Just my blogroll - BlogFlock

[$] LWN.net Weekly Edition for November 13, 2025 - LWN.net

2025-11-13T01:04:41.000Z

Inside this week's LWN.net Weekly Edition:

Front: FUSE performance; Magic kfuncs; Tails Linux; Direct I/O and modifying buffers; Working with bootable containers.
Briefs: Kernel LLM policy; Firefox 145; FHS; Homebrew 5.0.0; Mastodon 4.5; Public-inbox 2.0.0; Pytest 9.0.0; Quote; ...
Announcements: Newsletters, conferences, security updates, patches, and more.

You'll have to keep waiting for a Steam Deck 2, because Valve says the tech isn't there for it just yet - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T22:55:43.000Z

Undoubtedly the only thing anyone in the PC world will be talking about for the next week is Valve's trio of hardware announcements, the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame, and their new Steam Controller. But don't forget about the old Steam Deck just yet! While Valve didn't announce anything handheld related today, they have commented on where they're at when it comes to anything like a Steam Deck 2.

If you own any Steam Deck verified games, then you've already got a guarantee they'll work on the Steam Machine - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T20:25:50.000Z

How about that Steam Machine, 'ey? Consoles are now computers and computers are now consoles. What a topsy turvy world we're living in! I'm sure you have lots of questions, a lot of which I hope can be answered by James' hands-on look at the thing, but you may still be wondering how you'll know what games will actually work on it. The Steam Deck has its fancy verified badge that certifies that a game runs on the handheld, and it turns out that same badge is one that'll come in handy for the Steam Machine.

Homebrew 5.0.0 released - LWN.net

2025-11-12T19:10:33.000Z

Version 5.0.0 of the Homebrew package manager for Linux and macOS has been released. Notable changes in this release include download concurrency by default, official support for 64-bit Arm on Linux, and more.

Thanks to a massive community vote, Jagex are removing RuneScape's notorious Treasure Hunter microtransactions - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T19:03:16.000Z

Oh I do love a win! Today's is quite a surprising one, coming in the form of Jagex willingly removing some microtransactions from RuneScape after more than 120,000 people voted in favour of having them permanently removed from the game. To be frank, I am genuinely unsure if I have… well, ever seen a company do this simply because everyone hated them so much.

Valve reveal the new Steam Frame, Steam Controller and Steam Machine with SteamOS - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-11-12T18:14:58.000Z

The day has arrived, Valve have announced a major hardware expansion with multiple devices including the new Steam Frame, Steam Controller and Steam Machine.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2's latest patch offers up fixes, as a roadmap promises more improvements - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T18:10:55.000Z

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is, in Dominic's own words, "merely okay." I haven't played it myself, so I can't comment there, the general consensus seems to be in agreement on that point however. The Chinese Room are working on turning that around at least! Today they released a new patch for the RPG, containing a bunch of fixes, and offered up a small roadmap of improvements and DLC to come.

The Steam Frame is real, and Valve want it to be the last VR headset you'll ever buy - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T18:02:54.000Z

Deckard lives. Valve have officially announced the long-leaked Steam Frame virtual reality headset, and as rumoured, it is indeed a hybrid VR kit: one that can play both high-fidelity games streamed from a PC, and simpler stuff that’s installed on the headset itself. A departure, then, from the Valve Index’s pure focus on cabled-up PC VR.

Yet neither is it a Meta Quest 3 with a Valve badge on it. Besides its smartphone-spec internals breaking new ground for the kind of hardware that Steam games can run on, the Frame is built with modularity in mind, potentially making it as upgradable and long-lived as an actual PC. As well as their other new gear, the refreshed Steam Machine and Steam Controller, I gave the Steam Frame a test run during a recent Valve visit, and mostly liked what I saw – though it’ll need to make sure its ambitions to do everything in the VR space are more firmly realised than they are right now.

Valve’s new Steam Controller aims to entice a broader field of PC players, which I fear already includes me - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T18:00:19.000Z

Anyone who appreciated the weirdness of the original Steam Controller – and it still has its fans, despite ceasing production in 2019 – might look at this new version and think "Oi, that’s just a Steam Deck with the screen cut out." An accusation to which Valve, one suspects, might respond by slowly leaning forwards, eyes so wide they resemble the old version’s trackpads, staring the increasingly frightened sceptic in the face and whispering: "Yes."

