Microsoft announces ESU program for Windows Server 2016, 10 Enterprise LTSB, and 10 IoT Enterprise 2016 LTSB
The regular, consumer version of Windows 10 isn’t the only Windows release reaching or having reached end-of-life, now middling on under the Extended Security Updates program for the many people sticking with the venerable release.
Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU90 released
Despite continuous rumors to the contrary, Oracle is still actively developing Solaris, and it’s been more active than ever lately. Yesterday, the company pushed out another release for customers with the proper support contracts: Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU90.
Blue-light filters are pure quackery
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.
George is a Mad King

George R.R. Martin in The Mad King Is Coming:

You’ve been hearing about the great tourney at Harrenhal since A GAME OF THRONES came out in 1996. Now, at long last, we’re going to show it to you… live, on stage, at Stratford-upon-Avon, brought to you by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Never not surprised at the stuff George Martin will do to avoid doing the thing. As quality knows quality (or, so I've heard), procrastination knows procrastination, though, so I'm kinda not really surprised, actually. You know.

I've come to terms with the fact that A Song of Ice and Fire ended with the fifth novel, just as The Kingkiller Chronicle ended with the fifth and Gentlemen Bastard with the third. It's fine. We should just be happy that we got to read these stories at all!

And, in the case of Martin, I'm glad he continues pouring his energy into giving us more great stuff to enjoy. Been watching A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and I think it's absolutely brilliant.

Premium: The Hater's Guide to Anthropic

In May 2021, Dario Amodei and a crew of other former OpenAI researchers formed Anthropic and dedicated themselves to building the single-most-annoying Large Language Model company of all time. 

Pardon me, sorry, I mean safest, because that’s the reason that Amodei and his crew claimed was why

Cleared my albums to purchase list

Been keeping a list of albums I want to add to my music collection. Spent a small fortune (to me) today and splurged on all ten albums that were on the list! Downloading from Qobuz isn't the quickest, so I'm currently waiting for them all to finish downloading like it's 2002.

What a time to be alive!

Think I'll do a small note for each of these albums in the coming weeks. As good a thing to write about as anything else.

Windows 11 26H1 will be Snapdragon-specific
As if keeping track of whatever counts as a release schedule for Windows wasn’t complicated enough – don’t lie, you don’t know when that feature they announced is actually being released either – Microsoft is making everything even more complicated.
Undo in Vi and its successors
So vi only has one level of undo, which is simply no longer fit for the times we live in now, and also wholly unnecessary given even the least powerful devices that might need to run vi probably have more than enough resources to give at least a few more levels of undo.
F9: an L4-style microkernel for ARM Cortex-M
F9 is an L4-inspired microkernel designed for ARM Cortex-M, targeting real-time embedded systems with hard determinism requirements. It implements the fundamental microkernel principles—address spaces, threads, and IPC, while adding advanced features from industrial RTOSes.
Windows 11’s new MIDI framework delivers MIDI 2.0
It’s been well over a year since Microsoft unveiled it was working on bringing MIDI 2.0 to Windows, and now it’s actually here available for everyone. We’ve been working on MIDI over the past several years, completely rewriting decades of MIDI 1.0 code on Windows to both support MIDI 2.0 and make MIDI 1.0 amazing.
KDE Plasma 6.6 released
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: an open-source DOS distribution
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.
Proper Linux on your wrist: AsteroidOS 2.0 released
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.
A deep dive into Apple’s .car file format
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.
dBASE on the Kaypro II
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.
Your email is never late

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.

Why do I not use “AI” at OSNews?
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.
Microsoft’s original Windows NT OS/2 design documents
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.
Exploring Linux on a LoongArch mini PC
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.
A brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks
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.
How to use quote marks

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 .1

In American English, they use and for first level quotes, and and for second level quotes.2

In British English, they use and for first level quotes, while and denote a second level quote.3

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.


  1. In practice, there appears to be many variations in various style guides around the country. But typographer and librarian Torbjørn Eng recommends this practice. Based on his arguments, I am inclined to agree that this is the sensible approach. 

  2. Or, at the very least, that is the correct way to do it according to the Chicago Manual of Style

  3. As recommended by the Oxford Style Guide

linux-based (x86-64 and arm64) testing needed for borg mount, please help:

github.com/borgbackup/borg/iss

Haiku further improves its touchpad support
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.
Touching grass never felt better

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.

