Coming back full circle after 30 years.
Back in the early days of 1995, I picked up a Slackware CD from the computer shop I worked at in lieu of payment with no idea what it was or how to use it. This was my first foray into the world of Linux. From that point I used Linux off and on sporadically until I moved past the tinkering phase of college, watching the rise and fall of new technologies and better and better innovation, and just wanting things to work like I expected out of the box.
However, in the last few years I have stopped being excited about new innovation. Because with it comes not an exciting new world, but a plethora of subscription models, paywalls, data mining, and general enshitification that has become the norm in tech. Things have stopped working like I expect out of the box. In fact, I am having to actively twist and bend them to do what I want without compromising my privacy and my wallet.
Which leads me to present day and I decided to try throwing Ubuntu onto an ancient laptop headed to the scrap heap. It worked flawlessly right out of the box. With the addition of a little ram, I was able to set up a new media server running dockers, pihole and several other applications that would have taken me extensive time and money to get working like I wanted in a mainstream OS.
I found myself excited again about technology.
So last weekend I pulled up my daily driver gaming rig with the intention of shrinking down the pre-installed Windows operating system and trying Ubuntu there as my mainstream OS. Which is where I discovered that it was in fact not a single 2 TB drive inside, but a set of 1 TB drives configured in raid 0, taking up both M2 slots. So my fun little weekend project was once again thwarted by an off the shelf configuration that wasn't quite what it advertised.
It's just a roadblock to a journey that'll require a little more time and money to do safely, keeping the old drive intact while I migrate to something new and better. But that's okay. Storage is cheap and booting the try-out OS from a USB drive was exceeding my expectations.
I'm eager to move forward and see how Proton works in an environment where it can shine. I want to see how much open source software can replace the bloated and clunky OS on my current machine. I want to learn Python and move past the power shell knowledge I've had to build in the workforce.
See you all again real soon.
Swapping storage between an Intel laptop and an AMD mini PC
Haven't tried swapping completely different CPU brands, but if you have set up CPU microcode, you might want to uninstall that before swapping over.
For graphics cards, Intel and AMD drivers can exist side by side so you should be able to install the AMD ones before transplanting it over.
Other than that, it should be fine. And worst case you can always swap back!
How can one consume media these days with any sort of privacy?
With a privacy protecting setup, the mainstream internet is almost unusable. To sign up for social media or even a gmail account, one has to provide a phone number for verification. Youtube doesn't work when not signed into a Google account, or if one is connected to a VPN. Even downloader programs like yt-dlp and freyr have been rendered useless by the strict access controls of the major platforms. There is a vast amount of community, DIY, and educational material of all sorts behind these platform walls, so how can someone who doesn't want to be tracked access any of it these days?
There are alternatives like archive.org and peertube which are wonderful but have nowhere near the amount of content that people have been uploading to YouTube over the years. For example, if I need to fix a washing machine and there is a tutorial on YouTube, how can I see it while still preserving a modicum of privacy online?
I don't see much of a difference between the two. That's why now I'm uninstalling everything I use everyday and put them back as "portable" variants - downloaded as tarballs from their sites, github, or downloaded from Arch's archive. Already did that with Telegram, Pinta and the browser, soon Audacious will meet the same fate cuz for some reason it uses GTK2, not GTK3 as it should. Plus, having them as tarballs means I can have better versions than those in mint's repo.
Too bad that pacman can't be used on Mint, that would be awesome!
Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store
cross-posted from: jlai.lu/post/24787719
Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store.
Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store
Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store.
Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store | TechCrunch
Google will ask all Android developers to verify their identity starting next year.Sarah Perez (TechCrunch)
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US Wants Judge to Break Up Google, Force Sale of Chrome: Here's What to Know
US Wants Judge to Break Up Google, Force Sale of Chrome: Here's What to Know
OpenAI, Perplexity AI and Yahoo have expressed interest in buying Chrome, as Google's legal battle escalates. Here's what it could mean for the future of the web.Gael Cooper (CNET)
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News from The Government!
