https://fokus.cool/2025/11/25/i-dont-care-how-well-your-ai-works.html

AI systems being egregiously resource intensive is not a side effect — it’s the point.

And someone commented on that with:

I’m fascinated by the take about the resource usage being an advantage to the AI bros.

They’ve created software that cannot (practically) be replicated as open source software / free software, because there is no community of people with sufficient hardware / data sets. It will inherently always be a centralized technology.

Fascinating and scary.

@prologic@twtxt.net He’ll be probably back in a few days or weeks I reckon. It’s not the first time that his raspi (or what hardware does he use again?) is down. :-)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de I submitted it via the form on their website (https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/contact-dma-team_en) and got the following response:

Dear citizen,

Thank you for contacting us and sharing your concerns regarding the impact of Google’s plans to introduce a developer verification process on Android. We appreciate that you have chosen to contact us, as we welcome feedback from interested parties.

As you may be aware, the Digital Markets Act (‘DMA’) obliges gatekeepers like Google to effectively allow the distribution of apps on their operating system through third party app stores or the web. At the same time, the DMA also permits Google to introduce strictly necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that third-party software apps or app stores do not endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system or to enable end users to effectively protect security.

We have taken note of your concerns and, while we cannot comment on ongoing dialogue with gatekeepers, these considerations will form part of our assessment of the justifications for the verification process provided by Google.

Kind regards,
The DMA Team

All good things come to an end, I guess.

I have an Epson printer (AcuLaser C1100) and an Epson scanner (Perfection V10), both of which I bought about 20 years ago. The hardware still works perfectly fine.

Until recently, Epson still provided Linux drivers for them. That is pretty cool! I noticed today that they have relaunched their driver website – and now I can’t find any Linux drivers for that hardware anymore. Just doesn’t list it (it does list some drivers for Windows 7, for example).

I mean, okay, we’re talking about 20 years here. That is a very long time, much more than I expected. But if it still works, why not keep using it?

Some years ago, I started archiving these drivers locally, because I anticipated that they might vanish at some point. So I can still use my hardware for now (even if I had to reinstall my PC for some reason). It might get hacky at some point in the future, though.

This once more underlines the importance of FOSS drivers for your hardware. I sadly didn’t pay attention to that 20 years ago.

Okay, they are also offering 2.8x25mm copper nails. Which I actually do have a single one here. :-)

My hardware collection also includes a few brass-like looking screws that I could repurpose into rivets. But I reckon I have to upgrade my burner first. I’m not a metal worker by any means, so I could be totally wrong, but I imagine that some heat is necessary to loosen the work-hardening effect when beating on them. I will do some experiments on Saturday and report back.

@alexonit@twtxt.alessandrocutolo.it I just checked my local hardware store next town and 4mm brass rod is the closest I find.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I think you should be able to find some even in general stores in the hardware section.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de That’s transparency hardware support!

This is why I love tech from that era.

Write bytes to a parallel port and stuff happens. If it’s just ASCII bytes, then it will print ASCII text. Even the simplest programs can use a printer this way.

With a little bit of ESC/P, you can print images and other fancy stuff. That’s what I did this morning – never worked with ESC/P before, now I can print images. It’s not that hard.

Hayes-compatible modems are similar: Write some AT commands to the serial port and the modem does things. This isn’t even arcane knowledge, it’s explained in the printed manual.

Maybe I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses here, but I think with all this old stuff, you get useful results very quickly and the manuals are usually actually helpful. It’s so much easier to get started and to use this hardware to the full extent. Much less complexity than what we have today, not a ton of libraries and dependencies and SDKs and cloud services and what not.

https://movq.de/v/4bd16cb3c7/tux1.jpg

https://movq.de/v/4bd16cb3c7/tux2.jpg

RetrOS-32: a 32bit hobby operating system with graphics, multitasking, and more
RetrOS-32 is a 32bit operating system written from scratch, with graphics, multitasking and networking capabilities. The kernel is written in C and assembly, while the userspace applications are written in C++, using Make for compilation, all licensed under the MIT license. It runs on Qemu, of course, but a variety of real hardware is also supported, which is pretty cool and r … ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net Ha! It turns out, some cows indeed have magnets in them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_disease

TacOS: an x86_64 UNIX-like OS from scratch
TacOS is a UNIX-like kernel which is able to run DOOM, among various other smaller userspace programs. It has things like a VFS, scheduler, TempFS, devices, context switching, virtual memory management, physical page frame allocation, and a port of Doom. It runs both on real hardware (tested on my laptop) and in the Qemu emulator. ↫ TacOS GitHub page TacOS – great name – is written in C, and explicitly a hobby and toy project. The code’s licensed … ⌘ Read more

Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE open source software report
Linux on IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE use the s390x hardware architecture to run various Linux distributions, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and Ubuntu. Tens of thousands of software packages are tested and distributed through these projects, and various community distributions. ↫ Elizabeth K. Joseph at the IBM community website Various Linux distributions are available for the … ⌘ Read more

@kate@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz I think it’s totally fine. I mean self-hosting costs money too. Power, Hardware, Time/effort, etc.