Microsoft Store gets another CLI tool
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.
Premium: The AI Data Center Financial Crisis

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

The future for Tyr
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).
Farewell, XSLT

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.

The original Secure Boot certificates are about to expire, but you probably won’t notice
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.
Microsoft adds and fixes remote code execution vulnerability in Notepad
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.
Kapsule adds easy developer environment containers to KDE Linux
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.
Redox gets working rustc and Cargo
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.
80386 barrel shifter
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.
“The original vi is a product of its time (and its time has passed)”
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.
The official unplanned emergency OSNews fundraiser!
It’s time for an OSNews fundrasier! This time, it’s unplanned due to a financial emergency after our car unexpectedly had to be scrapped (you can find more details below). If you want to support one of the few independent technology news websites left, this is your chance.
The Dillo appreciation post
About a year ago I mentioned that I had rediscovered the Dillo Web Browser. Unlike some of my other hobbies, endeavours, and interests, my appreciation for Dillo has not wavered. I only have a moment to gush today, so I’ll cut right to it.
KDE Linux improves by leaps and bounds
KDE’s Nate Graham has published a status update about KDE Linux, the KDE project’s new immutable Linux distribution, intended to be the “KDE OS” showcasing the best of the KDE community.
The Scriptovision Super Micro Script video titler is almost a home computer
Cameron Kaiser comes in with another amazing article, this time diving into a unique video titler from Canada, released in 1985. The Super Micro Script was one of several such machines this company made over its lifetime, a stylish self-contained box capable of emitting a 32×16 small or 10×4 large character layer with 64×32 block graphics in eight colours.
How to set up an IRC server

Adam in Setting up an IRC server / a Neatnik Guide:

You don’t need Discord for plain text chat. IRC gets the job done just fine, costs less than a “server boost” to run, and puts you firmly in the driver’s seat (especially where privacy is concerned). And you also get to run a real server, not whatever it is that Discord considers a “server”, which is definitely not a server.

Great guide from Adam on how to set up an IRC server. I love IRC. I think I might set up a general chat server at some point, share the details here and see if someone pops up.

More people should.

Why E cores make Apple silicon fast
If you use an Apple silicon Mac I’m sure you have been impressed by its performance. Whether you’re working with images, audio, video or building software, we’ve enjoyed a new turn of speed since the M1 on day 1.
Adventures in Guix packaging
We talked about Nemin’s first impressions of the Guix System as someone coming from a Nix environment, but today they’ve got a follow-up article diving into the experience of creating new packages for Guix.
forecourt networking

The way I see it, few parts of American life are as quintessentially American as buying gas. We love our cars, we love our oil, and an industry about as old as automobiles themselves has developed a highly consistent, fully automated, and fairly user friendly system for filling the former with the latter.

I grew up in Oregon.

The chaos in the US is affecting open source software and its developers
It was only a matter of time before the illegal, erratic, inhumane, and cruel behaviours and policies of the second Trump regime were going to affect the open source world in a possibly very visible way.
Commission trials European open source communications software: Matrix
“As part of our efforts to use more sovereign digital solutions, the European Commission is preparing an internal communication solution based on the Matrix protocol,” the spokesperson told Euractiv. Matrix is an open source, community-developed messaging protocol shepherded by a non-profit that’s headquartered in London.
“I now assume that all ads on Apple News are scams”
What does it look like when a hardware and software company descends into an obsession with recurring services revenue to please its shareholders? Look no further than Apple, who has turned its Apple News service into a vehicle for scam ads.
Premium: The Hater's Guide To Microsoft

Have you ever looked at something too long and felt like you were sort of seeing through it? Has anybody actually looked at a company this much in a way that wasn’t some sort of obsequious profile of a person who worked there? I don’t mean

Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech’s “top priority”
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.
Microsoft has killed widgets six times
Gadgets, desk accessories, widgets – whatever you they were called, they were a must-have feature for various operating systems for a while. Windows in particular has tried making them happen six times, and every time, they failed to really catch on and ended up being killed, only for the company to try again a few years later.
Linux on Apple silicon

It's been hectic lately. Once things settle down a bit, I think I'm ready.

Going to give Asahi Linux a go.

It's disappointing every time

Today I came across a post in my feed reader. From a blog that I've enjoyed reading for a long time. It's been raw, personal and distinctly human.

