Daily Tech News 20 January 2026

Top Story

Two things to clarify from yesterday. First, that quote at the top of the post explaining the DRAM Apocalypse was from Jatin Malik, an engineer at Atlassian.

Second, brains are computers.
Agent psychosis: Are we going insane? (Armin Ronacher)

Apparently, yes:
You can use Polecats without the Refinery and even without the Witness or Deacon. Just tell the Mayor to shut down the rig and sling work to the polecats with the message that they are to merge to main directly. Or the polecats can submit MRs and then the Mayor can merge them manually. It's really up to you. The Refineries are useful if you have done a LOT of up-front specification work, and you have huge piles of Beads to churn through with long convoys.
That's from the Gas Town Emergency User Manual which would be a great name for a work of surrealist speculative fiction but is quite literally a user manual.
Looking at Gas Town (and Beads) from the outside, it looks like a Mad Max cult. What are polecats, refineries, mayors, beads, convoys doing in an agentic coding system? If the maintainer is in the loop, and the whole community is in on this mad ride, then everyone and their daemons just throw more slop up. As an external observer the whole project looks like an insane psychosis or a complete mad art project. Except, it's real? Or is it not? Apparently a reason for slowdown in Gas Town is contention on figuring out the version of Beads, which takes 7 subprocess spawns. Or using the doctor command times out completely. Beads keeps growing and growing in complexity and people who are using it, are realizing that it's almost impossible to uninstall. And they might not even work well together even though one apparently depends on the other.
What is Beads?

Beads is a quarter of a million lines of code to manage Markdown files in Git repositories.

I have written entire enterprise systems with paying customers and decade-long track records that are no larger than that.

But I didn't have agentic AI to help me, so they actually worked.

There's a term in programming called technical debt, which measures the cost of a quick fix that you know you will have to rip out and fix properly one day.

Vibe coding is the technical debt singularity.

Tech News

Minecraft-meets-Torchlight game Hytale supports modding out of the box. So someone modded in Hytale. (Tom's Hardware)

You can play the entire game inside the game.

You can also run Windows 95 as a mod inside Hytale.

And Doom.

The game has been out for a week.
Dumbphone owners have lost their minds: The deranged rantings of a smartphone owner. (Wired)

It's hard to know where to even start with this. The author - self-reportedly Gen Z - has a crippling codependency with her iPhone, and her friends who have abandoned such devices for dumbphones are crippled without them.

They're like walking, talking, quarter-million line codebases that can only do a single task, and fail even at athat.
Minisforum is planning to introduce the DeskMini BD395i Max - a mini-ITX motherboard with a Ryzen 395 CPU, up to 128GB of soldered RAM, and a PCIe slot. (Notebook Check)

Okay. Sure.

Let me know when you have something out in a Zen 6, okay?

Musical Interlude

Disclaimer: That'll do, dog.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:03 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 BOING!

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 20, 2026 04:03 AM (ZD9Z9)

2 G'mornin' everyone!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at January 20, 2026 04:04 AM (Cjt/F)

3 G'Day everyone

Posted by: Skip at January 20, 2026 04:04 AM (Ia/+0)

4 !!

Posted by: clarence at January 20, 2026 04:04 AM (VL3/h)

5 Morning all.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at January 20, 2026 04:04 AM (BLOW1)

6 Evening and morning, Pixy and the rest of the Horde. I'm up way earlier than usual. No fault of cats this time, just one o' them things.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:05 AM (wzUl9)

7 eh, technical debt is not just a programming thing; it works just as well in all of the real-world infrastructure.

If it has a name on the mechanical side of things I've never heard it, but it's there all the same.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at January 20, 2026 04:08 AM (Cjt/F)

8 Twelve O'Clock High, the original movie w/ Gregory Peck, is on Movies! right now. Solid B & W film from 1949.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:09 AM (wzUl9)

9 Mornin'

There is a special election here in my little part of Babylon DC. A token GOP is running for the seat. Richmond has been taken over by marxists. Guess I'll vote this morning. He's got no chance at all, not here in Soviet Fairfax but WTH. I still root for the Pittsburgh Pirates and they've been eliminated from the '26 playoffs already.

youtu.be/5Ue4_MWwKY8

Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at January 20, 2026 04:10 AM (sAmhv)

10 The game has been out for a week.
----

All that creativity out in the wild and you can focus it with a game?

