KDE Plasma 6.6 has been released, and brings with a whole slew of new features. You can save any combination of themes as a global theme, and there’s a new feature allowing you to increase or decrease the contrast of frames and outlines.
SvarDOS is an open-source project that is meant to integrate the best out of the currently available DOS tools, drivers and games. DOS development has been abandoned by commercial players a long time ago, mostly during early nineties.
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about AsteroidOS, the Linux distribution designed specifically to run on smartwatches, providing a smartwatch interface and applications built with Qt and QML.
Every modern iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS application uses Asset Catalogs to manage images, colors, icons, and other resources. When you build an app with Xcode, your .xcassets folders are compiled into binary .car files that ship with your application.
Within the major operating system of its day, on popular hardware of its day, ran the utterly dominant relational database software of its day. PC Magazine, February 1984, said, “Independent industry watchers estimate that dBASE II enjoys 70 percent of the market for microcomputer database managers.” Similar to past subjects HyperCard and Scala Multimedia, Wayne Ratcliff’s dBASE II was an industry unto itself, not just for data-management, but for programmability, a legacy which lives on today as xBase.
A technology that uses a coiled wire to electrify aerosols has boosted snowfall amid a drought in the western US, according to the company developing it, but the results haven't convinced other scientists
Trip report from the 2026 Munich Security Conference
Dragonslayer (109 minutes; 1981) Written by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins. Directed by Matthew Robbins. What is it? A sorcerer’s apprentice travels across sixth-century England to battle a dragon terrorizing a small kingdom.
An ultrastable laser could enable extremely precise timing and navigation on the moon, and the cold, dark craters near the lunar poles would be the ideal location for it
The evolution of human hands is one of the most important – and overlooked – stories of our origin. Now, new fossil evidence is revealing their pivotal role
A giant virus encodes part of the protein-making toolkit of cells that gives it greater control over its amoeba host, raising questions about how it evolved and how such beings relate to living organisms
Hearing a sound while working on a complex puzzle, and then hearing it again during sleep, helped lucid dreamers better tackle the problem the next day
May his memory be a blessing.
A mathematical equivalent of a microscope with variable resolution has shed light on why some atoms are exceptionally stable, a riddle that has persisted in nuclear physics for decades
The psychedelic DMT has been linked to improved mental health outcomes before, but now, scientists have shown it reduces depression symptoms more than a placebo when given alongside therapeutic support
The big bang wasn’t the start of everything, but it has been impossible to see what came before. Now a new kind of cosmology is lifting the veil on the beginning of time
I have posted before on the Burroughs Bibliophiles, a literary society started by Vern Coriell with the permission of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In addition to publishing The Burroughs Bulletin, Coriell started a publication arm called the House of Greystoke, which published a variety of works from the late 1960s into the late ’70s.
Biologists have debated the reason why Homo sapiens evolved a prominent lower jaw, but this unique feature may actually be a by-product of other traits shaped by natural selection
We are used to heat flowing from hot objects to cool ones, and never the other way round, but now researchers have found it is possible to pull off this trick in the strange realm of quantum mechanics
I haven’t told you about What I’ve Been Watching since last year! Of course it’s only February 16, so I guess we can keep a sense of proportion. But I’ve been watching a lot of stuff this year. As always, many are re-watches.
The shape of the cosmos depends on a balance of two competing forces: the pull of gravity and the expansion driven by dark energy. Columnist Leah Crane explores what observations tell us about how much universe is out there and whether it’s shaped like a sheet, a saddle or something else entirely
Intermittent fasting appears to be no better than doing nothing when it comes to helping people who are overweight or have obesity lose weight
Ploum in Do not apologize for replying late to my email:
As soon as my email was sent, I probably forgot about it. I may have thought a lot before writing it. I may have drafted it multiple times. Or not. But as soon as it was in my outbox, it was also out of my mind.
I am wholeheartedly behind Ploum on this. Never apologise for replying late to my email.
In my fundraiser pitch published last Monday, one of the things I highlighted as a reason to contribute to OSNews and ensure its continued operation stated that “we do not use any ‘AI’; not during research, not during writing, not for images, nothing.” In the comments to that article, someone asked: Why do I care if you use AI? ↫ A comment posted on OSNews A few days ago, Scott Shambaugh rejected a code change request submitted to popular Python library matplotlib because it was obviously written by an “AI”, and such contributions are not allowed for the issue in question.
