sherr

https://archive.is/U2fWP

There's a good article on White and the book in the "Encyclopedia of Fantasy". It made me appreciate that this set of stories is more than just a book for children. I haven't actually read it but the entry for "White, T H" made me bump it up the list of books in my queue.

[1] https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/white_t_h

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48610055

Nothing has changed in that regard. Moscow still receives much more monetary attention than any other city in Russia.

Yes, that's what I ended up using. I was wanting to program something myself but it was too difficult. MusicBrainz Picard [1] is excellent.

[1] https://picard.musicbrainz.org/

My hell was trying too make sense or and organise audio/music ID3 tags. What a nightmare that is. EXIF seems much nicer to me.

It's a shame that the title doesn't say what the s/w is : keyd.

I actually use keyd on my laptops because it seems to do everything I need and is easy to get going without any fuss. So thank you Raheman Vaiya.

Thanks. I'm sure Sprang loved having Hockney as a user! I must say that I am less fond of the digital art he made and much prefer the traditional, physical, paint on canvas.

I wrote this on another submission here about his death :

Inevitable of course. He was getting on in years and starting to show his age. He's an artist I started to really appreciate about 10/15 years ago when visiting the one of his big Royal Academy shows in London. The works were very large, very colourful and monumental. But as well as the huge colourful paintings, his smaller, fine and fragile line drawings of the landscape were also inspiring. I think he got better as he aged and the past 20 years have been his best and most productive. Lovely guy as well. I'll miss him.

In addition to the above, he wasn't a grumpy technophobe. This was most apparent with his iPad usage but he was also someone who explored the way artists used technology in the past e.g. the Camera Lucida, an optical process of reflecting an image from in front of you onto a piece of paper. You trace it out. He wrote about this in a book called "Secret Knowledge" in 2001 [1]. He was always interesting in conversation.

[1] https://www.thamesandhudson.com/products/secret-knowledge

Inevitable of course. He was getting on in years and starting to show his age. He's an artist I started to really appreciate about 10/15 years ago when visiting the one of his big Royal Academy shows in London. The works were very large, very colourful and monumental. But as well as the huge colourful paintings, his smaller, fine and fragile line drawings of the landscape were also inspiring. I think he got better as he aged and the past 20 years have been his best and most productive. Lovely guy as well. I'll miss him.

Yes, magpies are very intelligent birds. Also very annoying! I don't like hearing their "cackling", especially if you're in bed trying to sleep. Magpies at mine also figured out how to feed from the wire-cylinder hanging feeder, meant for small birds. They flap their wings like crazy to hover for a few moments at the feeder and knock out the food or get to it. Clever birds. The pigeons just stand around below and scavenge ...

Mine's been mostly fine. Second hand Pixel 10 (previous 2nd hand 8a) and I am extremely happy with an excellent phone. No problems like you've had.

Thanks for writing this. Perhaps a part of your therapy at the end. Also, a way to understand and recover. I hope all goes well for you!

Yes, I agree. It was magic to me really. I still love Perl.

Respect for programming this. I did some date/time calculations a few years ago using Perl and it was full of corner cases and trouble. Did I enjoy it? I enjoyed seeing it work. Hopefully with the right answers! This tool looks great.

That's great news. Fwupdmgr has made a huge positive difference to me over the past few years. A BIOS update used to be painful, perhaps even impossible, but not now. Thanks to all who worked hard on this, particularly Richard Hughes, who set it all going. My Debian Thinkpads also thank you.

Whatever the reason for "hiding" Mythos, it seems clear that these systems are getting very good at finding software security exploits. Mythos has made more people, even the US government, sit up and pay more attention. Regarding who should control the release of powerful systems like this, as Bruce Schneier and David Lie write in "Mythos and Cybersecurity" :

"Until that changes, each Mythos-class release will put the world at the edge of another precipice, without any visibility into whether there is a landing out of view just below, or whether this time the drop will be fatal. That is not a choice a for-profit corporation should be allowed to make in a democratic society. Nor should such a company be able to restrict the ability of society to make choices about its own security."

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/04/mythos-and-cy...