Posted by: clarence at January 20, 2026 04:10 AM (VL3/h)

11 Watching Cyber CPU guy's new video on totally removing AI from Win11:

https://youtu.be/PiC_XpVtzLY

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 20, 2026 04:11 AM (ZD9Z9)

12 "They're like walking, talking, quarter-million line codebases that can only do a single task, and fail even at that."

LOL!

another concept of broad applicability!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at January 20, 2026 04:12 AM (Cjt/F)

13 >>>eh, technical debt is not just a programming thing; it works just as well in all of the real-world infrastructure.

If it has a name on the mechanical side of things I've never heard it, but it's there all the same.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez

>Jury rig? Jerry rig? It means you end up doing shit twice instead of doing it right the first time?

Posted by: Rev. Wishbone at January 20, 2026 04:13 AM (oT7pT)

14 >Jury rig? Jerry rig? It means you end up doing shit twice instead of doing it right the first time?
----

Not enough time to do it right but you can make the time to do it again.

Example #31419 why I hate working for other people.

Posted by: clarence at January 20, 2026 04:16 AM (VL3/h)

15 >Jury rig? Jerry rig? It means you end up doing shit twice instead of doing it right the first time?
Posted by: Rev. Wishbone at January 20, 2026

***
Many kids I knew in jr. high and later had another term for it, the "n****r rig." These same people called mayonnaise "my-nez," girls' hair of a certain dark blonde shade "dirty blonde," and pronounced the name of the kitchen dishwashing receptacle as "zink," so I never took them seriously.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:19 AM (wzUl9)

16 PDJT has been president for a year. Ain't that something!?!

The inauguration was on Monday night, and I already knew I wouldn't have to go to work the next day; that was the time of the Big Snow here. So I stayed up to watch the show. There just seemed to be so much *joy* in the air among the participants, didn't there? As well as among Trump supporters.

After four horrible years of Joey the Crayon-Eater, it felt . . . amazing.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:25 AM (wzUl9)

17 There's a term in programming called technical debt, which measures the cost of a quick fix that you know you will have to rip out and fix properly one day.
----

More likely known as "I rented out the apartment and have you finished the remodel yet?"

Posted by: clarence at January 20, 2026 04:28 AM (VL3/h)

18 This was my "God incident" for Sunday. The solution to the Wonderword for Sunday ( It's a game where you circle letters that form words and the left over words form a phrase or word) was "There was Jesus" which apparently is a Country western song by Dolly Parton and Zach Williams and here it is:

https://tinyurl.com/5n6smwnn

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 04:29 AM (PFs9e)

19 >>>Two things to clarify from yesterday. First, that quote at the top of the post explaining the DRAM Apocalypse was from Jatin Malik, an engineer at Atlassian.

I googled that and got it and stuck it in the comments.

w00t

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 04:32 AM (SSiCQ)

20 Fen, that's not a Dolly song I know. Did you know she turned 80 the other day? She's had an amazing life -- close to sixty years of it as a performer. The old Porter Wagoner show used to be on local TV on Saturday evenings when I was a kid. I paid little attention to it, not being a country fan then, and so I don't recall if she was on it then or not.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:35 AM (wzUl9)

21 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January

I didn't know it either. I did know it was her birthday and finding that song encouraged me to look up some of her other Gospel music. I'm so "out of it" as far as country music that I didn't even know who Zach Williams is.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 04:39 AM (PFs9e)

22 From IMDb: "[Dolly] fell in love with Carl Dean, who ran an asphalt-paving business; they married on May 30, 1966 and they stayed married until his death in 2025. In 1967 her singing caught the attention of Porter Wagoner, who hired her to appear on his program, The Porter Wagoner Show (1961). She stayed with the show for 7 years, their duets became famous, and she appeared with his group at the Grand Ole Opry; she also toured and sold records."

