Daily Tech News 23 February 2026

Top Story

The US spent $30 billion giving every schoolchild a laptop or tablet. It made them dumber. (Yahoo)

And particularly less capable to maintain attention to the task at hand.

How do we solve this?

I don't know, I got distracted and stopped reading at that point.

Tech News

Speaking of making people dumber Colorado is the latest state looking to bring in total surveillance and violate the First and Second Amendments at the same time. (Tom's Hardware)

The target yet again is 3D printers and their offensive ability to print in 3D things that are absolutely legal to own but the state government does not want you to have.
Memory prices are slowly edging back down in Europe. (Tom's Hardware)

Again, this is from five times what they were just six months ago close to four times.

Oh, and those cheap Minisforum mini-PCs I bought back around Christmas?

The 32GB model is now selling for twice as much as I paid for the 64GB model.
A hacker using AI tools broke into 600 poorly configured FortiGate firewalls around the world. (Bleeping Computer)

How do we know he was using AI tools?

He left the servers he set up to do the hacking completely unsecured.

Good job all round.
Another hacker got into the French government's databases and made off with the details of 1.2 million bank accounts. (The Register)

Incroyable!
Diablo II is available on Steam with new DLC. (Notebook Check)

You will need at least an AMD FX 4350 and a Radeon HD 7850 to run it, or in other words, any reasonably capable potato. Despite using 125W the 4350 was significantly slower than a modern ultra low power budget chip like Intel's 6W N150.

It does cost $30 so maybe wait for a sale, but it is remastered and getting very positive reviews.
AI gives us the tools to finally clean up legacy systems and to quickly create more of them. (The Register)

I maintain a million-line Python 2.7 back-end application at my day job. It just works, and while moving to Python 3 is not hard, testing a million lines of code is.

Using AI to generate and validate a vast swarm of tests makes that upgrade viable.

It also means that people who don't know what they are doing can churn out unmaintainable slop at hitherto unimaginable rates.

Musical Interlude

Disclaimer: Viking warriors? In Egypt?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 w00t

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 04:02 AM (+YA9H)

2 Morning all

Posted by: Tuna at February 23, 2026 04:02 AM (lJ0H4)

3 Another hacker got into the French government's databases and made off with the details of 1.2 million bank accounts. (The Register)

Incroyable!

Sacre bleu!

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 04:05 AM (+YA9H)

4 Mornin'

youtu.be/QxIWDmmqZzY

Couldn't like a USA Hockey vid with Freebird attached to it I liked so I'll just post the live version from 1977 Oakland Coliseum. There were white people living in Oakland in 1977 apparently.

:-)

Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at February 23, 2026 04:09 AM (sAmhv)

5 While nosing around yesterday on the website Slashdot--which I pretty much never do--I was somehow (no idea) rerouted to the RSS-related URL

feed://slashdot.org/index.rss

which threw up a skanky-looking query:

Do you want to allow this website to open "Mail"?
cancel allow

Well, cancel.

To worry or not to worry?

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 04:14 AM (+YA9H)

6 Too many Democrats moved here in Califrado (or is it Colofornia?) when marijuana was legalized. I with those surfer and skier dudes, who can barely run their own lives, would just go back to Gavincountry and leave the rest of us alone.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at February 23, 2026 04:15 AM (BGy50)

7
Snow, wet at the bottom, is out there tonight. How deep it is, I do not know.

I can wait three more hours to find out how much. 'Nite all!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at February 23, 2026 04:22 AM (xG4kz)

8 Holger Danske fought against the m00hamedans

Posted by: TheCatAttackedMyFoot at February 23, 2026 04:30 AM (jrgJz)

9 4
youtu.be/QxIWDmmqZzY

Couldn't like a USA Hockey vid with Freebird attached to it I liked so I'll just post the live version from 1977 Oakland Coliseum.
Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at February 23, 2026 04:09 AM (sAmhv)

That could almost replace caffeine.

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 04:31 AM (+YA9H)

10 G'Day everyone
Was awake for quite awhile after my 2am post

Posted by: Skip at February 23, 2026 04:32 AM (Ia/+0)

11 Work git called off last night. Guessing looking out maybe 4 sticky inches of snow, everything is coated.

Posted by: Skip at February 23, 2026 04:33 AM (Ia/+0)

12 BOING!

>> How do we solve this?
-

I don't know. I got distracted and stopped reading at this point.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at February 23, 2026 04:34 AM (UzL96)

13 50F and pouring in the foggy highlands of northern Israel.

Soup weather.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at February 23, 2026 04:35 AM (UzL96)

14 To worry or not to worry?
Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 04:14 AM (+YA9H)

Don't worry, Mail is probably just your RSS reader. I remember using Outlook Express for that... And then I decided that I would rather not try to drink from a firehose, and stopped using RSS.

Posted by: SciVo at February 23, 2026 04:43 AM (Sy6m/)

15 Colorado has gone downhill. Suppose Denver and Bolder are the reason. Big cities and universities attract liberals. Slack laws on drugs attract them too. Like flies to shit. Use to be Colorado was a good state to live in but the political change has ruined the state. May as well be California.

