. Smith is a name that speaks to lovers of sword & sorcery, if not with the power of a Karl Edward Wagner, then not far behind, and if you love the genre but don’t know Dave’s name…1) Shame on you; 2) Let me get you up to speed.
In a randomised trial, men who experience premature ejaculation benefitted from using an app to learn techniques for extending intercourse
I tend to focus on the origin of the computer within the military. Particularly
in the early days of digital computing, the military was a key customer, and
fundamental concepts of modern computing arose in universities and laboratories
serving military contracts.
SMF is the illumos system for managing traditional Unix services (long-lived background processes, usually). It’s quite rich in order to correctly accommodate a lot of different use cases. But it sometimes exposes that complexity to users even when they’re trying to do something simple.
Google has announced that it will release Chrome for Linux on ARM64 in the second quarter of this year. Launching Chrome for ARM64 Linux devices allows more users to enjoy the seamless integration of Google’s most helpful services into their browser.
I will not pass up an opportunity to make you talk about Plan 9, so let’s focus on Acme. Acme is remarkable for what it represents: a class of application that leverages a simple, text-based GUI to create a compelling model of interacting with all of the tools available in the Unix (or Plan 9) environment.
I’m feeling kind of nostalgic today so I thought I’d write Hello, world! in Z80 assembly for the ZX Spectrum! The last time I wrote any Z80 assembly was when I was 14 so around 36 years ago! I may be a little rusty! ↫ Old Man By the Sea It’s easy to tell the world hello in BASIC, but a bit more involved in Z80 assembly.
Simulations of Australopithecus hominins’ anatomy suggest that when they gave birth, they may have exerted tremendous pressure on their pelvic floors, putting them at risk of tearing
There are a few simple things you can do to make your digital life much more secure, says cybersecurity expert Jake Moore - follow these tips to tighten up your passwords
A trumpet-shaped, single-celled organism seems able to predict one thing will follow another, hinting that such associative learning emerged long before multicellular nervous systems
Nat Schachner was born on January 16, 1895 in New York. He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from City College in 1915. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I in the chemical warfare service from 1917 to 1918 and, when he returned to New York he earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence from New York University in 1919, the same year he married Helen Lichtenstein.
A growing body of research shows that we tend to discount a person’s good deeds if they stand to benefit from them. Columnist David Robson explores where this instinct comes from – and whether we should resist it
The errors that quantum computers make are holding the technology back. But recent progress in quantum error correction has excited many researchers
The president is obviously out of his mind. So why don't investors seem to care?
There is no strategy to what the White House does. There is no calculation. There is no sense of logic or application. It is a fucking madhouse.
Toys powered by AI show a worrying lack of emotional understanding. But we need to understand the risks and benefits of the technology so the industry can be regulated, not outright banned
Oh my!
Most abrupt fall from grace for a TV show since Heroes? If not, it's certainly up there with Prison Break.
Thought the first season of The Last of Us was magnificent. Enjoyed the way the broke up the story and told it in pieces. Could tell that they tried to employ similar techniques in season two. It just fell flat. Says it all that, despite the cliffhanger, I have no inclination to continue watching once season three rolls around.
Body mass index (BMI) is used as a global standard for measuring health, but does it actually tell you anything about how healthy you are on an individual level? Carissa Wong explains the problems with this flawed tool
The story of a wildflower that adapted to a severe drought in California raises hopes that evolution will come to the rescue of species hit by climate change, but there are limits
Two popular quantum computing algorithms for problems in chemistry may have very limited use even as quantum hardware improves
Fentanyl-related overdose deaths fell by nearly 30 per cent in the space of a year in the US, which could represent a significant turning point in the country's opioid addiction crisis
Star Nathan Fillion is stoking rumours that cult western-in-space television series Firefly could be rebooted. Emily H. Wilson realises she is being toyed with – but is still praying for its return
Teenagers are being bombarded with highly targeted commercial content on TikTok, despite an EU law that prohibits profiling minors for advertising
Black Gate has been tracking the inception and growth of New Edge Sword & Sorcery (NESS) mgazine, starting with Micheal Harrington’s 2022 interview with Oliver Brackenbury (champion and editor of NESS), through 2023 with NESS’s first two magazine releases (also Greg Mele’s review of #1), and then into 2024 with NESS’s first book “Beating Heart and Battle Axes and its two-novella combo book Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery, and then in 2025 we covered NESS‘s publication of a NEW Jirel of Joiry tale! (2025) and we interviewed one of their...