Imagine my surprise then, this afternoon when I opened the new post only to be greeted by the classic "Here's why XYZ makes sense" followed by a generic boilerplate list of bullet point that doesn't really say anything at all.

When a real human being I've connected to on some level resorts to using AI to generate posts for their website, I feel conned. A dupe that's fallen for a classic bait and switch. And, look, I get why some people might want to use AI to assist in creating content. But when I follow a personal blog, I want to read things actually written by that person. I want a glimpse into the mind and existence of another human being. My quota of AI generated marketing slop gets filled elsewhere.

After I wrote What we make, I came across a new post on Brandon Sanderson's blog.1 It's a transcript (it would be a great plot twist if the transcript was AI generated) from a talk Sanderson gave called "The Hidden Cost of AI Art". He tackles the subject far better than I ever could, and the talk is worth watching or reading.

I've only read the transcript.

The following part captures the essence of why using AI for creating quote-unquote art is entirely pointless (emphasis mine):

…the books aren’t the product. They aren’t the art--not completely. And this is the point. The most important thing to understand is that the process of creating art makes art of you.

My friends, let me repeat that. The book, the painting, the film script is not the only art. It’s important, but in a way it’s a receipt. It’s a diploma. The book you write, the painting you create, the music you compose is important and artistic, but it’s also a mark of proof that you have done the work to learn.

Because in the end of it all, you are the art.

The most important change made by an artistic endeavor is the change it makes in you. The most important emotions are the ones you feel when writing that story and holding the completed work. I don’t care if the AI can create something that is better than what we can create, because it cannot be changed by that creation.

Many thanks to Brandon for penning these words. Now I have something to refer to when I want to express my view on why AI created blog posts are pointless.

Around the same time, Alberto Galaco published the post What happens when everything is perfect? pontificating some of the same issues. Alberto writes:

That friction between wanting to make something and actually making it used to matter. It was part of learning. Part of ownership. You struggled, failed, tried again, and through that process the idea became yours. When creation becomes instant and disposable, what remains of that bond? What does it even mean to make something anymore?

You should read the full post. I agree with every point Alberto's making. It is clear that this is something that occupies the mind of many smart and competent people, myself notwithstanding. Whatever the eventual outcome of this struggle between man and machine, I hope to see more human written posts in my feed reader in the future.


  1. I have a dedicated category in my feed reader for authors I've read that have a personal website/blog with an RSS feed. Not nearly enough of them do, meaning it's hard for me to keep up with their work. Sad! 

Microsoft Research releases LiteBox, a new library operating system
Microsoft Research, in collaboration with various others, has just released LiteBox, a library operating system. LiteBox is a sandboxing library OS that drastically cuts down the interface to the host, thereby reducing attack surface.
Zig replaces third-party C code with Zig’s own code
Over the past month or so, several enterprising contributors have taken an interest in the zig libc subproject. The idea here is to incrementally delete redundant code, by providing libc functions as Zig standard library wrappers rather than as vendored C source files.
Rust in the NetBSD kernel seems unlikely
Rust is everywhere, and it’s no surprise it’s also made its way into the lowest levels of certain operating systems and kernels, so it shouldn’t be surprising that various operating system developers have to field questions and inquiries about Rust.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Amiga UNIX
We recently talked about Apple’s pre-Mac OS X dabblings in UNIX, but Apple wasn’t the only computer and operating system company exploring UNIX alternatives. Microsoft had the rather successful Xenix, Atari had ASV, Sony had NEWS, to name just a very small few.
Firefox nightly gets “AI” kill switch
After a seemingly endless stream of tone deaf news from Mozilla, we’ve finally got some good news for Firefox users. As the company’s been hinting at for a while on social media now, they’ve added an “AI” kill switch to the latest Firefox nightly release, as well as a set of toggles to disable specific “AI” features.
Audio on hp300
In the late 1980s, with the expansion of the Internet (even though it was not open to commercial activities yet) and the slowly increasing capabilities of workstations, some people started to imagine the unthinkable: that, some day, you may use your computer to record voice messages, send them over the Internet, and the recipient could listen to these messages on his own computer.
OpenVMS 9.2-3 x64 now has local console on OPA0
I previously covered x64 OpenVMS release on VMware. This was insanely cool achievement for the operating system. While it had no practical ramification there was one small annoyance. The OS console was on a serial port.
Guix System first impressions as a Nix user
But NixOS isn’t the only declarative distro out there. In fact GNU forked Nix fairly early and made their own spin called Guix, whose big innovation is that, instead of using the unwieldy Nix-language, it uses Scheme.
Text scaling

Josh Tumath in Try text scaling support in Chrome Canary:

Tip 1: Don't override the initial font size

The default font size comes from the initial value of the CSS font-size property. If an author doesn't specify a size, the initial font-size is medium. But what is medium? Typically it's 16px. But on desktop browsers, users can change it to whatever they want.