So she was not on the show when I recall glimpsing it. I'm sure I'd have remembered her.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:40 AM (wzUl9)

23 And Robert Stacy McCain gives some advice on "How to stay sane in crazy times." He recommends viewing sports if you like that, or some other hobby.

https://tinyurl.com/4b9exsuz

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 04:42 AM (PFs9e)

24 Here's a good one you may have found already, Fen...
https://tinyurl.com/mtkc2723

Posted by: Don in SoCo at January 20, 2026 04:42 AM (vd6bO)

25 Being bombarded with Frontier fiber ads, but soon as Verizon takes over Frontier and what changes will Verizon make. I already have fiber from a local account, but Frontier promises to give me the moon, stars and cheap fiber, for now. I will stick with what I have even thought both are on my street. 7 gig fiber, I don't need that for browsing the internet.

Posted by: Colin at January 20, 2026 04:44 AM (wlQdF)

26 I assume watching a YouTube here counts on that YouTube view.
After seeing a video hete grts them on my YouTube app

Posted by: Skip at January 20, 2026 04:44 AM (Ia/+0)

27 I didn't know it either. I did know it was her birthday and finding that song encouraged me to look up some of her other Gospel music. I'm so "out of it" as far as country music that I didn't even know who Zach Williams is.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026

***
I don't know Williams either. Modern country has lost what it used to have, the kind of "story songs" that caught at your heart, and the sense of "fun" in tunes like "I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home." Though even that had a thread of seriousness to it: A wife is fed up with her husband's drinking at bars, so she proclaims she's going to make their house over into a honky-tonk bar so he'll stay at home with her.

If you don't know Randy Travis's "Three Wooden Crosses," I suggest you look it up. It's like a complete short story in song and has a wonderful Christian message.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:44 AM (wzUl9)

28 >>>There's a term in programming called technical debt, which measures the cost of a quick fix that you know you will have to rip out and fix properly one day.

That's a useful term. It would drive me crazy to pile up a bunch of those.
*I am not a coder.

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 04:44 AM (SSiCQ)

29 Here's a good one you may have found already, Fen...
https://tinyurl.com/mtkc2723
Posted by: Don in SoCo at January 20, 2026

***
A classic -- originally from a guy called Don Francisco. We used to play his stuff at the Christian radio station. Dolly's voice is perfect for it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:47 AM (wzUl9)

30 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes. 17 cold degrees here at Stately Poppins Manor, but I assure you the weather is not nearly as cold, bleak and hopeless as my heart and soul.

I see Schlicter tossing out the usual "if you want justice, you have to wait" bushwa, the usual ground prep for the whine of "gosh, we WANT to prosecute people, but those mean old judges won't let us!"

I look forward to hearing the DoJs sensible-sounding legalism to explain why Don Lemon won't even have his hair mussed, let alone be arrested.

You will see Elvis cornholing Bigfoot in Rockefeller Plaza before you see Lemon perp-walked. I guarantee it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 20, 2026 04:48 AM (ufSfZ)

31 Man writes Christian devotional on 1st Peter 4.12-19 and "Our Birthright in Christ."
Our Daily Bread devotional:

https://tinyurl.com/ytxx26na

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 04:51 AM (ix8EF)

32 30 I see Schlicter tossing out the usual "if you want justice, you have to wait" bushwa
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 20, 2026 04:48 AM (ufSfZ)

heh; bushwa

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 04:52 AM (SSiCQ)

33 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes. 17 cold degrees here at Stately Poppins Manor. . . .
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 20, 2026

***
MP4, I read that as "47" degrees at first, and was about to post that it's only a little cooler here, 42. Nope.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:52 AM (wzUl9)

34 Thanks, very much ,Don in SoCo and Wolfus. I will look those up a little later.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 04:53 AM (ix8EF)

35 I believe that jury-rig is the older of the two terms by quite a bit and comes from the world of sailing where it is is strictly employed, even today (one would not use jerry-rig on a sailboat for sure, maybe one of those noisy powerboat contraptions) but I believe jerry-rig is also really old. So one can also use jerry-rig in any other setting than marine, I would say. Hmm might have to research this a bit more.

