Today in Techrights

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 18, 2026

Updated This Past Day

1. EPO "Productivity" Will Fall Off a Cliff If Examiners Stick to the European Patent Convention (EPC) and Follow the Real Rules

   The EPO's "Cocaine Communication Manager" would hate to see the next "productivity" metrics

2. The Problem is Not Technology, the Problem is Really Bad Things Sold or Imposed as "Tech" (Like a Religion Built Around Technology)

   Don't hate technology, hate the corporations that abuse it to promote coercion, exploitation etc.

3. Resisting IBM and EPO Corruption

   Rise up against EPO dictatorship next week

4. Where Slop Meets Ghostwriting: It's a False Analogy

   It's a false analogy

5. Slop Technica: Ars Technica Seems Like Repeat Offender, a Part-Time Slopfarm

   The culprits are repeat offenders, but the publisher will never admit this in public

   New

6. Microsoft Had Mass Layoffs Every Month Last Year, This Year It's Delaying a Lot to "Prove" Rumours That Crashed Its Stock... 'Wrong'

   Building a bigger snowball for later

7. Red Hat Is Not a Company Anymore, Amid Bluewashing and Mass Layoffs It's Merely IBM "Division" or "Brand" or "Product"

   systemd at this point is sort of like IBM/Microsoft thing

8. IBM suffers "worst weekly drop in six years", Microsoft's MSN calls it "buying opportunity"

   Ask Cramer what to do

9. Still Some Slopfarms in View, Sometimes Targetting "Linux"

   That's a total of at least 4 in Google News today, coming from 3 sources

10. Gemini Links 17/02/2026: 3D-Printed Stainless Steel Smartwatch and Gopher Bay Offline

    Links for the day

11. Links 17/02/2026: Machine Rage and Microsoft Kills XBox Social Clubs

    Links for the day

12. Links 17/02/2026: Why OpenClaw is Very Sleazy and Ars Technica Exposed as Hub of LLM Slop (Credibility Destroyed Overnight)

    Links for the day

13. Benj Edwards (Ars Technica) Used Fake Articles to Promote Ponzi Scheme for Conde Nast and Its Client (Marketing)

    What Ars Technica and Conde Nast do here helps defraud the general public

14. Only One in 50 Saudis Would Use Microsoft for Search, Almost Same as Would Use Russia's Yandex

    If statCounter is to be trusted

15. Microsoft's "AI" Concerns Are All Indian (or Low-Paid Workers Who Work Extra Hours Unpaid)

    portraying charlatans and frauds like they're some kind of visionaries and luminaries

16. Microsoft Turned Bing Into Censorship Machine of China, But Bing Is Pegged at a Mere 2% in Asia, Yandex is Bigger

    Expect many Bing layoffs some time soon (like in past years)

17. Just Like The Register MS, Conde Nast's Ars Technica Has Just Publicly Admitted That It Published Fake Articles (Slop) Made by LLMs About Serious Subjects

    Conde Nast might shut Ars Technica down to escape the bad publicity/association

18. Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Way Too Slow to Respond to Financial Fraud at Law Firms, in Effect Helping Those Law Firms Defraud Many More People (Fleecing Clients)

    Who will hold the SRA accountable for this?

19. Techrights Became a Hub for News That IBM/Red Hat Doesn't Want You to See (and Pays Mainstream Media to Distract From)

    the more viciously the notorious organisation attacks the reporter, the greater the interest in what the reporter has to say

20. EPO's Central Staff Committee on Fourth Technical Meeting, Two Days Before First of (At Least) 4 Winter Strikes at the Second-Largest European Institution

    “future orientations on the salary adjustment procedure”

21. IBM's Collapse Continues, Half of EU Countries to Have Mass Layoffs, "IBM Clearly Disinvests From Europe" Says IBM European Works Council

    Recent publication

22. Over at Tux Machines...

    GNU/Linux news for the past day

23. IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 16, 2026

    IRC logs for Monday, February 16, 2026

24. Gemini Links 17/02/2026: Alpenglow Industries' Closure and Gemini Server Issues

    Links for the day

    ---

    The corresponding text-only bulletin for Tuesday contains all the text.

    Top-read articles (excluding bot/crawler visits):

