Enjoyed the slides from @menno

https://menno.io/presentations/not-python-2026/index.html

which capture much of my own Python arc, from falling in love with it, using it for just about everything (including contemplating a PythonOS), then finding places where it struggled (memory/CPU efficiency, runtime speed, deployment, etc). I haven't imbibed the Rust koolaid yet, but did turn to Golang for one project where Python just didn't give me the power/control/speed I needed.

Picard style tip: If you're balding, don't hide it. Own it.

I've been hearing noise about Microsoft trying to make Windows 11 usable with 8GB RAM in wake of the shortage.

Behold, 16MB: https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/dmesgd?do=view&id=8726

This is one of the best ideas I have ever had.

#SysadminLife #organization #technology

@mwl

In case the writing thing doesn't work out and you don't want to return to IT, you could always go into insurance…

(courtesy of my feed elsewhere)

"residential proxy network" is what you call a botnet when it's run by a corporation that will never be prosecuted for doing something that would land a 13 year old in jail for the rest of their life

[small brain] posting a bad quality overcompressed watermarked meme image
[normal brain] searching for and posting the highest available quality version
[galaxy brain] posting a cleanly downscaled version of that so your instance has to store less data
[cosmic brain] just posting the image description

I'm probably not breaking new ground here, but LLMs have made it very clear to me that there are broadly two ways that people approach performing a task - people who want the task done well, and people who want the status of having done the task.

LLMs are really appealing to that second group, because it lets you get the status of being a book-writer or app-publisher or whatever without all that tedious writing or programming.

So many POSIX 'RATIONALE' sections can be distilled to:

One vendor did stupid thing A. Another did stupid thing B. We defined this interface to permit both implementations because designing a third thing that's sensible is, sadly, not within our remit and there are existing consumers of both of the stupid APIs.

FUN FACT: "Roguelikes" are named as such because of the originator of the genre, Assassin's Creed Rogue

#roguelike #AssassinsCreed

Somehow I have #CultureClub on the brain this afternoon…

LinkedIn: A recruiter has a position you might be interested in!

Me: Fine. I guess I'll log in for the first time in the better part of a year and see what's up.

Recruiter: "I see you have SQL/web skills at [a short-term contract I works and ended 2yr ago], and we think you'd be a good fit."

Me: "What's the line of business and tech-stack I'd be working with?"

Recruiter: "It's a hybrid position."

Me: "Um, given the failure to answer my basic questions, I'm pretty sure this won't be a good fit. Thanks. Goodbye."

bash_profile vs bashrc

@neil

My website has exceptional SEO¹ value.

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¹ Self Entertainment Only

Sigh, as much fun as it might be to get a hit on one of those state "Unclaimed money" sites like https://www.claimittexas.gov, the search/sort/filter functionalities leave a LOT to be desired when your last name happens to coincide with a common first-name and also multiple major international banks. 😑

(FWIW, despite skimming through umpteen pages of results in various towns/cities we've lived in, zero results turned up. That said, I encourage other USAians to check for unclaimed-property in states where you've lived and hope you find something good.)

Ah, the trustworthiness of modern LLMs…

Independent of the charges, something about this news delights me: US Customs & Border Patrol tells a returning US citizen to unlock his phone, but he gives a duress passcode instead of his real one. So when USCBP entered it, @GrapheneOS wiped the device as instructed. 😆

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-protester-phone

I'm not quite sure what I think about implementing Doom in a regular-expression.

https://4rh1t3ct0r7.github.io/doom-regex/

There's something unholy about the mere concept.

Glad to be part of the outliers. This post

https://www.marginalia.nu/log/a_139_hdd/

by @marginalia was a good read.

My daily-driver laptop's disk is only about ⅓ full. And that's running ZFS with copies=2, so the actual data is about half that.

Checked my various VPS instances and most are <⅓ full too (I need to finish migrating family pictures to a new VPS with more disk space than the limited wee-disk it's currently on).

So while yes, Jevons Paradox is alive and well, but some of us work hard to avoid it. And the article's conclusion? Definitely, developing using ed/vi/vim on low-end hardware like RPi units with an 80×25 display means than my code tends to fly on more modern hardware.

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¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

systemd is short for system don't