IBM unveils z17 mainframe, z/OS 3.2
IBM today announced the IBM z17, the next generation of the company’s iconic mainframe, fully engineered with AI capabilities across hardware, software, and systems operations. Powered by the new IBM Telum II processor, IBM z17 expands the system’s capabilities beyond transactional AI capabilities to enable new workloads. ↫ IBM z17 press release Alongside this brand new behemoth of a computer, IBM also announced z/OS 3.2, the next version of its mainframe opera … ⌘ Read more

I don’t need an X11 compositor for fancy graphics effects or whatever. I have true hardware support for that.

My TFT just slightly burns in and then it looks like dmenu has a semi-transparent background.

Yeah.

@david@collantes.us Ah, yes, the hardware might not. As I just said in the other thread: No problem, you can keep the same installation. I did so many times on my PC/laptop at work.

@movq@www.uninformativ.de it might, but maybe the hardware will not? Unless, of course, it is a VM.

Nintendo unveils Switch 2 ahead of June 5 launch
Comments ⌘ Read more

WinRing0: why Windows is flagging your PC monitoring and fan control apps as a threat
When I checked where Windows Defender had actually detected the threat, it was in the Fan Control app I use to intelligently cool my PC. Windows Defender had broken it, and that’s why my fans were running amok. For others, the threat was detected in Razer Synapse, SteelSeries Engine, OpenRGB, Libre Hardware Monitor, CapFrameX, MSI Afterburner, OmenMon, FanCtrl, Z … ⌘ Read more

Chimera Linux drops RISC-V support because capable RISC-V hardware doesn’t exist
We’ve talked about Chimera Linux a few times now on OSNews, so I won’t be repeating what makes it unique once more. The project announced today that it will be shuttering its RISC-V architecture support, and considering RISC-V has been supported by Chimera Linux pretty much since the beginning, this is a big step. The reason is as sad as it is predictable: there’s simply n … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft is not ending Windows 11 support for Intel’s 8th, 9th, and 10th Gen processors
About two weeks ago, there was a bit of confusion about the system requirements for Windows 11 24H2, because Intel’s 8th Gen, 9th Gen, and 10th Gen processors had disappeared from the list of supported hardware. This seemed rather drastic, even by Windows 11 standards. I skipped posting about it on OSNews because I kind of assumed it must’ve been an error ins … ⌘ Read more

NES86: x86 emulation on the NES
The goal of this project is to emulate an Intel 8086 processor and supporting PC hardware well enough to run the Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset (ELKS), including a shell and utilities. It should be possible to run other x86 software as long as it doesn’t require more than a simple serial terminal. ↫ NES86 GitHub page Is this useful in any meaningful sense? No. Will this change the word? No. Does it have any other purpose than just being fun and cool? Nope. None of that … ⌘ Read more

SDL 3.2.0 released
SDL, the Simple DirectMedia Layer, has released version 3.2.0 of its development library. In case you don’t know what SDL is: Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D. It is used by video playback software, emulators, and popular games including Valve‘s award winning catalog and many Humble Bundle games. ↫ SDL website This new release has a lot of impr … ⌘ Read more

Introduction to GrapheneOS
GrapheneOS (written GOS from now on) is an Android based operating system that focuses security. It is only compatible with Google Pixel devices for multiple reasons: availability of hardware security components, long term support (series 8 and 9 are supported at least 7 years after release) and the hardware has a good quality / price ratio. The goal of GOS is to provide users a lot more control about what their smartphone is doing. A main profile is used by default (the owner … ⌘ Read more

@lime360@lime360.nekoweb.org Down at the moment due to hardware failure of one of my nodes. I have the spare parts to bring it back online, just need to find the time 😅 Sorry for the inconvenience, I just can’t afford to run the search engine right now on the remaining two nodes 😢😢

@bender@twtxt.net Hmmm… it makes sense. Now I curious, how old is his hardware though? is it SolveSpace kind of old? or reaaaally Blender 2.4 series kid of old!? 🤔

@aelaraji@aelaraji.com will all those run on his hardware? I don’t think @movq@www.uninformativ.de’s problem is the software, it is that his hardware has gotten too old. :-D

Jack Dorsey’s Block Scraps ‘Web5’ Project
Block will abandon development of its Web5 decentralized internet project and reduce investment in music streaming service Tidal to focus on bitcoin mining hardware and self-custody wallets, the payments company announced in its third-quarter letter to shareholders. The Jack Dorsey-led firm cited strong market demand for its bitcoin mining products and Bitkey wallet as key drivers behind the st … ⌘ Read more

i’ve been a ham since i was a kid, but i haven’t been too active lately. i’ve seen some interesting signed packet radio schemes, but nothing I’ve taken a close look at. i’ve been doing a bunch of research into mesh networking protocols over the years and now that i’m approaching something worth writing i may have to get back into the hardware side of things

@doesnm@doesnm.p.psf.lt May I ask which hardware you have? SSD or HDD? How much RAM?

