Nerd Roundup Article Snapshots: 2021-09-03

Snaps

2021-09-03

The Rise Of User-Hostile Software

Yup. This guy's got it, sadly. It occurs to me that we talk and teach making software that people want, but in actuality most software actually hates and does the best it can to manipulate and abuse them

Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

So I'm not buying tech, I'm renting licenses for vendors to force me to watch and do things against my will that they decide at a later date? Who came up with this kind of plan for people buying tech, Darth Vader?

Mob Justice Is Trampling Diplomatic Democratic Discourse

I hate to bang on the same old, same old "the internet is a mob!" drum, but there's a real sense that people are slowly starting to figure it out. I wonder if that's just me or if it is really hapening, and if it's really happening, what will the next evolution be?

1989, 1842, 2021: Last Russian, British, and American troops leave Afghanistan

I wonder if 100+ years of A/V recordings will help us and future generations actually learn better from history

Hundreds of free, open-source commercial use color illustrations

Good luck. Whenever I want a pic of even something like a dog, I'm wandering far off into "find the open source" license territory. Lotsa copyright squatting on the web. We'd be better off without any of it

Why Erlang?

All roads lead back to Erlang, it seems. 35 years old, and people are still writing kick-ass scalable systems with it. Compare, say, with Ruby. Or anything on Kubernetes. You'd still be on reddit trying to find out why it isn't working at all, much less scaling. (Apologies for the kubernetes hate. It seems to be a useful example of the kind of over-engineering we all love to do and consume)

System76 Pangolin Linux-first laptop with AMD internals now in stock

Much drool. Many feels.

A visual introduction to Gaussian Belief Propagation

Much coolness here. Does this have a chance at becoming top dog in AI/ML? Beats me, but I like the general idea of using it. Also there's some really cool UI/UX work done here. Most awesome for tech papers

Radically New Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology to Transform Aviation, Backed by USAF

These things are always overpromised, but long-term? Who knows? I've been saying for 20 years that hydrogen was going to be a significant fuel source for vehicles. Sooner or later I've got to be right

First Public Working Draft: CSS Nesting Module

Because CSS was too easy. Also note that this has been available in web build systems for many years.

NASA Source: No Way Artemis Moon Mission Is Launching This Year

SLS and Artemis. Good grief

Reusable spaceplane demonstrator completes 5 test flights in 3 days

Way cool-looking plane! Looking forward to seeing more news about this!

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