Came across this about text scaling, which is definitely a much needed feature, via Luke Harris. Josh's post is clear with good advice on how to support text scaling on your website. I have a ways to go, and need to dive into my CSS to fix it.

Ironically, I've only overridden the initial font size on my site here because I find initial font size to be too small!

Microsoft gestures vaguely in the general direction of fleeting promises to improve Windows 11
It’s no secret that Windows 11 isn’t exactly well-liked by even most of its users, and I’m fairly sure that perception has permeated into the general public as well. It seems Microsoft is finally getting the message, and they’re clearly spooked: the company has told The Verge that they have heard the complaints, and intend to start fixing many of the issues people are having.
Premium: The Hater's Guide to Oracle

You can’t avoid Oracle.

No, really, you can’t. Oracle is everywhere. It sells ERP software – enterprise resource planning, which is a rat king of different services for giant companies for financial services, procurement (IE: sourcing and organizing the goods your company needs to run), compliance,

Ariel OS: a library operating system for IoT devices written in Rust
Operating systems written in Rust – especially for embedded use – are quite common these days, and today’s example fits right into that trend. Ariel OS is an operating system for secure, memory-safe, low-power Internet of Things (IoT).
The Cosmere is coming to an Apple TV near you

Borys Kit for the Hollywood Reporter in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, Stormlight Archive to Get Movie, TV Show:

Could the next great fantasy screen franchise be here? Apple TV believes so. The streaming giant has closed what has been described as an unprecedented deal to land the rights to the Cosmere books, the fictional literary universe by fantasy author Brandon Sanderson.

Cannot wait!

What we make

Every year I make a family highlights movie. Throughout the calendar year, I try to whip out my camera or, if it is all I have at hand, my phone, to capture a glimpse of something that might be worthy of including.

None of it is anything special. And that is kind of the point. I can't dictate the memories my children retain from the childhood. But, my goal with these videos is to shape them. To reinforce the happy moments we shared as a family. Remind them of how their grandparents — even though they might not see them too often in their day to day lives — were there for every special occasion. Show them that they were happy and active and healthy and loved.

Not rarely I need that reminder myself. In the hubbub of daily life it easy to feel doubt that you're doing enough. Going through a plethora of recorded evidence to the contrary reminds me otherwise.

Making these annual movies is quite an endeavour. Capturing the source material is one thing. Sorting it, deciding what to keep and what to discard as I try to weave a story of the year that passed, is no small task. I am no videographer, no movie director, much as I think myself Wes Anderson's slightly less talented, albeit unappreciated cousin as I'm battling iMovie for the seventh year in a row, trying to remember the key combination for cutting a clip before eventually giving in and looking up the answer. When I'm finally done, I feel relieved.

In this day and age, there are tools out there that could do the job for me. I could just dump the raw footage in a chat and something akin to my yearly movie would pop out after a short while. In all likelihood, the movie it produced would be objectively better than anything I can finagle out of iMovie. Smoother, more polished, with a tailor made soundtrack and so on. Far more impressive.

Sometimes I'm tempted to give it a go. Then I take a step back and ask myself "what would be the point?" and I go back to wrestling with iMovie.

Because I know that the end product, the movie itself, is not the point. Making it is. The magic is in hand-picking the moments that make up our family's highlight reel of the year that came and went. My idiosyncratic use of transitions. The way I abuse iMovie's various title effects to superimpose dry-wit commentary atop most clips. An eclectic soundtrack from my own music library to give my kids little hints of who their father was and what he enjoyed listening to.

All these little things inject a little bit of my humanity into the end product. And that is the point. Not just of these movies, but of anything that you and I and everyone else make. To inject as much humanity as possible into the things we make.

Don't fall for the temptation of using technology to produce something polished, soulless and void of humanity when all that matters is to imprint as much humanity as possible.