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Jonas Hieatala in A work week one bag travel:
I’ve been spending five nights away 4–5 times a year on business travels. It’s not a crazy amount but also not negligible, so I figured it’s worth trying to optimize them a bit.
Like Jonas, I travel occasionally for work. (Coincidentally, a few of my travels are in Sweden, too!) Although I've travelled for two nights at most, switching to "one bag travel" took a bit of adjusting.
However, nowadays I wouldn't entertain the idea of checking in luggage or carrying anything else than my backpack kit when I go on these trips. It's a much more convenient way of travelling. This walkthrough from Jonas covers the aspects you have to think about when travelling this way.
My best tip is merino wool t-shirts, sweaters and socks. No problems reusing these items multiple days without washing, which saves quite a bit of space.
Red Hat developer Marcin Juszkiewicz is working on the RISC-V port of Fedora Linux, and after a few months of working on it, published a blog post about just how incredibly slow RISC-V seems to be. This is a real problem, as in Fedora, build results are only released once all architectures have completed their builds.
When you mention John Jakes (1932 – 2023) to the average reader, they’ll probably come back with, “The Kent Family Chronicles guy?” or “the guy who wrote that North and South trilogy they made that mini-series from?” I have some of those books but I’ve never read them.
Now let’s go live to Amazon for the latest updates about this developing story. Amazon’s ecommerce business has summoned a large group of engineers to a meeting on Tuesday for a “deep dive” into a spate of outages, including incidents tied to the use of AI coding tools.
Strong magnets tend to be large and power-hungry, but a new design has produced a powerful magnet that fits in the palm of your hand, making it more practical and affordable
Longer summers are allowing more king penguin chicks to bulk up and survive the winter, but the penguins' main fishing area is shifting further away as temperatures rise
Photographer Jonas Kako travelled to Greenland to explore how mining for the rare earth elements and minerals that are vital for new green technologies is impacting locals
The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
Samantha King and Gavin Weedon's new book Protein digs deep into the nutrient's role in our health. But can it tell you how much you should be eating? Alexandra Thompson explores
Deep canyons in the Andes are the perfect location to catch the most energetic particles in the universe. Carlos Argüelles-Delgado reveals how these intergalactic envoys could help prove the quantum nature of gravity
The reliable internet connections provided by Starlink offer a huge advantage on the battlefield. But as access is dependent on the whims of controversial billionaire Elon Musk, militaries are looking to build their own version
In addition to The Paperback Fanatic, Justin Marriott has put out several other fanzines. Another is Pulp Horror, which I believe has run for eight issues. From No. 5 on, they have been available via POD on Amazon.
The "world smells different" for people with Parkinson's disease, a discovery that could help doctors spot the condition sooner
Two mass strandings involving hundreds of dolphins in Argentina probably happened because the pods were being hunted by orcas, highlighting the role of predators in these mysterious events
Sid in ai;dr:
For me, writing is the most direct window into how someone thinks, perceives, and groks the world. Once you outsource that to an LLM, I'm not sure what we're even doing here. Why should I bother to read something someone else couldn't be bothered to write?
What he said.
After resurrecting this blog back in 2023, the first book I wrote about was James Islington's The Will of the Many. I gave it a solid 3 out of 5 and concluded:
…there’s much to explore still, and I’m excited to see how Islington will build on this solid foundation in the books that follow.
The Strength of the Few is the second of four planned books in Islington's Hierarchy series. It came out late last year. As Islington, to my knowledge, does not maintain a website or blog with an RSS feed, I'm not able to keep up with his writing progress. Instead, I only discovered the new book when visiting a local book store with my kids. The Strength of the Few was given ample premium shelf space in the middle of the store. That was the first time I realised just how popular The Will of the Many must have been.