Have you ever wanted to read the original design documents underlying the Windows NT operating system? This binder contains the original design specifications for “NT OS/2,” an operating system designed by Microsoft that developed into Windows NT.
The three book Echoes of Valor anthology series from TOR was edited by Karl Edward Wagner, who wrote excellent Sword & Sorcery tales himself, and could recognize good ones when he saw them. These were not anthologies of new stories, but reprints.
There’s the two behemoth architectures, x86 and ARM, and we probably all own one or more devices using each. Then there’s the eternally up-and-coming RISC-V, which, so far, seems to be having a lot of trouble outgrowing its experimental, developmental stage.
If you look at the table of contents for my book, Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook, you’ll see that entries on networks before/outside the internet are arranged first by underlying infrastructure and then chronologically.
As I came by Pete's pet peeve that media don't know how to use quotes, I realised that I also don't know.
The first pain point is that I simply don't know how to write the correct symbols on my keyboard. In search of a quick answer, I turned to our Large Language Model overlords. Unfortunately, both ChatGPT and Claude proved entirely unable to provide assistance. They were completely confident in their entirely wrong answers, however. I guess that's something.
For the two languages in which I write, Norwegian and English, there are six relevant symbols. I use a Macbook with a Norwegian bokmål (ISO 639-1 code nb) keyboard layout. The six symbols can be written as follows with this keyboard setup:
« = ⌥ (option) + shift + V
» = ⌥ (option) + shift + B
‘ = ⌥ (option) + n
’ = ⌥ (option) + m
“ = ⌥ (option) + shift + n
” = ⌥ (option) + shift + m
Not exactly easily accessible, hence my writing them down here for future reference. The intricate key combinations also explain why many simply default to the straight quotes ". On my keyboard, I write them by pressing shift + 2.
Next up is knowing when to use which symbols. That varies from language to language. And, as we'll see, from region to region within the same language.
In Norwegian, we use « and » for first level quotes, while second level quotes (a quote in a quote) is indicated by ‘ and ’.
In American English, they use “ and ” for first level quotes, and ‘ and ’ for second level quotes.
In British English, they use ‘ and ’ for first level quotes, while “ and ” denote a second level quote.
No wonder I'm confused and find myself turning to " and ' for simplicity. But, as Pete pointed out, that is just plain wrong. As I aim to be as correct as I can with details like these when writing, I need to get my act together.
These days, I don't publish much in the way of Norwegian text on this blog. Or elsewhere, for that matter. But if I do, I will make a point to use the correct symbols for quotes. I do more than a bit of writing in my day job, and — although some text editors will replace " with « and » when your language is set to Norwegian — knowing this will make me a better and more consistent writer at work. That's a good thing.
As far as this blog goes, I generally try to adhere to British English spelling and grammar. Which means I will aim to be consistent in using single quotes (‘ and ’) for first level quotes from here on and out. Send me an email and let me know when I inevitably mess that up.
Four horror films and a western. Sounds like a great night in. Mackenna’s Gold (1969) Who’s in it? Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas, Julie Newmar What’s it about? Marshal MacKenna (Peck) chances upon a map to a legendary treasure, and burns it after committing it to memory.
January was a busy month for Haiku, with their monthly report listing a metric ton of smaller fixes, changes, and improvements. Perusing the list, a few things stand out to me, most notably continued work on improving Haiku’s touchpad support.
Scott Shambaugh in An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me:
Summary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into accepting its changes into a mainstream python library. This represents a first-of-its-kind case study of misaligned AI behavior in the wild, and raises serious concerns about currently deployed AI agents executing blackmail threats.
It's not that it's surprising. Many people saw it coming from a mile away. I guess I just thought it would be less… trite.
If you get your kicks, any of your kicks, online, this is a watershed moment. We've ruined it. It was nice while it lasted, but the analogue world is once more where we belong. There's nothing left for us here, in the digital sphere.
Get outside. Feel the sun on your skin. Leave the phone at home. Joke around with a friend. Touch grass.
It's what we were meant to do.
We often lament Microsoft’s terrible stewardship of its Windows operating system, but that doesn’t mean that they never do anything right. In a blog post detailing changes and improvements coming to the Microsoft Store, the company announced something Windows users might actually like? A new command-line interface for the Microsoft Store brings app discovery, installation and update management directly to your terminal.