Mac OS and Windows NT-capable ROMs discovered for Apple’s unique AIX Network Server
As most of you will know, Mac OS X (or Rhapsody if you count the developer releases) wasn’t Apple’s first foray into the world of UNIX. The company sold its own UNIX variant, A/UX, from 1988 to 1995, which combined a System V-based UNIX with a System 7.0.1 desktop environment and application compatibility, before it acquired NeXT and started working on Rhapsody/Mac OS X.
Xfce announces xfwl4, its new Wayland compositor
While the two major open source desktop environments get most of the airtime – and for good reason, since they’re both exceptionally good – there’s a long tail of other desktop environments out there catering to all kinds of special workflows and weird niches.
The cults of TDD and GenAI

I’ve gotten a lot of flack throughout my career over my disdain towards test-driven development (TDD). I have met a lot of people who swear by it! And, I have also met a lot of people who insisted that I adopt it, too, often with the implied threat of appealing to my boss if appealing to me didn’t work.

The basic premise of TDD, for those unaware, is that one first writes a unit test that verifies the expected behavior for some function they want to write, observes the new test fail, and then one writes the implementation, iterating on it until the test passes.

What is going on with Windows 11?
Since I have no qualms about kicking a proprietary software product while it’s down, let’s now switch to NTDEV‘s thoughts on the state of Windows 11. Unfortunately, the issue that plagued Windows since the dawn of time has only aggravated recently.
I don’t want using my computer to be like a game of Russian roulette
I’ve been terribly sick for a few days so we’ve got some catching up to. Let’s first take a look at how Windows is doing. People often say Linux is “too much work.” And I agree.
Hidde builds his own digital music collection

Hidde de Vries in I'm back to building my own digital music collection:

Over the past months, I realised it was about time I moved away from music streaming, to keeping a personal music collection that I control.

Great post from Hidde on why he's now back to building his own digital music library. His reasoning is very much in line with why I embarked on the same journey last year.

Related post: Building a digital music library in 2025.

My home server? My laptop

A couple of years back, I began experimenting with self-hosting. I dug out an old laptop and set it up as an always on home server. It did many jobs. Stuff like acting as a file server with access to external storage and backups, automating tasks with scripts, music server, running a torrent client for my legally acquired content and more.

It worked fine. But, the added complexity of another machine bugged me slightly. Most of the tasks could be solved on my daily driver laptop. There was also the fact that it didn't run the latest software from Apple. This caused a lot of friction. I couldn't run Homebrew. It caused a lot of issues when trying to install or update packages. Most current programs would not run on my ancient version of MacOS.

These issues made me want to shut down this "server" and simplify my setup. To do so, I had to solve two problems:

I've solved both problems and decommissioned my old home server. The light bulb moment? Realising that my "home server" doesn't need to be a separate machine. My regular, daily driver laptop can do the job! A server is, after all, just a computer that's always on. My regular laptop can do that, too.

Let's dive into each of the specific problems mentioned above.

Storage space

As mentioned, my laptop doesn't have enough space for all my data. Using cloud storage and an external drive for local backups, I've been able to work around this limitation.

The past year I've been using a remote installation of Nextcloud for cloud storage, and much more. With the aim of simplifying my setup, I wanted a solution that required less maintenance. After considering multiple solutions, I landed on going back to Apple's iCloud.

Both my laptop and phone are Apple devices. iCloud services are neatly integrated. And, having migrated away from iCloud recently, I feel like I have a solid grasp of what my setup should look like to minimise dependency and vendor lock-in.1 After shopping around, I also realise that the 2TB storage tier is actually reasonably priced. Lastly, it let me go back to using iCloud Photos to browse my photos and videos. It works well and I like it.

I don't want to rely solely on a third party and "the cloud" to preserve all of my data. Especially precious photos and videos. To solve this, I've landed on the following routine:

At the beginning of each month, I export all of my photos and videos from the previous month from Photos to my external drive.2 I then export every other file and document stored on my cloud drive to the drive.

Is it bullet proof? No. I'm susceptible to losing as much as a month's worth of data with this approach. In contrast to a total wipe out, something I can live with.3

Remote access

Above I mentioned two specific cases of remote access that I had come to rely on:

  1. Music collection.
  2. Updating my website.

By setting up my laptop as a de facto server, I've solved both.