Later that same day I tried to purchase the e-book to add it to my library. I was sad to discover that there were no DRM free options. In fact, for someone located in Norway, Amazon was the only legal option for acquiring the e-book. As I try to avoid spending my hard earned money adding to Jeff Bezos' vast fortune, I gave up and instead bought a second hand copy of the paperback. It arrived in my within a couple of days, and I was off to the races.
Quite literally, as the book features an actual race scene quite early on. It sets the scene for much of what's to come in this particular branch of the story. And, yeah, that's where things get a little complicated. Without wanting to spoil too much for someone who's not read the book, it consists of three stories that evolve in synchronous fashion.
Although each storyline is designated with a particular icon, it took me more than half the book to remember which was which. Instead, I relied on the actual content of the chapters to orient myself. It wasn't too challenging, but at the offset I felt like I was floundering a bit while trying to keep up with what was going on where. A key reason is that it's been a couple of years since I read the predecessor. Strength picks up where Will left off, and it is a direct continuation. The references to the events of the previous book are numerous and mostly presented without any further explanation. As I had forgotten far more than I remembered about The Will of the Many, this doubtlessly made it harder for me to properly enjoy The Strength of the Few from the get go.
About a quarter of the way through, however, I began feeling like I had enough context to follow the story properly. And the book became much more enjoyable.
The three different stories are distinct and compelling in their unique ways. Where one is dystopian and strange, another feels intimately humane and recognisable. And both spring from a central story set in what's probably closest to the world we live in today. Islington's approach felt like a fresh take on telling an overarching story that I hadn't encountered before.
Speaking of, the connective storyline is interesting and kept me guessing and speculating along the way. While there is still much to be revealed — Strength feels like a classic middle book in that it begins and ends in the middle of the story — fantasy fans will see further homage to Brandon Sanderson in "the big reveal" we're treated to towards the end of The Strength of the Few.
I thought this book was a step up from its predecessor. The story feels more compelling, the way it is told more unique, all the while building on that which made The Will of the Many such a success. Anyone who picks up The Strength of the Few will, however, be well served by watching or listening to a recap of the first book before beginning. Or, better yet, treat themselves to a reread.
Either way, I'm really excited to see where James Islington takes the story with the next book in the series.
Back in 2023, John Earnest created a fun drawing application called WigglyPaint. The thing that makes WigglyPaint unique is that it automatically applies what artists call the line boil effect to anything you draw, making it seem as if everything is wiggling (hence the name).
Redox, the rapidly improving general purpose operating system written in Rust, has amended its contribution policy to explicitly ban code regurgitated by “AI”. Redox OS does not accept contributions generated by LLMs (Large Language Models), sometimes also referred to as “AI”.
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Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I’ve been receiving a great many emails of late, of a kind that I’m sure many authors are getting, and I think I should probably talk about it, because it’s all such a scam.
When New Scientist reporter James Woodford was assigned to a story about a virus designed to kill rabbits, he never expected to be accused of spreading it
Most of us don’t worry about our health in old age until we get there, but research is increasingly showing that how you live in your mid-50s can have a real impact in your 90s
Statistics that quantify a person’s predisposition to diseases such as diabetes and cancer can be reverse-engineered to reveal the underlying genetic data, prompting privacy concerns
Cortical Labs is building two data centres that will house its neuron-filled chips. The technology is still in the very early stages of development
Cortical Labs is building two data centres that will house its neuron-filled chips. The technology is still in the very early stages of development
While FreeBSD 15.x may be getting all the attention, the FreeBSD 14.x branch continues to be updated for the more conservative users among us. FreeBSD 14.4 has been released today, and brings with it updated versions of OpenSSH, OpenZFS, and Bhyve virtual machines can now share files with their host over 9pfs – among other things, of course.
Mushrooms have been used by ancient humans for millennia, but archaeologists have only just uncovered their pivotal role in shaping civilisation