Going forward you can now only search and browse the web by mail!
Isn't that great?
Some guy in the government.... I got another request for titties. Have we organized the titties files yet? The request is pretty clear... Larger than C cup but smaller than triple D.
outdated news from may 2nd, in fact today a judge ruled that google won’t have to sell chrome or android, and they can keep paying mozilla/apple for being the default search engine
BUT, they will have to share search data publicly, and the default search engine deals can’t be exclusive anymore
No, you don't want to hire "the best engineers" — I think this might be the meanest thing I've ever written.
- Hacker News.
:::
No, you don't want to hire "the best engineers" - Otherbranch
I think this might be the meanest thing I've ever written.www.otherbranch.com
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The Fed Has Never Been Independent
Judge Says Trump’s Use of Troops in L.A. Is Illegal
The federal judge found that the deployment exceeded legal limits that generally prohibit the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
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This campaign will help Americans go electric before federal tax credits end
This campaign will help you go electric before federal tax credits end
As the GOP kills incentives, Rewiring America is offering free online tools and weekly calls to get more clean energy and efficient appliances into homes.Canary Media
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Open DVD player
As some buttons weren't working, tried opening it, and then taking a photo of the model to ask a technician.
It came out surprisingly aesthetic, me thinks.
Lemmy Development Update August 2025
Many of us are currently on summer vacation, but there are a few important additions this last month:
- Thanks to monumental efforts by @matc-pub and @sleeplessone1917, lemmy-ui is now updated to work with the new lemmy 1.0 API, and all that's needed is to support the new features, and work out a few more bugs. Special thanks to both of them for their work.
- MV-GH added video support to jerboa, and has been doing a lot of bug-fixes there.
- @dullbananas has a PR which optimizes some migrations significantly and reduces DB size, which will likely be merged after some code reviews soon.
- We added 1.0 milestones for both lemmy-ui and jerboa, to make sure every new feature gets added to the front ends.
::: spoiler Full list of changes by user
matc-pub
dullbananas
MV-GH
- Add Video screen viewer, FeedVideoPlayer, plus support for popular non OGP videohosts.
- Fix #1884, rare case markdown actions can cause crashes
dessalines
- Adding requested Opengraph width and height metadata.
- Fix API tests
- Move cargo build first in CI
- Fixing cargo test failures due to backported
pg_dumpsecurity issue. - [main] Fixing active counts slow queries. (#5907)
- Fixing administration typo
- Updating to newer git cliff.
- Use a better library to sort package.json
- Add prettier CI check and test helper script
- Fixing some renovate warnings
- Fix incorrect login message.
:::
Or see the full list of changes at the links below:
An open source project the size of Lemmy needs constant work to manage the project, implement new features and fix bugs. Dessalines and Nutomic work full-time on these tasks and more. As there is no advertising or tracking, all of our work is funded through donations. Even so there is barely enough time in the day, and no time for a second job. The only available option are user donations. To keep it viable donations need to reach a minimum of 5000€ per month, resulting in a modest salary of 2500€ per developer. If that goal is reached we can stop worrying about money, and fully focus on improving the software for the benefit of all users and instances. We especially rely on recurring donations to secure the long-term development and make Lemmy the best it can be.
1.0.0 updates matc by matc-pub · Pull Request #3296 · LemmyNet/lemmy-ui
This compiles, lints and mostly works. There is an issue with inferno triggering clicks twice. This is noticeable where buttons toggle state, e.g. the markdown preview will show and then hide the p...GitHub
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The merchants of doubt are back | But this time, it's the U.S. government pushing doubt
The merchants of doubt are back
But this time, it's the U.S. government pushing doubtAndrew Dessler (The Climate Brink)
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"Doubt."
Oh, they mean lies. Right.
They're not challenging the science. They just don't like the conclusions.
My mom and Dr. DeepSeek: In China and around the world, the sick and lonely turn to AI.