Accessing my music collection on the go

I iterated through several approaches for making my music collection available remotely. I first tried Doppler and their sync to iOS feature. While I think Doppler is hands down the best app for playing music on both Mac and iPhone,4 I found the sync cumbersome.

Next, I thought of using iCloud Drive as a "music server". Surely some app could watch a folder in my iCloud Drive and automatically add new files to my music library? Well, you'd think so. But no. I couldn't find any decent app(s) that solved this to my expectations. Plus, my phone doesn't really have enough storage to save my full music library locally. Which really only left me with one option: Setting a full-fledged music server.

This was the solution I had been using for the last few months, running Nextcloud Music on my Nextcloud instance. I resigned myself to the fact that I needed a remote virtual server to solve this. As I'd been wanting to test out Pikapods, I decided to try out Airsonic Advanced. It was too advanced (I have no right to be surprised) and I couldn't get it set up exactly to my liking. Instead, I switched to Navidrome and I found it an absolute delight. I couldn't believe how fast and lightweight it was!

It worked well and, as a bonus, I could continue using Amperfy which I had become comfortable with these last few months. One thing was still bothering me: Streaming and caching my music collection from a remote server, when it was already stored in full on my Mac, was incredibly wasteful. Realising I was (again) on the lookout for a music player to play music on my Mac left me feeling like I was back to square one. Eventually, though, the penny finally dropped:

"Navidrome is so lightweight, I could probably run it on my laptop without any issues!"

Using Homebrew, setting up Navidrome on my laptop was a five minute job. Configuring my laptop to automatically launch Navidrome on startup took me another five minutes. Now we're (rocking and) rolling! The native Navidrome web interface is perfect for playing music on my laptop. And all I had to do to access my music collection from Amperfy on my phone was change the server URL and authentication details.

I didn't really mind only being able to access my full library while on my home network. Amperfy has great caching and downloading the albums I want is no hassle. The only inconvenience was keeping my laptop open and awake to access my music.

Luckily, the other penny dropped at this point. This is a solved problem! I already set up a Macbook as a "home server" and there's no reason I can't do it with this particular Macbook. So, I ran the terminal command5 and I was off to the races. Despite decommissioning my home server, I once more had a "server" running at home. Just one that doubles as my daily driver laptop.

Remotely updating my website

With my laptop running as a server, this problem was solved as well. It was simply a matter of updating my old workflows to rely on iCloud Drive instead of my old Nextcloud instance.

Because I'm not the smartest guy around, my site generator is quite simple: A script monitors a "content" directory. When a new file appears, the site generator runs to process this file and upload all the new and modified files to the server that hosts my website. This lets me update my website from anywhere without having to worry about remote access to my home server. All I have to do is save a text file to the content directory. Whichever cloud service I'm using then does the sync magic, and my home server a.k.a. my laptop, updates my website.

Even images exist only as a file in my content directory. If I reference them in a text document, the site generator picks them up and uploads the file(s).

And that's it. I can now create posts and notes from my phone while I'm on the go. I don't know that I ever will, but at least I can rest comfortably knowing that I can. And that's the most important thing.

TL;DR

I tweaked a setting on my laptop to make sure it doesn't go to sleep when power is connected. I connect to it with my phone to listen to my music and update my website when I'm on the go.

Postscript

You didn't think I'd actually settle on not being able to access my full music collection while on the go, did you? About five minutes after thinking I could live with that, I remembered Tailscale. With my "server" running a current version of MacOS, I could actually install it and rely on it for proper remote access.


  1. That topic probably deserves its own post. The short version is: Make sure that you control your own data, and that it is stored in open file formats. Picking up your files and going elsewhere is always easier than trying to export data from a proprietary storage solution. 

  2. Photos and videos is a great example of where you should make sure that you have your data stored as actual files on a disk. 

  3. I always imagine that somehow a "delete all" command will hit my cloud data. Because of syncing, it also wipes out my local copies. That's why I want complete separation for my backups. In that sense, a disconnected external drive makes perfect sense. 

  4. Doppler's refund policy also deserves a shoutout. I bought the Mac version and tried it for a couple of days. When I found it wasn't for me, I sent them an email and requested a refund. My money was promptly refunded, no questions asked. This experience made me want to purchase more software from Brushed Type. 