*Goes humming off to peruse his very old Webster's Unabridged inherited from his father, not to be seen until bedtime.

Posted by: Publius Redux at January 20, 2026 04:54 AM (/aZwr)

36 30 I look forward to hearing the DoJs sensible-sounding legalism to explain why Don Lemon won't even have his hair mussed, let alone be arrested.

You will see Elvis cornholing Bigfoot in Rockefeller Plaza before you see Lemon perp-walked. I guarantee it.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 20, 2026 04:48 AM (ufSfZ)

The violation of a sacred space is infuriating. There is some hope, maybe, that this time they went Too Far.

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 04:54 AM (SSiCQ)

37 The other classic country "story song" I love and say that it's a complete short story is Garth Brooks's "The Beaches of Cheyenne." Like a lot of the material he did in his early years in the spotlight, it is dynamite -- and seems to be something that nobody in country music had ever done before.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:55 AM (wzUl9)

38 A classic -- originally from a guy called Don Francisco. We used to play his stuff at the Christian radio station. Dolly's voice is perfect for it.
_-_
Yeah, Don Fransisco's stuff is great! Apparently I had his and John Michael Talbot's songwriting mixed up in my head. Both worth a listen.

Posted by: Don in SoCo at January 20, 2026 04:55 AM (vd6bO)

39 Dad saved by his seven year old daughter. Sunny Skyz site:

https://tinyurl.com/4ej6s4a9

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 04:55 AM (ix8EF)

40
jury-rigged
adjective
(of a ship) having temporary makeshift rigging.
• mainly North American English makeshift; improvised: jury-rigged classrooms in gymnasiums.

DERIVATIVES
jury-rig
verb

ORIGIN
late 18th century: jury perhaps based on Old French ajurie ‘aid’.

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 04:58 AM (SSiCQ)

41 8 Twelve O'Clock High, the original movie w/ Gregory Peck, is on Movies! right now. Solid B & W film from 1949.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 04:09 AM (wzUl9)

That's one of those that I watch whenever it's on. Don't know why - maybe this baby-boomer can only contemplate in silent awe the courage and sacrifice those young men made for our country and for freedom.

I don't know if I would have had the courage to do what they did.

I set the rest of the movie to record.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at January 20, 2026 05:01 AM (QGaXH)

42 Jerry-rig, jerry-rigged isn't showing up in the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Maybe jerry-built?

jerry-built
adjective
badly or hastily built with materials of poor quality: behind the house was a jerry-built shack.

ORIGIN
mid 19th century: origin unknown; sometimes said to be from the name of a firm of builders in Liverpool, or to allude to the walls of Jericho, which fell down at the sound of Joshua's trumpets (Josh. 6:20).

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 05:02 AM (SSiCQ)

43 Working at Christian AM radio in the late '80s and into the late '90s, I came to a strong appreciation of the best of that music. It was no longer all choir music, hymns, or old-style gospel music, I learned. The songwriters and singers who came along then had grown up with pop music and were influenced by it, melding the Christian message with solid and often catchy tunes. "He's Alive" is one of the very best of all time. Not only the story we all know, but a driving and haunting melody too.

I found out only recently that Herb Alpert's 1967 album cut, "Wade in the Water," an irresistible and haunting melody too, is an old-time gospel song. I was flipping through the hymnal at Miss Linda's Catholic church and happened to run across it. Amazing.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 05:02 AM (wzUl9)

44 Wife likes to check the deck thermometer, earlier she said 10 degrees, phone saying 14

Posted by: Skip at January 20, 2026 05:05 AM (Ia/+0)

45 maybe this baby-boomer can only contemplate in silent awe the courage and sacrifice those young men made for our country and for freedom.