Except the new Steam Controller has more to it than merely transplanting the Deck inputs to a homebound gamepad. Having squeezed, caressed, and on a couple of occasions nearly dropped it on the floor of Valve HQ last month, I can tell it’s already boding well not just as a controller for mouse-minded PC games, but as a general purpose pad for everything else.

Hands-on with the new Steam Machine, Valve’s square shot at SteamOS PC redemption - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T18:00:15.000Z

Remember Steam Machines? Valve do, and they’re making a new one. The circa-2026 Steam Machine (it’s out early next year, date and prices TBC) seeks to cleanse the bad juju of that previous attempt at bringing SteamOS mini-PCs to the masses, bringing together a decade's worth of hardware and software improvements – including some lessons learned from the far more successful Steam Deck.

Speaking of, when I visited Valve last month to try the Steam Machine for myself – along with the matching new Steam Controller and Steam Frame VR headset – I repeatedly heard it pitched as an upgrade for Deck owners who plant their handheld in a docking station and use it as a living room PC. Also like the Deck, there's only one, entirely Valve-made design, ditching the partner-manufacturer model that produced a sometimes confusing multitude of different Machines back in 2015. Well, at the very least, that’ll make previewing it a lot easier.

Valve announce a new Steam Machine, Steam Controller, and the Steam Frame VR headset – and I’ve played them - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T18:00:11.000Z

Ye gads, there’s three of them. You may have heard that a Valve hardware announcement was on the cards, but the Steam custodians’ biggest metal-and-circuits reveal since the Steam Deck actually concerns a power trio: a new Steam Machine, a new Steam Controller, and the Steam Frame hybrid VR headset. They're all official, and all coming (pricing and exact dates TBA) in early 2026.

I’ve had some quality hands-on time with them myself, having been mysteriously summoned to Valve HQ late last month (flying/accommodating on our own dime, before anyone gets clever). Full thoughts can be found in the links below, and I’ll say this up front: all three have a clear Steam Deck influence, be it the design language, the value of Proton-aided game compatibility, or simply the pleasure of a quality thumbstick. If you liked the handheld then... well, you might not necessarily like the Steam Machine, Controller, or Frame, but you’ll have already read the shorthand on where they’re coming from.

I Work For an Evil Company, but Outside Work, I’m Actually a Really Good Person - McSweeney’s

2025-11-12T18:00:00.000Z

I love my job. I make a great salary, there’s a clear path to promotion, and a never-ending supply of cold brew in the office. And even though my job requires me to commit sociopathic acts of evil that directly contribute to making the world a measurably worse place from Monday through Friday, five days a week, from morning to night, outside work, I’m actually a really good person.

Let me give you an example. Last quarter, I led a team of engineers on an initiative to grow my company’s artificial intelligence data centers, which use millions of gallons of water per day. My work with AI is exponentially accelerating the destruction of the planet, but once a month, I go camping to reconnect with my own humanity through nature. I also bike to and from the office, which definitely offsets all the other environmental destruction I work tirelessly to enact from sunup to sundown for an exorbitant salary. Check out this social media post of me biking up a mountain. See? This is who I really am.

Does the leadership at my company promote a xenophobic agenda and use the wealth I help them acquire to donate directly to bigoted causes and politicians I find despicable? Yeah, sure. Did I celebrate my last birthday at Drag Brunch? Also yes. I even tipped with five-dollar bills. I contain multitudes, and would appreciate it if you focused on the brunch one.

Mathematically, it might seem like I spend a disproportionate amount of my time making the world a significantly less safe and less empathetic place, but are you counting all the hours I spend sleeping? You should. And when you do, you’ll find that my ratio of evil hours to not evil hours is much more even, numerically.

I just don’t think working at an evil company should define me. I’ve only worked here for seven years. What about the twenty-five years before, when I didn’t work here? In fact, I wasn’t working at all for the first eighteen years of my life. And for some of those early years, I didn’t even have object permanence, which is oddly similar to the sociopathic detachment with which I now think about other humans.

