today's leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 17, 2025

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • The Atlantic ☛ Galaxy Brain: The Internet Is a Misery Machine

    In this inaugural episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel examines the state of the [Internet] as it stands now in November 2025 with Hank Green, a true citizen of the [Internet]—somebody who has made a living riding the algorithmic waves of the social web. Green started his YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers, with his brother, John, back in 2007, and they now have more than 4 million subscribers. Hank is a creator—and not just in the modern sense of the word. He’s an entrepreneur, an educator, a social-media celebrity, and somebody who understands how to build trust and massive audiences online. He’s deeply attuned to the ways that the technological tools we use begin to change us.

• Kernel Space

  • André Machado ☛ Birth of Linux: Linus Torvalds and the First Kernel Collaborators

    The earliest collaborations were humble affairs conducted over email, shared tarballs, and phone lines, yet they revealed practices that remain at the heart of the kernel process today. Linus Torvalds acted as a benevolent coordinator, quick to credit contributors in changelogs while also demanding clean patches. Collaborators self selected areas of stewardship, documented their subsystems, and patiently explained design tradeoffs to strangers who appeared on the mailing list. That culture of radical transparency and merit based trust, formulated in the first eighteen months of Linux history, explains how a student hobby transformed into a globe spanning project stewarded by thousands yet still coherent in direction.

  • Simon Ser ☛ Simon Ser: Status update, November 2025

    Hi!

    This month a lot of new features have added to the Goguma mobile IRC client. Hubert Hirtz has implemented drafts so that unsent text gets saved and network disconnections don’t disrupt users typing a message. He also enabled replying to one’s own messages, changed the appearance of short messages containing only emoji, upgraded our emoji library to Unicode version 16, fixed some linkifier bugs and added unit tests.

• Distributions and Operating Systems

  • Distro Watch ☛ DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

    [...] Some former Window users are exploring beginner friendly Linux distributions and, in particular, looking for distributions which make migrating easier. This week we begin with a look at Zorin OS, a distribution which intentionally mimics other operating systems, such as Windows and macOS, in order to feel familiar to new users. [...]

  • BSD

    • DragonFly BSD Digest ☛ Lazy Reading for 2025/11/16

      No theme, just fun. Dithering, part 1.  (via) A1 DEADLINE SPECIAL.  Resurrecting a high-water point in comics history with new stories.  (via) Ken Thompson interviewed in 2024.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • CNX Software ☛ UP TWL Hey Hi (AI) Dev Kit review – Benchmarks, features testing, and Hey Hi (AI) workloads on Ubuntu 24.04

      Earlier this month, I started the review of the Intel-based UP Hey Hi (AI) development kits with an unboxing of the UP TWL, UP Squared Pro TWL, and UP Xtreme ARL single board computers. I’ve now had time to test the first model, the credit card-sized, defective chip maker Intel Processor N150-based UP TWL SBC with 64GB eMMC flash preloaded with Ubuntu 24.04. >

    • Connor Tumbleson ☛ Hestan Cue Smart Pan Rebate

      This was such a weird pan that it required us to download an application for it to self regulate temperature against our stove top. So a quick search on Google Play and I had the application downloaded and ready to roll. I was a bit worried that it only had 2.6 stars out of 5, but pushed on.

  • Open Hardware/Modding

    • Hackaday ☛ The Simplest Ultrasound Sensor Module, Minus The Module

      Just about every “getting started with microcontrollers” kit, Arduino or otherwise, includes an ultrasonic distance sensor module. Given the power of microcontrollers these days, it was only a matter of time before someone asked: “Could I do better without the module?” Well, [Martin Pittermann] asked, and his answer, at least with the Pi Pico, is a resounding “Yes”. A micro and a couple of transducers can offer a better view of the world.