I don't know if I would have had the courage to do what they did.

I set the rest of the movie to record.
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at January 20, 2026

***
And it's even more amazing when you realize they were in for the duration. Vietnam guys, I understand, knew they were only in for a year or so unless they re-upped. In WWI and WWII, and probably Korea (?), unless you were badly wounded, you were in it until the war was over.

Though I believe there was something called "points," which you earned in service. The impression I have is that once you reached a certain total, you could go home. I don't know how that worked.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 05:07 AM (wzUl9)

46 As per TJM, started watching Ran on Tubi but it had no subtitles, found 7 Samurai with subtitles so started that last night.

Posted by: Skip at January 20, 2026 05:07 AM (Ia/+0)

47 Havd a great day horde

Posted by: Skip at January 20, 2026 05:12 AM (Ia/+0)

48
g'mornin', 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at January 20, 2026 05:12 AM (tljrc)

49 The 1932 The Most Dangerous Game w/ Joel McCrea and Fay Wray is coming up on Movies! at 5 am central. I know of it, but have never seen it. This would have been the year before Fay became famous for her turn in King Kong.

As for McCrea, he was a solid performer for several decades. His title role as "Sergeant Hook" with Barbara Stanwyck in the '50s is a great adaptation of the Jack Schaefer Western short story (which I admire tremendously), and he is perfectly cast.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 05:13 AM (wzUl9)

50 Gas Town sounds like it's an MMO game in a novel where the players don't know they're doing real work that is making the company immensely wealthy beyond their cover as a games company. Kind of a variation on 'Severance', which itslef is an homage to a brief late 60s trope in Science fiction after the publication of some influential neurology research. This also inspired Julian Jaynes and his wacko theory.

Posted by: Epobirs at January 20, 2026 05:13 AM (/0z9K)

51 Conscripted soldiers should always have different ROE. Total obliteration. If you volunteer, that's a whole different thing.

Posted by: Rev. Wishbone at January 20, 2026 05:15 AM (oT7pT)

52 >>>Dumbphone owners have lost their minds: The deranged rantings of a smartphone owner. (Wired)

She appears to have been paid by the word.

This seems a useful takeaway:

In 1985, the ... psychologist Daniel Wegner published a theory about intimate human relationships called transactive memory. He argued that long-term couples store information in one another....

but not much else.

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 05:20 AM (SSiCQ)

53 G'morning Horde.

Pixy: I see from your articles that there is a substantial amount of insanity out there. I'm going to need more coffee to deal with that.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at January 20, 2026 05:26 AM (O7YUW)

54 Having my breakfast now, after two small cups of coffee and a short pipe. The furry thugs are looking at me like "Well, come on, when's OUR breakfast???" But if I feed them this early, Stirling will get the idea to wake me up in the small hours even more than he does now.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 05:29 AM (wzUl9)

55 Good morning! Pretty damn chilly out on the patio this morning and we're supposed to have rain and freezing rain late this week. Typical stock show weather. But I have seen some robins at the feeders, the tulips are up about 2 inches and the daffodils are about 8 inches now, so it seems like spring is close.

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at January 20, 2026 05:30 AM (3Ope8)

56 Greetings and good morning one and all. I have returned from the dystopian hellscape that is California.

OK, mom and dad's retirement community isn't really a hellscape but work with me here!

Posted by: NR Pax at January 20, 2026 05:33 AM (BpO1e)

57 And today's school bus driving humor from FenSpouse who found this passage from Psalm 144:

"Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children."

It really means "alien" children but I laughed. One kid, "L" gets a thumbs up or down to signal "It was a good day" today- meaning he wasn't getting g out of his seat to wander around and cause trouble. He got a thumbs up last Friday.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 05:37 AM (ix8EF)

58 Man in Toronto tries to make riding public transit a less lonely and nicer experience. Scroll down. Tiny URL not working:

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 05:44 AM (ix8EF)

59 Posted by: NR Pax at January 20, 2026 05:33 AM (BpO1e)

Glad you are back safely.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 05:45 AM (ix8EF)

60 Glad you are back safely.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke

Thank you. And I really appreciated having an extra day off yesterday.