And besides, I don’t plan to stay at this job forever, just for my prime working years, until I can install a new state-of-the-art infinity pool in my country home. The problem is that whenever I think I’m going to leave, there’s always the potential for a promotion, and also a new upgrade for the pool, like underwater disco lights. Time really flies when you’re not thinking about the effect you have on others.

But I absolutely intend to leave at some point. And when I do, you should define me by whatever I do next, unless it’s also evil, in which case, define me by how I ultimately spend my retirement.

Because here’s the thing: It’s not me committing these acts of evil. I’m just following orders (until I get promoted; then I’ll get to give them). But until then, I do whatever my supervisor tells me to do, and that’s just how work works. Sure, I chose to be here, and yes, I could almost certainly find a job elsewhere, but redoing my résumé would take time. Also, I don’t feel like it. Besides, once a year, my company mandates all employees to help clean up a local beach, and I almost always go.

Speaking of the good we do at work, sometimes I wear a cool Hawaiian shirt on Fridays, and it’s commonly accepted that bad people don’t wear shirts with flowers on them. That’s just a fact. There’s something so silly about discussing opportunities to increase profits for international arms dealers while wearing a purple button-down covered in bright hibiscus blossoms.

And when it comes to making things even, I put my money where my mouth is. I might make more than 99 percent of all Americans, but I also make sure to donate almost 1 percent of my salary to nonprofits. This way, I can wear their company tote bag to my local food coop. Did I mention I shop at a local food coop? It’s quite literally the least I could do.

Of course, I don’t love everything the company does, but true love means loving something because of its flaws, not despite them. And more importantly, I’ve completely detached myself from reality and real suffering and intend to continue to do so as long as I work here and after I leave.

Premières entrées de journal en français : la semaine du 3 au 9 novembre - Sacha Chua

2025-11-12T17:57:11.000Z

Je pratique le français en écrivant dans un journal avec l'aide de l'IA Gemini et de ma tutrice Claire. Elle a corrigé mon travail ci-dessous. Il y avait quelques points à résoudre. Ces choses sont probablement trop mineures pour m'empêcher d'essayer ! =) Ensuite, je fais des cartes Anki pour étudier le vocabulaire et la grammaire. Je veux pratiquer l'oral en disant quelques mots aussi. (Petit à petit…) Voici les entrées de mon journal pour la semaine dernière.

Lundi le trois novembre

2025-11-03-03 Lundi le trois novembre -- daily french français

Text and links from sketch

lundi le trois novembre 2025-11-03-03

J'ai parlé le français avec Claire, qui est une tutrice. Ma fille apprend le français à l'école, alors j'aimerais aussi l'apprendre.

J'ai discuté avec Claire à propos de ma famille, de mes passe-temps, d'où je viens et depuis quand je suis venue au Canada.

Ensuite, j'ai emmené ma fille à son cours de gymnastique.

Si j'apprends le français, nous pouvons nous amuser ensemble.

Je veux améliorer ma prononciation.
Je veux lire des livres pour les enfants et l'information sur les produits. Il y a beaucoup de matériaux en français parce que j'habite au Canada.
Je veux écrire des entrées de journal.
Je veux parler avec ma famille en français.

"Il y a beaucoup de matériaux en français": matériaux ou matériel?
- "Dans le domaine des sciences humaines et sociales (ethnologie, sociologie) ou en psychanalyse, on emploie le terme matériel pour désigner l’ensemble des éléments qui seront traités ou analysés. Matériau (ou son pluriel matériaux, si l’on veut insister sur la multiplicité ou la diversité des sources) désigne un ensemble de données, d’informations qui fournit la matière de base à un texte, un ouvrage, une recherche." (origine)
- Pour example: Soutien linguistique - Simon Fraser University : “La bibliothèque Bennett de SFU dispose d'une grande sélection de matériaux en français et d'une bibliothécaire spécialisée pour t'aider à trouver des ressources, ainsi que du Student Learning Commons qui propose divers ateliers.”
- Pour example: Matérial en français - tracpac.ab.ca
“lundi le trois novembre” ou “lundi trois novembre” ou “le lundi trois novembre” pour les entrées de journal
- décision: je vaise laisser ça pour le moment: lundi le trois novembre
- lundi le trois novembre Reddit (but note the comment on German influence?)
- lundi trois novembre: Reddit
- le lundi trois novembre Dates, Days & Months in French