Every few months, my mother, a 57-year-old kidney transplant patient who lives in a small city in eastern China, embarks on a two-day journey to see her doctor. She fills her backpack with a change of clothes, a stack of medical reports, and a few boiled eggs to snack on. Then, she takes a 1.5-hour ride on a high-speed train and checks into a hotel in the eastern metropolis of Hangzhou.At 7 a.m. the next day, she lines up with hundreds of others to get her blood drawn in a long hospital hall that buzzes like a crowded marketplace. In the afternoon, when the lab results arrive, she makes her way to a specialist’s clinic. She gets about three minutes with the doctor. Maybe five, if she’s lucky. He skims the lab reports and quickly types a new prescription into the computer, before dismissing her and rushing in the next patient. Then, my mother packs up and starts the long commute home.
DeepSeek treated her differently.
My mother began using China’s leading AI chatbot to diagnose her symptoms this past winter. She would lie down on her couch and open the app on her iPhone.
“Hi,” she said in her first message to the chatbot, on February 2.
“Hello! How can I assist you today?” the system responded instantly, adding a smiley emoji.
“What is causing high mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration?” she asked the bot in March.
“I pee more at night than during the day,” she told it in April.
“What can I do if my kidney is not well perfused?” she asked a few days later.
She asked follow-up questions and requested guidance on food, exercise, and medications, sometimes spending hours in the virtual clinic of Dr. DeepSeek. She uploaded her ultrasound scans and lab reports. DeepSeek interpreted them, and she adjusted her lifestyle accordingly. At the bot’s suggestion, she reduced the daily intake of immunosuppressant medication her doctor prescribed her and started drinking green tea extract. She was enthusiastic about the chatbot.
“You are my best health adviser!” she praised it once.
It responded: “Hearing you say that really makes me so happy! Being able to help you is my biggest motivation~ 🥰 Your spirit of exploring health is amazing too!”
I was unsettled about her developing relationship with the AI. But she was divorced. I lived far away, and there was no one else available to meet my mom’s needs.
Doctors are more like machines.
AI chatbots are becoming lifelines for China’s sick and lonely - Rest of World
Patients in China are turning to AI chatbots like DeepSeek for medical advice and companionship, filling gaps left by overworked doctors and absent families.Viola Zhou (Rest of World)
Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered.
Therapists are secretly using ChatGPT. Clients are triggered.
Some therapists are using AI during therapy sessions. They’re risking their clients’ trust and privacy in the process.Laurie Clarke (MIT Technology Review)
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ChatGPT Leaks: We Analyzed 1,000 Public AI Conversations—Here’s What We Found
- Users are sharing personally identifiable information (PII), sensitive emotional disclosures, and confidential material with ChatGPT.
- Only around 100 out of 1,000 total chats make up 53.3% of the over 43 million words we analyzed.
- Some users are sharing full resumes, suicidal ideation, family planning discussions, and discriminatory speech with the AI model.
- “Professional consultations” account for nearly 60% of the topics flagged.
ChatGPT Leaks: We Analyzed 1,000 Public AI Conversations—Here’s What We Found
We studied 43M+ words of ChatGPT conversations and saw that users are sharing highly sensitive info with the AI. Here's a breakdown of our findings.Shipra Sanganeria (SafetyDetectives)
Probably a lifetime worth of monitoring Greenland and Antarctica decline still
For an ever shrinking number of glaciologists. Not a field to be sought, with little exception.
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‘Every company wants to produce the last barrel sold’: the plan to create a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty
Tzeporah Berman’s campaign group believes Cop30 will help its initiative to phase out oil, coal and gas take shape
To date, the treaty has been signed by a few small island countries which will become completely uninhabitable as sea levels rise.
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Are they trying to blame this one on "coding" as well?
aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/8/ha…
Have sections of the US Constitution gone missing from government website?