Posted by: NR Pax at January 20, 2026 05:49 AM (BpO1e)

61 Maybe I'll wait and vote this afternoon. It will be sunny and cold, as suppose to now when its dark and cold. I could use a walk anyway. I'm tired, going to bed soon.

Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at January 20, 2026 05:49 AM (sAmhv)

62 Posted by: NR Pax at January 20, 2026 05:49 AM (BpO1e)

Yes; That is a good thing after all that travel.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 20, 2026 05:52 AM (ix8EF)

63 “ Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!”

Isaiah 30:18

Posted by: Marcus T at January 20, 2026 05:52 AM (upeQk)

64 "My friend Lilah is the crunchiest person I know.
She refuses to kill bugs and rats."

Oh, tons of dogshit. That article is fecal matter of the worst kind (which horseshit wasn't, but was well known when horses were the motive power of the world)

Posted by: Richard Cranium at January 20, 2026 05:58 AM (sgQOs)

65 >>>Second, brains are computers.

It's a fun topic.
Some really engaging replies late in the comments of yesterday's tech thread.

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 06:01 AM (SSiCQ)

66 from yesterday's tech thread:

142 The human brain is not a computer. It's a filter.
Posted by: Deplorable Dave at January 19, 2026 02:28 PM (4JGHb)

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 06:02 AM (SSiCQ)

67 "Did you know she turned 80 the other day?"

I hope the memory of her mammaries live forever.

Posted by: Richard Cranium at January 20, 2026 06:02 AM (sgQOs)

68 also from yesterday's tech thread:

140 I can compute with my brain, true. But my brain does much more than that. After all, I can count on my fingers. Does that mean that my fingers are a computer?
The real question is, What is this "I" who is doing these things - who is peering out from behind those two eyeballs to take in the world and perceive and interact with it? Who is running the BASIC code and counting on the fingers? I have no answer to that question. But claiming that it's merely a bigger, faster version of what my old Z-80 does, is a reductio beyond absurdum. IMHO.
Posted by: Nemo at January 19, 2026 12:19 PM (v/D5+)

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 06:02 AM (SSiCQ)

69 "Being bombarded with Frontier fiber ads, but soon as Verizon takes over Frontier and what changes will Verizon make."

I lived where Verizon installed fiber optic cable in Carrollton, TX. They called it FIOS. Eventually, they sold it off to Frontier. I guess it's making money now and they want it back.

I won't bet against a company fucking up a wet dream, but maybe there's someone left who could remind the suits why what they acquired was making money when the original company did not.

Posted by: Richard Cranium at January 20, 2026 06:06 AM (sgQOs)

70 mornin yall. A long time ago in another lifetime I went to an IBM management training class and they showed us "12:00 High". They didn't even give us any popcorn, just some dumb workbook.

Posted by: fd at January 20, 2026 06:08 AM (vFG9F)

71 Really, I don't think it's a question a lot of people ask themselves or care about? I haz computer brain? I think it's much more important whether machines can be conscious or even be considered alive. Wetware is the idea of bridging between the organic and the inorganic. Look at neuralink, and don't you think the Mengele/NAZI Chinese are creating some Frankestein monster shit already?

Posted by: I was meh, now I am me, soon just m? Nooo... at January 20, 2026 06:08 AM (N462N)

72 Dolly:

Here you come again just when I've begun to get myself together
You waltz right in the door just like you've done before
And wrap my heart 'round your little finger

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 06:08 AM (SSiCQ)

73 Pixy, computers are designed. Are brains designed?

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at January 20, 2026 06:09 AM (KhXwI)

74 Boy, The Most Dangerous Game starts fast. Ten minutes in and Joel McCrea has already washed up on the island where he will have his dangerous contest.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 06:10 AM (wzUl9)

75 Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

Rejoinder: Baa. Ram. Ewe.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at January 20, 2026 06:11 AM (X4XpB)