It is reasonable to be concerned.

Desktop and server vulnerabilities are one thing. At least many are actively maintained and will get patched. I have a concern about all the common and cheap internet firewalls and routers that are around, running old software and kernels. Many or most will not get patched. I have some Ubiquiti boxes that are long out of support and run old kernels for instance. The hope is only that there's nothing they expose that gets hit.

"Theft-resistant"

I have two Bromptons (a 3 and a 6 speed). Unfortunately, I've also had TWO stolen .. painful. This was years ago now and both were locked up in central London. The second time, locked via a "Kryptonite New York Fahgettaboudit", a good U-lock. An angle-grinder gets through these easily and they're battery powered. I don't believe ANY bike lock is safe now and never lock the Brompton up outside. Great bikes!

I've just donated. I use Thunderbird every day and have used it for years now. Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird are very important to me and my internet usage. For all the complaints (many just unwarranted in my opinion) I'm a happy user.

From : https://docs.titanos.tv/introduction

"Titan OS is the European, independent Linux-based smart TV operating system from Titan OS S.L, the technology, entertainment, and advertising company based in Barcelona."

Also :

"Titan OS operates on a Chromium browser, offering support for standard audio and video codecs, streaming protocols, and DRM options"

I don't watch TV, but have a non-smart Samsung hooked up to a laptop running Linux. I wonder how locked down or hackable this OS would be? Would an EU based system be better for privacy? I'd love to have a better option for when I update the "TV" I have in my living room.

Going to the link and just hitting the spacebar worked for me. Next slide, and so on. Firefox/Linux.

This appears to be a "pre-beta" site, so this will be why it is not polished yet. From the documentation page :

"note: These installation instructions will be changing, with the Beta release of Kalpa"

A bit rough around the edges - so probably unfair to publicise too prominently yet.

According to the Economist recently [1], Israel recently caught a couple of men who bet on the timing of the Iran attacks last year :

"Last summer one “ricosuave666” won more than $150,000 on Polymarket, a betting platform. Their true identity was not clear, but the source of the winnings was: ricosuave666 had bet, with suspicious accuracy, on the precise timing of Israel’s attacks on Iran."

So, these people can be found. Overall however, the magazine does not think that these markets should have a blanket ban.

[1] https://archive.is/W8Ga8 (Prediction markets are rife with insider betting)

There are alternatives to sudo other than the new Rust version here.

"doas" [1] comes from OpenBSD and is a smaller (LOC) tool, easier to audit and keep secure (supposedly). Also available for Linux.

Also "run0" [2], another alternative that comes from the Linux/Systemd camp, using "polkit" and is similar to "systemd-run".

[1] https://man.openbsd.org/doas.1

[2] https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/257/run0.ht...

Latham worked at the IBM UK Scientific Centre in Winchester, the computer artist working with the software engineers to create an "organic" type of art. This was not realtime or interactive, at least not at the start and for a few years, but might have got there eventually. IBM had just started producing their Unix workstation (the RS6000) that could have some 3D capability. They were overshadowed by the SGI's they also brought in at the time. I worked there very briefly in the 80's (Occam/transputers).

I think the possible age restriction on VPN use will be problematic in many ways. The direction of travel here is a worry even though I agree that children need some protections from social media use. The site ISP Preview [0] has an article about this as well :

'The UK Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, has today proposed last minute amendments to two Bills that will enable the Government to set a minimum age limit for social media (i.e. greater use of Age Verification), as well as options to age restrict or limit children’s use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN), where it “undermines safety protections and changing the age of digital consent".'

[0] https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/02/government-set...

On my Pixel 8a, a swipe right on the home screen shows the "google app", I don't like that so I disabled it (home settings).

I have visions of the book scanner in Vernor Vinge's SF novel "Rainbows End" (a book I love). A machine rips the books up into small pieces, photographs are taken and "AI" software then reads and assembles the pictures to digital files. Vinge didn't write an instruction manual for this process.

The History Blog has more :

https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/75071

I look forward to the "musicologists" getting to grips with this carnyx and figuring out improvements to the reproductions they make.