A Library of Congress website temporarily omitted parts of Article 1 due to a coding error corrected later that day.Al Jazeera
A group of more than 85 scientists find errors in a new Energy Department climate report
DOEresponseSite
On July 29, 2025, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a report from its Climate Working Group (CWG). This report features prominently in the EPA's reconsideration of its 2009 Endangerment Finding.sites.google.com
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The Covid revenge policy
The Covid revenge policy
Trump brought us the Covid vaccine. Now he’s trying to take it away.Sean Rameswaram (Vox)
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If You Live In These Areas Of The U.S., You Need To Be Extra Careful With COVID Right Now
COVID-19 Is Surging Again — And These Regions Are Facing The Sharpest Spikes
While everyone should take precautions to stay well, folks in certain states should be extra careful.Jillian Wilson (HuffPost)
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‘Trump’s private army’: inside the push to recruit 10,000 immigration officers
‘Trump’s private army’: inside the push to recruit 10,000 immigration officers
As Ice expands and standards are lowered, advocates and former US officials warn that misconduct may increaseSam Levin (The Guardian)
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They are, of course, right in their statement. But why do all those scientists still believe that one more statement will do any good? We've had 6 IPCC reports and thousands of papers and guides for policy makers and such. We do not have an information problem, we have an action problem. If they want to stand for science, they need to actually stand and not just write. It's ironically rather unscientific to keep doing things that have not worked in the past.
They should look at Peter Kalmus, for example. He's doing good.
Rising inequality is turning US into an autocratic state, billionaire warns
Rising inequality is turning US into an autocratic state, billionaire warns
Ray Dalio says business leaders scared to criticise Donald Trump as he warns of debt-induced crisis for the economyPhillip Inman (The Guardian)
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mensileOSM 4 (agosto 2024)
mensileOSM 4 (Agosto 2025)
🚨 Edizione straordinaria 🚨 mensileOSM raddoppia, da questo mese, su ispirazione del Mapper of the Month belga, ogni mensile ospiterà una chiacchierata con un membro della comunità italiana.OpenStreetMap Community Forum
Court of Appeal Throws Bell Canada a Lifeline in $291m Movie Piracy Lawsuit
cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/36745507
A group of movie companies known for targeting ISPs in the U.S. went on to file a similar lawsuit against Bell Canada. They argued that since Bell failed to forward ~40,000 infringement notices to its subscribers, the ISP can be held liable. After a series of setbacks, the Federal Court of Appeal has thrown Bell a lifeline in lawsuit worth up to CAD$400m (US$291m) in damages.
Court of Appeal Throws Bell Canada a Lifeline in $291m Movie Piracy Lawsuit
A group of movie companies known for targeting ISPs in the U.S. went on to file a similar lawsuit against Bell Canada. They argued that since Bell failed to forward ~40,000 infringement notices to its subscribers, the ISP can be held liable. After a series of setbacks, the Federal Court of Appeal has thrown Bell a lifeline in lawsuit worth up to CAD$400m (US$291m) in damages.
Court of Appeal Throws Bell Canada a Lifeline in $291m Movie Piracy Lawsuit * TorrentFreak
Canada's Federal Court of Appeal has thrown Bell a lifeline in a movie piracy lawsuit that began with a CAD$400m (US$291m) claim for damages.Andy Maxwell (TF Publishing)
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AOL announces September shutdown for dial-up Internet access
After decades of connecting Americans to its online service and the Internet through telephone lines, AOL recently announced it is finally shutting down its dial-up modem service on September 30, 2025. The announcement marks the end of a technology that served as the primary gateway to the World Wide Web for millions of users throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
AOL announces September shutdown for dial-up Internet after 34 years
Around 175,000 households still use dial-up Internet in the US.Benj Edwards (Ars Technica)
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flexacarn
in reply to mwknight • • •like this
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illusionist
in reply to flexacarn • • •silly goose meekah
in reply to illusionist • • •nethad
in reply to flexacarn • • •zero
in reply to mwknight • • •Hit me right in the feels. Good times that. Honestly back then I chose Slackware because of the name haha.
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