Since the beginning of 2023, big tech has spent over $814 billion in capital expenditures, with a large portion of that going towards meeting the demands of AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Big tech has spent big on GPUs, power infrastructure, and data center construction, using a
Five dietary patterns that involve eating lots of plants have been linked with living up to three years longer, even among people who are genetically predisposed to have a shorter life
Finding rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold, in preserved medical specimens and analysing their RNA genome could let us trace the evolution of human illness
Simulations suggest that two enormous masses of hot rock have been involved in generating Earth’s magnetic field and giving it an irregular shape
The team behind Tyr started 2025 with little to show in our quest to produce a Rust GPU driver for Arm Mali hardware, and by the end of the year, we were able to play SuperTuxKart (a 3D open-source racing game) at the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC).
Scientists may have stumbled across a network of vessels in the brain that helps clear out waste fluid – a discovery that could "represent a paradigm shift in our understanding of all neurodegenerative diseases"
Cabinet secretary appointment raises questions about whether the prime minister really has turned over a new leaf.
In the great clash between seriousness and the clown car, the clown car still seems to have all the momentum.
Immune cells in the brain that go rogue contribute to the death of neurons, so getting rid of them may slow the progression of neurodegenerative conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Eric Temple Bell was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on February 7, 1883, but when he was fifteen months old, his family moved to San Jose, California. After his father’s death in January 1896, the family moved back to the United Kingdom, settling in Bedford, England.
A growing body of psychological research shows that the best relationships – romantic or otherwise – come with a feeling of personal growth. Columnist David Robson explores the evidence-backed ways to broaden our horizons and connect more deeply with our loves, our friends and ourselves
Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God by Tim Waggoner (Titan Books, October 28, 2025). Cover artist unknown Titan Books is on a roll, publishing Conan novels in quick succession: S. M. Stirling’s Blood of the Serpent (2022), John C.
Life may have begun when RNA molecules began to replicate themselves, and now we’ve finally found an RNA molecule that is very close to being able to do this
The planets around a nearby star seem to be in the wrong order, hinting that they formed through a different mechanism than the familiar one by which most systems grow
The activity of certain neurons may influence our endurance for exercise, and these could be targeted to help us run faster for longer
The idea of self-amplifying gene editing is to get cells to pass on packages of CRISPR machinery to their neighbours, boosting the effect
A fleet of wind-propelled robot boats could act as a sensor network covering a wide area and relay acoustic signals to a submarine
Not more than a couple months ago, I implemented XSLT styling for the various feeds you can subscribe to on this website. There are a few to choose from. It's basically a roundabout way to make the feeds readable for humans who open them in their web browsers. A way to help them understand what a feed is, and how they can make use of it to subscribe to new content in their feed reader of choice.
Unfortunately, we can't have nice things.
Google recently announced that they are removing support for XSLT styling in Chrome later this year. Disappointingly, Apple and Mozilla, appear to be following suit. Niche or not, anything that makes it harder for creators and users to make use of open protocols is a significant step back for the open web.
I enjoyed Justin Jackson's post on the matter. XSLT.RIP is also worth a visit.
With the original release of Windows 8, Microsoft also enforced Secure Boot. It’s been 15 years since that release, and that means the original 2011 Secure Boot certificates are about to expire. If these certificates are not replaced with new ones, Secure Boot will cease to function – your machine will still boot and operate, but the benefits of Secure Boot are mostly gone, and as newer vulnerabilities are discovered, systems without updated Secure Boot certificates will be increasingly exposed.
I define Heroic Fantasy (HF) as a type of fiction in which a heroic (bigger than life) figure uses a combination of physical strength and edged weapons (swords, axes, spears) to face bigger than life foes.
What happens when you slopcode a bunch of bloat to your basic text editor? Well, you add a remote code execution vulnerability to notepad.exe. Improper neutralization of special elements used in a command (‘command injection’) in Windows Notepad App allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network.
Many researchers thought that earthquakes in the Himalayas recur at regular intervals – but an analysis of sediment cores has shown they are largely random, and the region has seen far more than we previously realised
The Chincha Kingdom was transporting seabird excrement from islands to valleys as early as the 13th century, and this powerful fertiliser may have been key to its economic success
If you’re a developer and use KDE, you’re going to be interested in a new feature KDE is working on for KDE Linux. In my last post, I laid out the vision for Kapsule—a container-based extensibility layer for KDE Linux built on top of Incus.