Mardi le quatre novembre

2025-11-04-08 Mardi le quatre novembre -- daily french français

Text from sketch

Mardi le quatre novembre 2025-11-04-08

Après l'école, j'ai emmené ma fille à son cours d'art. C'était son premier cours avec son amie. C'est proche, seulement dix minutes à vélo. Ensuite, j'ai fait du vélo près de la rivière. Il y avait quelques pêcheurs.

Le soleil se couchait, alors je suis rentrée chez moi et j'ai écrit cette entrée de journal intime.

Mon mari a cuisiné du riz frit pour le souper. J'ai changé la langue de Google Assistant sur mon mobile en français, et j'ai fait quelques cartes d'Anki. ("Règlez une minuterie de cinq minutes.")

Ma fille a dit qu'elle s'est amusée dans sa classe d'art.

Mercredi le cinq novembre

2025-11-05-03 Mercredi le cinq novembre -- daily français french

Text from sketch

mercredi le cinq novembre 2025-11-05-03

J’ai emmené ma fille chez la dentiste pour nos nettoyages. J’ai aussi fait des radiographies. Ça coûte chère, mais c’est nécessaire. Heureusement, nous n’avons pas de caries.

Normalement, après l’école le mercredi, nous jouons avec des amies de ma fille. Aujourd’hui nous sommes restés chez nous parce qu’il devait pleuvoir. Il n’a pas plu, mais il y avait du vent.

Pour le souper, mon mari a cuisiné des spaghettis au pesto de tomate.

Ensuite, j’ai chanté avec ma fille et j’ai écrit cette entrée.

Je vais faire une prise de sang demain. J’emmènerai peut-être ma fille pour jouer avec ses amies après l’école.

“Ça coûte chère” ou “Ça coûte chèr” ou “Ça coûte cher”
- Elle coûte cher ou chère ? Transcription “Avec le verbe 'coûter', parce que ce n'est pas un verbe d'état, 'cher' prend une valeur adverbiale et on n'accorde pas. Et c'est la même chose au pluriel.”
- Elle « coûte cher » ou « coûte chère » ? orthographe

Jeudi le six novembre

2025-11-06-03 Jeudi le six novembre -- daily french français

Text and links from sketch

jeudi le six novembre 2025-11-06-03

J'ai préparé le déjeuner pour ma fille : des bleuets, des fraises, du fromage, des craquelins, des carottes, du riz, et du pâté de porc.

J'ai fait une prise de sang. J'ai attendu trente minutes, mais ce n'était pas grave parce que j'ai écouté quelques podcasts.

Ensuite, je suis retournée chez moi et j'ai pratiqué la compréhension orale et l'expression orale. J'aime le cours de FSI sur la phonologie française. Il y avait beaucoup de petites étapes.

La météo a annoncé de la neige pour dimanche, donc j'ai enlevé les pots de fleurs.

Mon mari a cuisiné du riz frit. Nous avons comparé les pommes. Nous préférons les pommes Gala qu'il a acheté au marché aux pommes Honeycrisp qu'il a acheté au supermarché.

Ma fille n'a pas voulu sortir, donc nous sommes restés chez nous. Elle a joué à Minecraft avec sa tante qui habite en Californie.

