thomholwerda

thomholwerda, 1 month ago to random

I'm still not entirely sure how not voting for Biden and letting Trump get elected is going to lead to fewer dead Palestinians.

The raw deal is that not voting for Biden means you're going to be complicit in killing more Palestinians. Oh and also all your LGBTQ+ friends you keep random generating about are also going to get royally fucked. Oh and all the Ukrainians and Baltic people Putin will genocide under Trump.

Sucks to be an American, life is hard, your system sucks, etc. etc., we know. Now just go out and vote for the slightly less bad royal asshole for the good of the rest of the world, you privileged ass.

thomholwerda, 6 months ago to random

The OpenAI story is such a great example of how corrupt and twisted (US) tech media has become. They're all ridiculing the OpenAI board for firing Altman, they're all siding with Altman, lamenting the loss of investment and money...

Am I the only one raising his finger going like, what if the original leaked reason for firing Altman - he was going too fast, he was irresponsible, we don't know the consequences of AI for society, etc. - is correct? Lest anyone forget, Altman is both a massive venture capitalist and a huge techbro, so not exactly the type of person to embrace responsible development and conscientious planning.

I repeat, despite nobody asking this question, what if the board is right?

thomholwerda, 2 months ago to random

Extremely unusual: a hostage situation in The Netherlands this morning. A guy held several people hostage in a cafe. Police handled the situation perfectly - all hostages let go, hostage taker arrested. They talked to the hostage taker all morning.

No deaths, no guns, no massive shootouts. This is policing done right. Such a blessing to live in countries where, no, not all cops are bastards. Keep your American bullshit where it belongs - in your dystopia.

thomholwerda, 4 months ago to random

I want the EU's next focus to be on banking, payment, and government ID applications that claim rooted and/or non-Google Android phones are dangerous, blocking those phones from access.

It's ridiculous that such vital infrastructure applications every EU citizen is effectively required to use are locked to just two possible smartphone types, both owned, run, and controlled by American megacorps. Unacceptable and dangerous.

@EU_Commission

thomholwerda, 3 months ago to random

I fully agree with experts that NATO needs to push its member states to a partial war economy. If, in 2024, you're still an armchair hippy thinking war isn't going to come to us, you're entirely naive. I want both the EU and NATO to be armed to the teeth to make any nazi like Putin think thrice before even daring to look into our general direction.

You don't fight nazis by reciting poetry and claiming a moral high ground. You fight nazis by ending their lives.

thomholwerda, 2 months ago to random

In my headcanon, Windows Copilot is the Microsoft BOB dog wearing a fake mustache and glasses.

thomholwerda, 4 months ago to random

If someone has one of the newer Itanium workstations for me, I solemnly promise to use it as my main machine for a month and write about it on @osnews.

I really want Itanium. Boost.

thomholwerda, 3 months ago to random

I'd like to remind everyone that I've been warning the Linux world about the precarious, uncertain future of Firefox for years now. The single most important desktop Linux application is in a death spiral and entirely dependent on free Google money. Not a good base to work from.

With today's news, I only feel strengthened in my conviction that the major desktop projects in the Linux world need to come together in a serious manner to discuss the establishment of a browser project optimised for Linux. Pick an engine, let the GNOME and KDE developers build a native UI on top, and take matters into your own hands. If you can build the two best desktop environments in desktop computing today, you can build a first-class browser together.

This is existential.

thomholwerda, 2 months ago to random

Two pieces of personal news: first, after 14 years, I've effectively quite my job as a translator. The industry is in the process of collapsing - you know why - and I've been feeling the squeeze for a while now, and I like going out on my own terms. I've known this day would come, and I'm not sad about it. My motto: it is what it is.

Second: I have decided to focus all my work attention on @osnews from here on out. This is risky, scary, and I'm absolutely terrified of what this will mean. Right now, my OSNews income does not even come close to what I earned as a translator, so I've got work ahead of me to increase readership, give y'all more reasons to sign up for our Patreon, and hopefully find sponsors for the site to generate more income. End goal: rely entirely on reader and sponsor support, to remove ads altogether.