It's hard not to despair about the state of the world today, but here are five reasons to be a little bit hopeful, says Fred Pearce
We are told we need cynical strategies to "play" the dating game, but the science says this is totally wrong. David Robson enjoys an evidence-based takedown from psychologist Paul Eastwick
Feedback is always on the lookout for better ways to measure things, and was delighted to learn how the weight of ice is quantified in Austin, Texas
The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week
There are huge benefits to ringing the changes when it comes to exercise, finds committed runner Grace Wade when she analyses the science
In George Saunders's Vigil, a ghost visits Earth to help a dying oil tycoon, while terraforming efforts on Mars are about to bear fruit in The Rainseekers by Matthew Kressel. Emily H. Wilson's sci-fi column explores two very different short novels
We must find a balance between haste and getting mired in medical inertia
Trump has options to support democratic change in Iran. Why isn’t he using them?
Biologists have long thought that speaking to nature’s economic value would persuade boardrooms it was worth saving. It hasn’t worked – so what, if anything, will?
About 4600 years ago, the population of Britain was replaced by a people who brought Bell Beaker pottery with them. Now, ancient DNA has uncovered the murky story of where these people came from
Pulp Adventures #48 from Bold Venture Press, dated Summer/Fall 2025, came out toward the end of September. This time, we get classic pulp SF along with new fiction, plus reviews and info on some of the work.
A gene therapy that patients breathe in has been found to shrink lung tumours by inserting immune-boosting genes into surrounding cells
South Australia is proving to the world that relying largely on wind and solar energy with battery back-up is incredibly cheap, with electricity prices tumbling by 30 per cent in a year and sometimes going negative
Scientists have captured remarkable footage of the young of a mouse-sized marsupial, called a fat-tailed dunnart, making their way to their mother’s pouch soon after being born
Another month, another Redox progress report. January turned out to be a big month for the Rust-based general purpose operating system, as they’ve cargo and rustc working on Redox. Cargo and rustc are now working on Redox! Thanks to Anhad Singh and his southern-hemisphere Redox Summer of Code project, we are now able to compile your favorite Rust CLI and TUI programs on Redox.
I’m currently building an 80386-compatible core in SystemVerilog, driven by the original Intel microcode extracted from real 386 silicon. Real mode is now operational in simulation, with more than 10,000 single-instruction test cases passing successfully, and work on protected-mode features is in progress.
For me, vim is a combination of genuine improvements in vi’s core editing behavior (cf), frustrating (to me) bits of trying too hard to be smart (which I mostly disable when I run across them), and an extension mechanism I ignore but people use to make vim into a superintelligent editor with things like LSP integrations.
Building the human story based on a few artefacts is tricky – particularly for wooden tools that don’t preserve well, or cave art that we don’t have the technology to date. Columnist Michael Marshall explores how we determine what came first in the timeline of our species
Once considered an oddity of quantum physics, time crystals could be a good building block for accurate clocks and sensors, according to new calculations
Networks of molecules in our body behave as though they have goals and desires. Understanding this phenomenon could solve the origins of life and mind in one fell swoop
Electric vehicle batteries are typically retired once they reach about 80 per cent of their original capacity, but they could be repurposed in electricity grids to balance out slumps in renewable generation
The Sword and the Sorcerer (99 minutes; 1982) Written by Albert Pyun, Tom Karnowski and John V. Stuckmeyer. Directed by Albert Pyun What is it? Released less than a month before Arnold Schwarzenegger’s more stately and much better known Conan the Barbarian, The Sword and the Sorcerer is a somewhat over-the-top and low-budget Eighties Fantasy film – and not a particularly well-remembered one.
Setting a limit for global warming didn't succeed in galvanising climate action quickly enough – now we should focus on making the annual average temperature rise clear for all to see, says Bill McGuire
Understanding the realities of Mandelson's pre-appointment checks
The lines worn into an engraved limestone object from the Netherlands are consistent with the idea that it was a Roman game board, according to an AI analysis
Ripples in space-time from a pair of merging black holes have been recorded in unprecedented detail, enabling physicists to test predictions of general relativity
Scientists have pinpointed a group of bacteria that consistently appear in high numbers in healthy people, suggesting that these could one day be targeted through diet or probiotics
People classed as “overweight” according to BMI can be perfectly healthy. But there are better measures of fat, and physicians are finally using them
