Posts by TVU

"Apple’s MacBook Neo turns out to be its most repairable lappy in 14 years"

That is welcome news and it is better for the environment as well. That said, it will be interesting to see if other equipment launches follow the MacBook Neo's promising lead.

Well, I wouldn't have launched this rocket on April Fools' Day although it's probably a bit better than launching on Friday 13th.

On a serious note, it was stated that "NASA will also skip a third Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), a test in which the rocket is fuelled and ground crews work through launch procedures". NASA ought to have learned by now that skipping checks invariably ends in a bad way so I do not approve of what they propose to do.

That said, I do approve of them doing an Apollo 8-style figure of 8 loop around the Moon first before trying an actual landing although it appears that they won't be going into direct orbit(s) of the Moon.

«"Galera dependencies are being removed even from the binaries, without a commit message or a task description. From the GitHub discussions, those who should know what is happening appear to be in the dark," he complained»

That was somewhat naughty and underhand of MariaDB management to try to pull that stunt and thankfully instant mass opposition helped them to change their mind.

"Norway's Consumer Council takes aim at enshittification"

Perhaps starting with Windows 11?

It is good to hear that GrapheneOS now has a partner in the form of Motorola. I hope that the partnership works well and all credit to lead developer Daniel Micay.

The history of CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS also makes for an interesting read.

That it has taken so long for Windows 11 to reach this milestone is because of the reluctance on the part of satisfied Windows 10 users to switch to the cruft-filled Windows 11 until it was absolutely necessary.

While Wayland has gained more ground, it is still far from being a professional product. For example, I still find that Xorg works better and more consistently than Wayland when it comes to my applications and screens management.

I shall also continue to follow the Xlibre project with interest.

"Capita taps Microsoft Copilot to dig it out from UK pensions backlog"

These days, the name Capita is a byword for bungling and incompetence.

Well, it was certainly a forthright open letter although I approve of their aims. That said, I am not sure that Larry will want to effectively cede some form of control and authority.

"Oracle vows 'new era' for MySQL as users sharpen their forks"

I know that this might perhaps be regarded as a little cynical but I can't help thinking that this Oracle 'new era' will also conveniently involve more cash extraction at some stage.

"US is moving ahead with colocated nukes and datacenters"

From an environmental perspective, that is much better than burning coal or oil to power these new datacentres.

"the firm-fixed-price task order runs through December 7, 2028"

I think that the United States Air Force will get a surprise (and not in a good way) on 8 December 2028 when Oracle tells the USAF what the order renewal price will be.

Well, Anthropic also ought to set an example to promote and invest in climate-friendly sources of power like nuclear and renewables.

"BBC bumps telly tax to £180 as Netflix lurks with cheaper tiers"

Unfortunately, a previous chancellor, George Osborne, had a cynical and deliberate go at the BBC by forcing them to take over the funding of free TV licences for pensioners over the age of 75 which reduced the BBC's net income. Then certain irresponsible newspapers started non-payment of licence fees campaigns.

Personally, I would now want the UK to follow the example of France and fund the BBC out of VAT with the level of VAT being decided by a wholly independent royal charter body so that ignorant and third rate Conservative and Labour politicians have no say whatsoever in that matter or in the appointment of BBC governors or the director general.

That said, I am not uncritical of Tim Davie with his show pony 'woe is me' deep cuts to radio and TV services when he should have been trying to creatively preserve such services.

Although it might be mildly controversial, I think that the wealthy Linux Foundation ($300 million+ revenue last time I checked) ought to be funding necessary Linux maintainers such as Todd Miller and others.

https://xkcd.com/2347/

"Study confirms experience beats youthful enthusiasm. Research shows productivity and judgment peak decades after graduation"

^ That's really good to hear but these are unfortunately the people who these days are most likely to be made redundant. Ultimately, that won't benefit the company as they will lose that great experience and new younger hires will not be able to benefit from their wisdom and experience.

"SpaceX wants to fill Earth orbit with a million datacenter satellites"

...cue more unforeseen satellite collisions and even more space debris. In addition to periodic meteor showers, we might end up getting quite a few more bright satellite reentry showers.

"If you're one of the 16,000 Amazon employees getting laid off, read this. It's not your fault"

Amazon is one of the worst offenders when it comes to not dealing with staff humanely. Irrespective of what happens in the USA, governments in Europe and elsewhere ought to be tougher with Amazon's treatment of their own workers.

PS Don't be fooled by their BS adverts about staff development and holidays.

If any new probes are going to the outer solar system in the next few decades, then I think that Neptune would be a better target as it has a highly dynamic and active atmosphere featuring large scale storms plus there's the large and interesting moon Triton to look at (it is a captured Kuiper Belt object).

"Polish Prime minister Donald Tusk announced in November that he was closing Russia's last consulate in the country"

That's what you have to do when dealing with the despot Putin - close down all the subsidiary consulates and significantly reduce the staff numbers at the main embassy to reduce the Russian state's ability to get information on potential targets. It also requires a significant improvements in cyberwarfare capabilities.

"Microsoft says it has received only a small number of reports so far"

Personally, and given that we are dealing with Microsoft here, I would be inclined not to take that "only a small number" at face value. I strongly suspect that they have been inundated with complaints and are trying to play down this matter.

China’s Deepin Linux gets a slick desktop - and, yes, built-in AI

I think that desktop environment looks more like Linux's unix-like cousin macOS rather than the 'can't switch off' clusterfuck that is currently Windows 11.

"Notepad will now tell you all the ways Microsoft has enshittified it"

There is absolutely no need whatsoever to add unnecessary bells and whistles to basic text editors such as Notepad and Wordpad. The clue is in the word 'basic'.