Nous préférons les pommes Gala qu'il a acheté au marché aux pommes Honeycrisp (ou achetées)
- achetées: L’accord du participe passé avec avoir - Visez juste Le participe passé employé avec avoir s’accorde avec le complément d’objet direct (COD) s’il est placé avant le verbe. Pour trouvez le COD, vous devez prendre le sujet, le verbe et ensuite poser la question « qui » ou « quoi ». Dans la phrase, les fleurs que Patrick m’a envoyées étaient vraiment jolies. Ici, on dira donc Patrick a envoyé quoi? que placé avant le verbe et mis pour fleurs, féminin pluriel. Envoyé s’écrira donc envoyées.
- Pour example: Quelques règles de syntaxe et d’orthographe pour votre mémoire 2025 « les fleurs que j'ai achetées sont magnifiques ». Ici, « achetées » s'accorde avec « fleurs », le COD, qui est au féminin pluriel.
- De même, “que ma fille avait construit” ou “… construite”

Vendredi le sept novembre

2025-11-07-07 Vendredi le sept novembre -- daily french français

Text from sketch

vendredi le sept novembre 2025-11-07-07

J'ai préparé le déjeuner pour ma fille : une orange, des bleuets, des craquelins, des carottes, du fromage, et un sandwich au jambon.

Pendant que ma fille était en classe virtuelle, j'ai étudié le troisième chapitre de mon cours de FSI sur la phonologie française.

C'était sur le phonème "u" et le phonème "r". C'était très difficile.

Après l'école, j'ai emmené ma fille à KidSpark. Nous n'y avons joué qu'une heure, mais j'ai utilisé un coupon pour mon entrée, donc ce n'était pas grave.

Mon mari est allé à la pharmacie pour les vaccins. Puis, il a cuisiné une courge au beurre et à la cassonade. Nous avons aussi mangé des restes.

Ensuite, nous avons joué à Space Escape, qui est un jeu de société.

Samedi le huit novembre

2025-11-08-02 Samedi le huit novembre -- daily french français

Text from sketch

samedi le huit novembre 2025-11-08-02

Aujourd'hui, ma fille a participé à un club de nature au parc. Je lui ai préparé un en-cas : une orange, un concombre, du fromage, un bonbon d'Halloween, et des craquelins.

Elle est trop grande pour ses pantalons de ski, donc nous sommes allés acheter des vêtements. Nous avons acheté de nouveaux pantalons de ski imperméables parce qu'en hiver, nous aimons patiner.

Pour le déjeuner, nous avons mangé de la crème de champignons et des pâtes.

Pendant que ma fille marchait au parc avec son club, mon mari et moi avons nettoyé les pots de fleurs.

Après l'avoir récupérée, nous avons bu du chocolat parce qu'elle avait un peu froid. Elle avait oublié ses gants.

Il va y avoir la première chute de neige demain !

Dimanche le neuf novembre

2025-11-09-02 Dimanche le neuf novembre -- daily french français

Text from sketch

dimanche le neuf novembre 2025-11-09-02

C'était la première chute de neige ! Pendant que la neige tombait nous nous sommes promenés. Ma fille avait trouvé que ses nouveaux pantalons de ski lui allaient bien. Ensuite, nous avons bu du chocolat chaud avec des guimauves.

Notre journée était tranquille. J'ai lu quelques livres. Mon mari et ma fille ont fait de l'exercice ensemble.

Pour le souper, j'ai cuisiné des sushis. Mon mari a aussi préparé de la salade de chou crue.

Ma fille a joué à Minecraft avec sa tante. Sa tante a fini la route de parkour que ma fille avait construite. C'est très difficile ! Je ne peux pas encore le finir.

J'ai pratiqué les phonèmes "r" et "eu". Je ne peux pas encore bien les prononcer. Je dois poser des questions à Claire demain. Ou je peux le laisser pour le moment.

Je suis un peu fatigué donc je vais me détendre.

“Ma fille avait trouvé que ses nouveaux pantalons de ski lui allaient bien.” ou “Ma fille a trouvé”?
“la salade de chou crue” ou “la salade de chou cru” - agree with chou (m)?
- Google Search: "la salade de chou crue" : peu
- Google Search: "la salade de chou cru" : beaucoup

View org source for this post

You can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

Xah Talk Show 2025-11-11 Ep711 the Crimes of Open Source and Free Software Foundation - Xah Emacs Blog

2025-11-12T17:36:12.000Z

2025-11-12

Xah Talk Show 2025-11-11 Ep711 the Crimes of Open Source and Free Software Foundation

The wonderful roguelite farming deckbuilder Cropdeck has a proper demo out now - GamingOnLinux Latest Articles