  5. sudo pmset -b sleep 0; sudo pmset -b disablesleep 1 disables sleep on a Macbook while connected to power, even when you close the lid. 

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Say one thing for Robin Hobb, say she knows how to write a trilogy.

The Tawny Man trilogy is the third three-book collection set in the "Realm of the Elderlings". After Liveship Traders took us south to the Satrap's lands of Bingtown, the Rain Wilds and Jamaillia, Tawny Man takes us back North to the Six Duchies. It was here the story kicked off with the Farseer Trilogy.

Tawny Man is a reunion. It centres around the same main cast of characters as the original trilogy, but not without adding new ones to the mix.

As with both previous trilogies, I found myself unconvinced at the outset. Hobb takes her time to set the scene. But, also as with both previous trilogies, this one grew. And grew. By the middle of the second book, I had a good idea of where the story was going. I was hooked. I didn't get many pages (or locs, to be more precise) into Fool's Fate before I was struggling to put the book down.

This is not unusual with Robin Hobb. All of the three trilogies I've read so far all have the feel of one big book split into three, rather than three distinct stories. The middle books in particular don't even pretend to be stand-alone stories. Instead, they build on the foundation of the first book and creates momentum in the story towards the eventual climax in the final third.

I think it's great.

Although Tawny Man doesn't reach the heights of Liveship Traders, it was a very enjoyable read. In terms of where it falls short, I think there's something about the first person storytelling that is limiting. You don't really get enough perspectives to make all the characters (bar one) feel as real and fully fleshed out. That said, I enjoyed getting closer to what is the most interesting character of all of them throughout these stories.

All in all, this felt like a worthy send off for both Fitz and the Fool. But I still wonder if we aren't going to get to hear more about the former's maternal origin. There's a story yet to be told there, I think, and there are some hints that we will learn more about "Keppet" in time.

I'll close with some of my highlighted quotes and passages from the books:

It could not compare to that moment of completion when minds joined and one sensed the wholeness of the world as a great entity in which one's own body was no more than a mote of dust.

Fool's Errand

Hobb has a way with framing that sense of belonging to something greater than just yourself that one can sometimes experience.

Sometimes I think there is more rest in that place between wakefulness and sleep than there is in true sleep. The mind walks in the twilight of both states, and finds the truths that are hidden alike by daylight and dreams. Things we are not ready to know abide in that place, awaiting that unguarded frame of mind.

Fool's Errand

It is a magical place.

It was a boy's thing to do, this immediate offering to share a prized possession, and my heart answered it, knowing that no matter how long or how far apart we had been, nothing important had changed between us.

Fool's Errand

That's true friendship.

His air of petulant command mimed perfectly that of a foppish dandy of the noble class.

Fool's Errand

I just loved that sentence. Poetic.

… (I) knew that, as it always would, the past had broken free of my effort to define and understand it. History is no more fixed and dead than the future. The past is no further away than the last breath you took.

The Golden Fool

The more history I read, the more I come to agree with this world view.

How many words have I set down on paper or vellum, thinking to trap the truth thereby? And of those words, how many have I myself consigned to the flames as worthless and wrong? I do as I have done so many times. I write, I sand the wet ink, I consider my own words. Then I burn them. Perhaps when I do so, the truth goes up the chimney as smoke. Is it destroyed, or set free in the world?

Fool's Fate

More on the futility of capturing the moment, of defining it, and the truth. Doesn't mean we should stop trying. Just that we can never fully succeed.

Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world.

Fool's Fate

It is. And it can.

Give him to me, she said with a woman's weariness at a man's incompetence.

Fool's Fate

Close to home!

No man, in the fullness of his years, should have to experience afresh all the passion that a youngster is capable of embracing. Our hearts grow brittle as we age.

Fool's Fate

I've been pondering this. Is it true? Is it self defence that our emotions dwindle as we age?

Home is people. Not a place. If you back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.

Fool's Fate

Home is people.

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My cousin used to call my grandmother "The General". When I watch this movie I'll undoubtedly imagine that character a representation of my grandmother.

Can't wait!

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Kev Quirk in Use the Bloody Shift Key!:

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Soundtrack - Radiohead - Karma Police


I just spent a week at the Consumer Electronics Show, and one word kept coming up: bullshit. 

LG, a company known for making home appliances and televisions, demonstrated a robot (named “CLOiD” for some reason) that could “fold laundry”

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