I might be spoiled and very privileged here. Even though my PC is almost 12 years old now, it does have an SSD and tons of RAM (i.e., lots of I/O cache), so starting mutt and opening the mailbox takes about 1-2 seconds here. I hardly even notice it. But I understand that not everybody has fast machines like that. 🫤

afaik nobody has done this, but i really need some numbers that can indicate the relative performance of various git servers (cgit, gitea, gitlab) on comparable hardware. cgit claims to be hyperfast, but what does that mean in practice?

There are apparently dedicated “fireproof” external hard drives available that do this, and this coincidentally-timed piece suggests I might be able to get closer to what I was thinking in the not-too-distant future: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ssds/researchers-have-developed-a-type-of-flash-memory-storage-that-can-withstand-temperatures-higher-than-the-surface-of-venus/

What’s all of this about? one may ask…

Well I’ve been itching to toy around with a BSD on actual hardware and away from the comfort of VMs. NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD… It doesn’t matter. I just want to “Make it feel… Make it feel alive AGAIN!”

Feedback on why I didn’t choose Mattermost (lack of OIDC) · mattermost/mattermost · Discussion – My discussions/feedback on Mattermost’s decision to have certain useful and IMO should be standard features as paid-for features on a per-seat licensed basis. My primary argument is that if you offer a self-host(able) product and require additional features the free version does not have, you should not have to pay for a per-seat license for something you are footing the bill for in terms of Hardware/Compute and Maintenance/Support (havintg to operate it).

Scientist Claims Quantum RSA-2048 Encryption Cracking Breakthrough
Mark Tyson reports via Tom’s Hardware: A commercial smartphone or Linux computer can be used to crack RSA-2048 encryption, according to a prominent research scientist. Dr Ed Gerck is preparing a research paper with the details but couldn’t hold off from bragging about his incredible quantum computing achievement (if true) on his LinkedIn profil … ⌘ Read more

What if I run my Gitea Actions Runners on some Vultr VM(s) for now? At least until I get some more hardware just for a “build farm” 🤔

@prologic@twtxt.net You more or less need a data center to run one of these adequately (well, train…you can run a trained one with a little less hardware). I think that’s the idea–no one can run them locally, they have to rent them (and we know how much SaaS companies and VCs love the rental model of computing).

There’s a lot of promising research-grade work being done right now to produce models that can be run on a human-scale (not data-center-scale) computing setup. I suspect those will become more commonly deployed in the next few years.

@mckinley@twtxt.net Yeah, that’s more clear. 👌

Systems that are on all the time don’t benefit as much from at-rest encryption, anyway.

Right, especially not if it’s “cloud storage”. 😅 (We’re only doing it on our backup servers, which are “real” hardware.)

TornadoVM Continues Adapting Java OpenJDK/GraalVM For Heterogeneous Hardware
A new release of TornadoVM is now available, the open-source plug-in to OpenJDK and GraalVM to allow for Java code to run on heterogeneous hardware with ease – including various GPU models as well as FPGAs… ⌘ Read more

@prologic@twtxt.net I think those headsets were not particularly usable for things like web browsing because the resolution was too low, something like 1080p if I recall correctly. A very small screen at that resolution close to your eye is going to look grainy. You’d need 4k at least, I think, before you could realistically have text and stuff like that be zoomable and readable for low vision people. The hardware isn’t quite there yet, and the headsets that can do that kind of resolution are extremely expensive.

But yeah, even so I can imagine the metaverse wouldn’t be very helpful for low vision people as things stand today, even with higher resolution. I’ve played VR games and that was fine, but I’ve never tried to do work of any kind.

I guess where I’m coming from is that even though I’m low vision, I can work effectively on a modern OS because of the accessibility features. I also do a lot of crap like take pictures of things with my smartphone then zoom into the picture to see detail (like words on street signs) that my eyes can’t see normally. That feels very much like rudimentary augmented reality that an appropriately-designed headset could mostly automate. VR/AR/metaverse isn’t there yet, but it seems at least possible for the hardware and software to develop accessibility features that would make it workable for low vision people.

@prologic@twtxt.net yeah. I’d add “Big Data” to that hype list, and I’m sure there are a bunch more that I’m forgetting.

On the topic of a GPU cluster, the optimal design is going to depend a lot on what workloads you intend to run on it. The weakest link in these things is the data transfer rate, but that won’t matter too much for compute-heavy workloads. If your workloads are going to involve a lot of data, though, you’d be better off with a smaller number of high-VRAM cards than with a larger number of interconnected cards. I guess that’s hardware engineering 101 stuff, but still…

A Modest Robot Levy Could Help Combat Effects of Automation On Income Inequality In US, Study Suggests
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT News: What if the U.S. placed a tax on robots? The concept has been publicly discussed by policy analysts, scholars, and Bill Gates (who favors the notion). Because robots can replace jobs, the idea goes, a stiff tax on them … ⌘ Read more

M DISC media has a projected lifetime of several hundred years. interesting. #permacomputing #hardware

What if due to climate crisis effects and disasters our digital future will depend on low-energy hardware and protocols like Gemini?

Today I swapped out our water heater for a new hybrid one. It took twice as long as it should have and 3 extra trips to the hardware store, but it doesn’t seem to be leaking and is producing hot water, so 🎉🎊🎇

As my hardware is getting older, I feel myself getting more attracted to retro-computing.