If all this fails, I'll have to find another line of work, which would mean the end of OSNews. Not trying to scare you - just being honest.

Anyway, this is a big deal for me - I've only ever been a translator (aside for the one 8-year teenage job I had), and I do not like taking risks.

Anyway, want to become a Patreon? Or a sponsor? Pretty please? 😰

thomholwerda, 2 months ago to random

"LiNUx iS nOt REadY fOR ThE dESktOp."

Bitch, Windows is adware built atop a foundation of dead sickly squirrels that falls over and dies if you so much as look at it like you're not a capitalist.

thomholwerda, 1 month ago to random

The ads DuckDuckGo shows when I search for "Play Store".

Two obviously misleading or downright malicious links.

There is no more good search engine. If you mention Brave or Kagi I will burn your house down.

thomholwerda, 1 month ago to random

This might be the single most frustrating bug report thread I've ever read.

GNOME, why are you like this?

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/adwaita-icon-theme/-/issues/288

thomholwerda, 5 months ago to random

The most popular code editor used by programmers and developers is an Electron application.

We're doomed.

thomholwerda, 3 months ago to random

My MNT Reform review should be done by early next week. It took way longer than planned - lots of sickness - but I finally feel like I'm doing this extraordinarily unique piece of hardware (spoiler, I guess) justice.

There's nothing else like this.

thomholwerda, 3 months ago to random

I've finally found a use for "AI".

Take an existing LLM like ChatGPT or whatever, and train it on the entire collection of patents from the US Patent Office. Then make a simple program for Linux, Windows, and macOS that uses that LLM to generate an endless amount of bogus patents, and automatically feed them back into the Patent Office as patent applications. Distribute the program online and ask as many people as possible to run it.

It will create a vast, infinite backlog of utterly bogus patent applications, grinding the entire system to a halt, and preventing literally anyone from getting patents approved. Boom, patent system rendered useless.

I'm a genius.

thomholwerda, 8 days ago to random

Oh lord the BBC website automatically redirects non-UK visitors to bbc.com now instead of allowing you to go to .co.uk. I see a quick glimpse of the milksake before the redirect happens.

The BBC is so embarrassed of the state of the UK they're like "let's not show them the real BBC news".

thomholwerda, 4 months ago to random

murica intensifies

thomholwerda, 28 days ago to random

@osnews, where Apple is just another company and not the hand that feeds me, where I treat Linux and BSD without the constant ignorant ridicule straight out of 2002 like the rest of the tech media, where I put quotation marks around "AI", and where I cover a wide variety of topics you won't find anywhere else, all with honesty and openness about my own limitations in understanding. Also sometimes with my weirdness on full display, but not too often.

To keep @osnews alive, consider supporting it through Patreon, Ko-Fi, Liberapay, or our merch store.

thomholwerda, 5 months ago to random

A new website dedicated to news about Haiku. Excellent idea, and something sorely needed. Haiku has become big enough to sustain such an effort.

From @osnews, born out of the ashes of BeNews.com, congratulations and good luck to @begasus!

https://mastodon.social/@begasus/111703802509395378

thomholwerda, 1 month ago to random

I wrote a short thing about OpenBSD.

https://www.osnews.com/story/139562/why-i-run-a-bsd-on-a-pc/

thomholwerda, 4 months ago to random

Make private jets illegal.

thomholwerda, 3 months ago to random

Game dev: "We're not supporting Linux for our game."

Proton: "I don't remember asking you a goddamn thing."

thomholwerda, 3 months ago to random

"If architects had to work like programmers"

Motherfucker I'd ain't never entering a building again. No sector as lax with quality as programming.

thomholwerda, 1 month ago to random

Is anyone following me a #wayland expert? My Chuwi MiniBook X can only do 50Hz, but users on Windows have managed to crank that up to 60 or even 90. I've tried to use this method to do set a custom resolution/refresh rate on wayland:

https://www.davejansen.com/add-custom-resolution-and-refresh-rate-when-using-wayland-gnome/

But it didn't work. Any suggestions on how to force wayland to use a refresh rate the display wrongly claims it doesn't support?

thomholwerda, 18 days ago to random

Happy #caturday!