Category Archives: News

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[Approved] Plasma 6 Proposal: incubate SDDM (#91) · Issues · Plasma / Plasma Desktop · GitLab

Posted on 2023-05-22 by Published articles

Source: Published articles

Article note: Woo! SDDM is great, but hasn't had a release in like 4 years, despite major patches in git (like... working Wayland support major). Sending some resources their way would be awesome.
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FBI abused spy law but only like 280,000 times in a year

Posted on 2023-05-22 by pappp

Source: The Register

Article note: This is ...more or less exactly what everyone said would happen.

Well, well, well, if it isn't the Leaning Tower of FISA again

The FBI misused controversial surveillance powers more than 278,000 times between 2020 and early 2021 to conduct warrantless searches on George Floyd protesters, January 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol, and donors to a Congressional campaign, according to a newly unclassified court opinion.…

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Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture

Posted on 2023-05-19 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: A new legacy-free x86_64 bring-up path gets talked about from time to time, but I hadn't seen any public work from Intel/AMD. This is a fleshed-out proposal that I could easily see going into production in the near future. (The presser also contains an amusing amount of passive-voice retcon about how things came to be the way they are).
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CodeWeavers Now Controlled by an Employee Ownership Trust

Posted on 2023-05-19 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: That's pretty cool. In addition to other things, these are the people doing most of the Wine/Proton work, and having them be in a state less prone to private equity whims is a good thing. It looks like a much weaker form of employee ownership than a CoOp or something, but still leagues better than what usually happens these days.
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Disney’s absurdly expensive Star Wars hotel is shutting down

Posted on 2023-05-18 by pappp

Source: The Verge - All Posts

Article note: I actually thought the concept was _super_ cool (a human-scale closed Starship for days-long RP) but uh... yeah it was niche and _absurdly_ expensive.
An image showing the inside of Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser experience
Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

Disney World is shutting down the Galactic Starcruiser, the immersive Star Wars-themed hotel that costs around $5,000 for a two-night stay. In an update on Disney’s website, the company says the Starcruiser will host its final guests from September 28th to the 30th.

“We are so proud of all of the Cast Members and Imagineers who brought Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser to life and look forward to delivering an excellent experience for Guests during the remaining voyages over the coming months,” Disney’s update says. “Thank you to our Guests and fans for making this experience so special.”

Disney’s Galatic Starcruiser hasn’t been around for long, as it only first opened its doors to guests in March 2022. The lavish hotel is modeled after...

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SpaceTop, an innovative laptop without a screen

Posted on 2023-05-18 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Progress toward gibsonian decks (particularly the description from Idoru). My desire for _decades_ from HMDs has been "Comfortable for extended text manipulation" and no one has delivered, but maybe it's finally happening.
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Beepberry is a Blackberry keyboard tinker toy from the founder of Pebble

Posted on 2023-05-17 by pappp

Source: The Verge - All Posts

Article note: This looks like a ridiculous amount of fun that I don't have time for right now.
Beepberry device in between a banana and apple
The ‘Beepberry’ with other fruits accompanying it. | Image: SQFMI

Are you a hacker who happens to miss their Blackberry? Looks like there’s a new product that’s just your speed: the “Beepberry.” It literally grafts the keyboard of a Blackberry Classic onto a pocketable custom board designed to fit a Raspberry Pi Zero W, all paired with a 400 x 240 “Memory LCD” screen that looks like it was ripped from an old graphing calculator — but is a bit more sophisticated.

Beepberry is designed by Eric Migicovsky, founder of the gone-but-not-forgotten Pebble smartwatch and more relevantly co-founder of Beeper: the hacky all-in-one messenging app that stuffs every service from WhatsApp to iMessage (using a jailbroken iPhone) into one place.

I’m excited to introduce a little side project I’ve been working on:...

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OpenAI chief goes before US Congress to propose licenses for building AI

Posted on 2023-05-16 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Oh boy, attempting regulatory capture on the current dangerous-only-because-humans-are-dumb-panicky-dangerous-animals hypetrain. That sure is a bad look.
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The Babylon 5 animated movie is B5: The Road Home, and here’s what it’s about

Posted on 2023-05-10 by pappp

Source: The Verge - All Posts

Article note: There have been plenty of disappointments for B5 followups (...both because some didn't come to fruition and because some probably shouldn't have), this sounds both promising and credible.
Image: Warner Bros. Animation

Babylon 5 is coming back as an animated movie, series creator J. Michael Straczynski revealed last week, and today The Hollywood Reporter has the exclusive on what it’s about: Sheridan traveling through the multiverse in search of a way home.

The basic synopsis, via THR:

“Travel across the galaxy with John Sheridan as he unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Along the way he reunites with some familiar faces, while discovering cosmic new revelations about the history, purpose, and meaning of the Universe.”

As Straczynski hinted, many of the original surviving cast members are returning, including Bruce Boxleitner (Sheridan), Claudia Christian...

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Ask HN: Why is the state of “smart home” devices still so dire?

Posted on 2023-05-07 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Because perverse incentives. The vendors aren't building devices for customers, they're building profit-seeking vessels for VCs and megacorps. If you build good devices, they need to work offline, without a subscription or external connectivity, and they need to freely interoperate over open standardized interfaces... and those conflict with the profit-taking misfeatures that attract funding.
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