    Span from 2026-02-11 to 2026-02-17

    3906	/about.shtml
    2397	/n/2026/02/15/Free_Software_Foundation_FSF_Raised_About_1_5_Million_Dollars_T.shtml
    1735	/n/2026/02/16/AboutCode_is_a_Microsoft_Proxy_and_Microsoft_s_Acquisition_of_t.shtml
    1676	/index.shtml
    1402	/n/2026/02/12/IBM_Continues_Tanking_Today_Already_58_Lower_Than_Recent_High_I.shtml
    1222	/n/2026/02/09/A_Can_of_WORMS_Part_IV_They_Would_Even_Attack_RMS_for_Criticisi.shtml
    1076	/irc.shtml
    1014	/browse/latest.shtml
    835	/n/2026/02/11/With_an_IBM_Company_Down_Over_75_After_Apparent_Accounting_Frau.shtml
    833	/n/2025/03/24/Days_Ago_yewtu_be_Found_a_Workaround_That_Made_Invidious_Work_A.shtml
    731	/n/2024/10/03/Invidious_Seems_to_be_Nearing_End_of_Life_After_Repeated_Crackd.shtml
    701	/browse/index.shtml
    698	/n/2026/02/14/EPO_Cocaine_Communication_Manager_Part_I_Getting_the_Word_Out_A.shtml
    687	/n/2026/02/11/2026_a_Very_Productive_Year_and_We_Have_Many_Big_Stories_to_Tel.shtml
    687	/n/2026/02/13/African_Browser_Choices_Show_a_Growing_Problem_in_the_World_Wid.shtml
    676	/n/2026/02/14/Accomplishments_of_Our_Community.shtml
    675	/n/2026/02/12/Links_12_02_2026_Pushback_Against_NATO_Is_Expected_to_Step_Up_A.shtml
    648	/n/2026/02/14/GitHub_Cannot_Survive_for_Much_Longer.shtml
    646	/n/2026/02/12/Put_Criminals_in_Prison_Not_People_Who_Report_the_Crimes.shtml
    643	/n/2026/02/11/Matthew_J_Garrett_Has_Just_Sent_a_Threat_to_Put_My_Wife_and_I_i.shtml
    640	/n/2026/02/11/IBM_s_Stock_is_Crashing.shtml
    636	/n/2026/02/14/Links_14_02_2026_Bias_and_Toxicity_in_Slop_Microsoft_s_Vista_11.shtml
    636	/n/2026/02/11/Threats_From_Former_Red_Hat_Now_IBM_Staff_While_IBM_s_Likely_Ac.shtml
    626	/n/2026/02/12/Debian_pregnancy_cluster_why_it_is_public_interest.shtml
    615	/n/2026/02/12/Relationships_evidence_Tiago_Tassia_Thais_Antonio_Debian_favori.shtml
    611	/n/2026/02/12/Links_12_02_2026_Microsoft_Just_Forked_Windows_and_Windows_Note.shtml
    611	/n/2026/02/11/When_Happens_to_Red_Hat_If_ow_When_IBM_Collapses.shtml
    607	/n/2026/02/11/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
    600	/n/2026/02/12/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
    589	/n/2026/02/11/IRC_Proceedings_Tuesday_February_10_2026.shtml
    586	/n/2026/02/13/Links_13_02_2026_SUSE_Uses_Microsoft_Internally_MElon_s_Company.shtml
    585	/n/2026/02/14/xAI_and_X_Twitter_Live_on_Borrowed_Time_It_ll_Get_a_Lot_Worse_F.shtml
    582	/n/2026/02/12/The_EPO_s_Corruption_and_Violation_of_Rules_is_Spreading_to_the.shtml
    581	/n/2026/02/13/Decades_Long_Microsofter_Darryl_K_Taft_and_TIBOE_Conflate_Micro.shtml
    578	/n/2024/09/15/Very_Few_Invidious_Instances_Still_Work_for_Video_Playback.shtml
    566	/n/2026/02/11/Amended_Input_From_Software_Freedom_Institute_for_EU_Consultati.shtml
    550	/n/2026/02/12/Jeffrey_Epstein_crypto_disclosure_uncanny_timing_Bitcoin_demise.shtml
    547	/n/2026/02/12/IBM_Bubble_Deflating_After_James_Kavanaugh_s_Accounting_Trick_W.shtml
    545	/n/2026/02/11/IBM_s_Financial_Engineering_Accounting_Fraud_Shell_Kyndryl_Hold.shtml
    542	/n/2026/02/11/EPO_s_Local_Staff_Committee_The_Hague_LSCTH_The_EPO_is_Generall.shtml
    540	/n/2026/02/12/Our_Most_Successful_Year_Ever.shtml
    539	/n/2024/10/21/The_State_of_Invidious.shtml
    536	/n/2026/02/15/When_It_Comes_tom_Rust_Keep_All_the_Eyes_on_the_Ball_Technical_.shtml
    535	/n/2026/02/11/After_the_Next_Wave_of_Microsoft_Layoffs_Washington_State_Could.shtml
    534	/n/2026/02/13/Anonymous_Threats_Against_My_Wife_and_Against_Yours_Truly.shtml
    527	/n/2026/02/14/Microsoft_s_Bing_Down_to_0_5_in_Armenia.shtml
    527	/n/2026/02/13/Pleroma_is_Dying.shtml
    526	/n/2026/02/13/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
    524	/n/2026/02/11/Mobbing_at_the_European_Patent_Office_EPO_Part_VI_Attacks_on_St.shtml
    520	/n/2026/02/11/Nadella_s_Mindless_PR_Spam_Ahead_of_the_Layoffs_Snowball_Adding.shtml
    519	/n/2026/02/10/IBM_s_Kyndryl_Managed_to_Fall_to_Less_Than_a_Quarter_of_Its_Pas.shtml
    508	/n/2026/02/12/IRC_Proceedings_Wednesday_February_11_2026.shtml
    506	/n/2026/02/12/IBM_Kyndryl_as_Aggressive_Enron_Accounting.shtml
    506	/n/2026/02/13/Microsoft_Cuts_Continue_Visitor_Center_in_Redmond_Shut_Down.shtml
    505	/n/2024/10/29/Emilien_unixfox_Manages_to_Bring_yewtu_be_Big_Instance_of_Invid.shtml
    500	/n/2026/02/12/Mainstream_Media_Intentionally_Ignoring_EPO_Strikes.shtml
    500	/n/2026/02/12/Gemini_Links_12_02_2026_Avoiding_Coffee_Trying_Ubuntu_and_Open_.shtml
    500	/n/2026/02/12/In_Systematic_Contempt_of_the_British_High_Court_Brett_Wilson_L.shtml
    494	/n/2026/02/12/Windows_Has_Become_Increasingly_Irrelevant.shtml
    492	/n/2026/02/11/Links_11_02_2026_700_Billion_Slop_Bill_Social_Control_Media_Und.shtml
    490	/n/2026/02/14/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
    490	/n/2026/02/12/Microsoft_Slop_CEO_Speaks_of_Layoffs.shtml