2025-11-12T17:32:28.000Z

Plant, grow and harvest in the farming roguelite deckbuilder Cropdeck, with a demo out now that you definitely need to put on your list to try.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

If you hate the term extraction shooter, Marathon's former product manager is on your side - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T17:12:58.000Z

With as young a medium as games is (and it is young, as old as we all might feel), it's no surprise that it would burgeon new genres, and that said genres would be called into question. Metroidvanias! That's a potentially silly one, with a common argument being that it tells you nothing about the genre itself. I prefer Japan's search action as a name myself, though I am but one humble games journalist. A genre I hadn't called into question until today, however, is extraction shooter, a name that a former Bungie lead apparently disliked so much he tried to get the studio's marketing team to make something else up for Marathon.

Where Winds Meet's PC performance Wing Chuns itself with technical and presentational problems - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T17:05:22.000Z

Not for the first time, there’s a new, wuxia-inspired RPG whose technical fortitude shatters faster than a bandit’s teeth. A few hours into the F2P, bear-brawling Where Winds Meet, it does at least seem to be arriving on Western PCs (it’s been out in China for nearly a year) in better overall shape than Wuchang: Fallen Feathers did. Even so, it’s beset by performance hitches and even basic visual nuisances, ranging from iffy translations to unplayable stuttering.

It's not all sad news. Where Winds Meet can hit high framerates on cheap or old graphics cards, possibly a positive side-effect of it also having a Genshin Impact-style mobile version, while its PC credentials are evident in its full mouse/keyboard support and a settings menu that decently covers DLSS or FSR upscaling and frame gen. For a game that’s been live and kicking overseas since December 2024, though, I wasn’t expecting to see so much of what would typically be day-one blues.

Epic boss Tim Sweeney is right to call genAI a political topic - it's a mechanism of class war - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T17:00:00.000Z

Yesterday the handsome daredevils at Eurogamer, and in particular that arch-instigator of Discourse, Rick "also freelances for RPS" Lane, published a review of extraction shooter Arc Raiders in which they gave it 2 stars out of 5. I realise none of you treehouse regulars speak Eurogamish, so for clarity, I am not talking about massive hydrogen reactions in outer space. This is what they call a "scoring system", whereby videogames are transformed into numbers and symbols that are made to fight each other for our entertainment. Some say this is the Real Videogame.

IWGB union file legal claims against Rockstar, due to GTA 6 maker allegedly refusing to negotiate over firings - Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed

2025-11-12T16:24:37.000Z

GTA 6 developers Rockstar Games have had legal claims filed against them by the UK's IWGB union, with the latter alleging that Rockstar have so far declined to meet with them for negotiations following the recent firing of over 30 workers. The initial reason given by Rockstar for those firings was "gross misconduct", with the company subsequently claiming that the staff had shared confidential info in a public forum. The IWGB, meanwhile, have accused Rockstar of union busting.

Protests spearheaded by the union took place outside Rockstar North and Take-Two's UK offices last week, and you can read our reports from both here and here.

Finding The File At Point - Irreal

2025-11-12T16:00:24.000Z

I just discovered a useful trick over at Ruslan’s Tech Blog. It’s about finding the file at point. Ruslan does this a lot. I, on the other hand, hardly every do it but I have gotten used to typing Ctrl+c Ctrl+o to follow a link in an Org buffer. Despite using the goto-addr package, this doesn’t work reliably everywhere.

Ruslan was also bothered by the difficulty of opening a file at point—although his normal usage didn’t involve Org. Like many of us, he thought he’d just write a quick command to do what he wanted but before embarking on that, he read the documentation for find-file and discovered that the functionality he wanted was already there.

If the point is on a file path, you can invoke Meta+x find-file-at-point but that’s a lot of typing. It’s a bit less typing if you use its ffap alias but perhaps still too much. Instead, you can just type Ctrl+x Ctrl+f as usual and then Meta+n to follow the link at point. It’s a nice solution because you do what you always do when you want to open a file and then type Meta+n instead of a file path to open the file at point. Best of all, you don’t have to do anything to enable this. It’s the default Emacs behavior.