Posted by: Case at February 23, 2026 04:45 AM (Z3Kkg)

16 14 To worry or not to worry?
Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 04:14 AM (+YA9H)

Don't worry, Mail is probably just your RSS reader. I remember using Outlook Express for that... And then I decided that I would rather not try to drink from a firehose, and stopped using RSS.
Posted by: SciVo at February 23, 2026 04:43 AM (Sy6m/)

Thank you!

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 04:53 AM (+YA9H)

17 Morning, Tech Peeps

Posted by: fluffy at February 23, 2026 05:00 AM (AN2gy)

18 Oops....Boulder
Damn it's early.

Posted by: Case at February 23, 2026 05:04 AM (Z3Kkg)

19 15 Colorado has gone downhill. Suppose Denver and Bolder are the reason. Big cities and universities attract liberals. Slack laws on drugs attract them too. Like flies to shit. Use to be Colorado was a good state to live in but the political change has ruined the state. May as well be California.
Posted by: Case at February 23, 2026 04:45 AM (Z3Kkg)

@jarvis_best is in Colorado, I think.

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 05:05 AM (+YA9H)

20 Bolder Boulder!

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 05:06 AM (+YA9H)

21 Bolder Boulder!

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 05:06 AM (+YA9H)
-

Balderdash!

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at February 23, 2026 05:08 AM (UzL96)

22 Mental As Anything - If You Leave Me

"If you leave me,
Can I come too?"

haha

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 05:13 AM (+YA9H)

23 G'morning, all!

32.7 degrees out.

Plenty of wind gust on top of that.

Maybe I'll walk later, but not right now.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at February 23, 2026 05:17 AM (iMotb)

24 olorado has gone downhill
_-_
I have a friend over on the western slope who told me, "You know, back during the oil boom, we were afraid you Texans were gonna buy up all of Colorado, and now that the Californians are here, we're kinda wishin' you had."

Posted by: Don in SoCo at February 23, 2026 05:17 AM (vd6bO)

25 22 Mental As Anything - If You Leave Me

"If you leave me,
Can I come too?"

haha
Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 05:13 AM (+YA9H)

I think that needs another comma:

"If you leave me,
Can I come, too?"

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 05:17 AM (+YA9H)

26
g'mornin', 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at February 23, 2026 05:21 AM (tljrc)

27 Thewiktionary wiki provides anagrams
Why would they do that?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/
sacré_bleu

Posted by: m at February 23, 2026 05:24 AM (+YA9H)

28 Seems like Mexico might have a Cartel Management problem.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at February 23, 2026 05:33 AM (iMotb)

29 Meanwhile, south of the border, the anarchists on ALL sides are running the show:

https://tinyurl.com/4cxjy39d

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at February 23, 2026 05:35 AM (UzL96)

30 Great morons think alike!

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at February 23, 2026 05:35 AM (UzL96)

31 "The US spent $30 billion giving every schoolchild a laptop or tablet. It made them dumber."

I suspect the tablets and laptops are being used as a convenient deflection point to explain why little Johnny can't read, can't do math, doesn't know where places in the world are, and doesn't know what happened before.

Try looking at the inadequate curricula, the math teachers who hate math and don't want to teach it, the push to indoctrinate with insane ideologies instead of teaching useful skills to kids, and all the other insanity that's infected the schools in the past 60 years since the communists decided to take control of those (and the children) in order to capture and/or destroy the future of the West.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 23, 2026 05:36 AM (O7YUW)

32 Yeah, pretty much.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at February 23, 2026 05:44 AM (BLOW1)

33 "The 32GB model is now selling for twice as much as I paid for the 64GB model."

I can't imagine being a reseller of consumer computing equipment right now and being squeezed hard from both directions:

a) Can't get supply, and if you can it's insanely expensive and in too small of quantities to meet demand.
b) Customers who are looking at the prices and saying "Oh HELL no." (and walking out.)

If the AI bubble doesn't pop soon such that the supply of memory chips is redirected to the starving consumer electronics market real-soon-now, the consumer electronics market won't BE there to save those big three memory companies, and there will be a cascade failure and economic shock like we haven't seen since the great depression.

Boy howdy, I'm just full of cheer this morning.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 23, 2026 06:01 AM (O7YUW)

34 Good morning!

https://tinyurl.com/4cxjy39d

Other than stating the obvious, which is that Mexico's government is mostly owned by and operated on cartel money, I'd venture to say that a not-so-insignificant portion of the US is as well.

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at February 23, 2026 06:01 AM (3Ope8)

35 I should get up and see what this Winter Hell brought me

Posted by: Skip at February 23, 2026 06:03 AM (Ia/+0)

36 34: there main market and customers is the US and Canada.

So, yes. 😐

Posted by: Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come at February 23, 2026 06:07 AM (sAmhv)

37 Young men help elderly woman to her car with groceries. Faithpot site :

https://tinyurl.com/2fk4jppp

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 23, 2026 06:09 AM (PFs9e)

38 Kind message from a 13 year old on a door camera :

https://tinyurl.com/bdh3fxsb

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at February 23, 2026 06:11 AM (PFs9e)

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