76 Isn't AI trying to put some human elements like rationalization into computing?

You can build robots but only G-d can make a human

Posted by: Ben Had at January 20, 2026 06:13 AM (0KSrI)

77 Boy, The Most Dangerous Game starts fast. Ten minutes in and Joel McCrea has already washed up on the island where he will have his dangerous contest.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 06:10 AM (wzUl9)
-----------
A lot of movies of that era don't waste any time. Think "The Adventures of Robin Hood" or "Casablanca," which hit the ground running.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at January 20, 2026 06:15 AM (X4XpB)

78 Alert: today is Penguin Awareness Day. Please be aware of any penguins in your vicinity.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at January 20, 2026 06:16 AM (X4XpB)

79 Time for me to shower and shave, I suppose. Back later.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 20, 2026 06:16 AM (wzUl9)

80 I think the videos showing the dregs of society that attend US colleges now indicate that a lot those students are biological LLMs.

They don't have a truth model.

They want to see what google tells them about anything.

That's only the students who were not full communist; the new commies are running earlier programming.

Posted by: Richard Cranium at January 20, 2026 06:17 AM (sgQOs)

81 Gonna go to work earlier than normal. Snow days means lots of snow built up on the bus. Those things take a while to clear off.

Have a great day everyone.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at January 20, 2026 06:18 AM (O7YUW)

82 78 Alert: today is Penguin Awareness Day. Please be aware of any penguins in your vicinity.
Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at January 20, 2026 06:16 AM (X4XpB)

Thank you for the reminder.

Posted by: m at January 20, 2026 06:20 AM (SSiCQ)

83 And in better news, our new dog has settled in quite well. Like many greyhounds, he understands the importance of constant napping.

Posted by: NR Pax at January 20, 2026 06:23 AM (BpO1e)

84 The problem with technical debt is that is that it rarely get repaid. That's why many long-running codebases become a house of cards.

Posted by: Halfhand at January 20, 2026 06:26 AM (+Zbod)

85 lol - typos. more coffee

Posted by: Halfhand at January 20, 2026 06:27 AM (+Zbod)

86 At the NYP right now:

"Rogue penguin kills nearly two dozen people in 10-day-long rampage"

Posted by: fd at January 20, 2026 06:28 AM (vFG9F)

87 Oops, misread it. That rogue "elephant".

Posted by: fd at January 20, 2026 06:28 AM (vFG9F)

88 And in better news, our new dog has settled in quite well. Like many greyhounds, he understands the importance of constant napping.
Posted by: NR Pax at January 20, 2026 06:23 AM (BpO1e)
------------
When the dog track was still open, you used to see a lot of greyhounds (and the occasional whippet) around town. Now, not so much.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at January 20, 2026 06:29 AM (X4XpB)

89 "Rogue penguin kills nearly two dozen people in 10-day-long rampage"
Posted by: fd at January 20, 2026 06:28 AM (vFG9F)
---------
Those Adelies are mean buggers. Carry a shiv concealed under the flipper.

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at January 20, 2026 06:31 AM (X4XpB)

90 Will today be the day that Don Lemon gets probed? Sources say "yes".

Posted by: fd at January 20, 2026 06:31 AM (vFG9F)

91 Will today be the day that Don Lemon gets probed? Sources say "yes".
Posted by: fd at January 20, 2026 06:31 AM (vFG9F)
-------
Actual Consequences??

Posted by: Captain Obvious, Laird o' the Sea at January 20, 2026 06:32 AM (X4XpB)

92 Pray for Tina Peters.

Posted by: Sam Adams at January 20, 2026 06:33 AM (X+xvk)

93 "You can build robots but only G-d can make a human"

I've made two, but I just lost the second one in the oven. Try again in a month. My wife and God have to help though--I really can't do it alone.

Posted by: I was meh, now I am me, soon just m? Nooo... at January 20, 2026 06:33 AM (N462N)

Processing 0.02, elapsed 0.0206 seconds.
15 queries taking 0.0068 seconds, 102 records returned.
Page size 68 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.