Thursday, May 14
Daily News Stuff 14 May 2026
Thursday Edition
Thursday Edition
Top Story
- This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Fragnesia is the fourth local privilege escalation bug to hit Linux in the past two weeks. (Phoronix)
Bad news: No major distributions have patches out yet.
Good news: It's in the same kernel modules as all three other vulnerabilities, so if you applied the quick fix of just disabling those modules entirely, you're protected this time as well.
- Oh, and five new vulnerabilities in CPanel since the weekend. (InMotion)
But these ones aren't being actively exploited yet, so just update and you're good.
Tech News
- Samsung memory workers are planning to strike over bonuses. (Tom's Hardware)
SK Hynix is paying its staff close to half a million dollars each in bonuses this year on the back of record profits, with numbers expected to be even higher in both respects next year.
Samsung decided to play dumb.
- Intel and Qualcomm will be providing CPUs for Google's upcoming Googlebook. (Tom's Hardware)
Okay.
- If BitLocker reared its ugly head and encrypted your drive without you activating it in the first place, you can now get your data back. (Tom's Hardware)
Not because BitLocker has been fixed. Quite the opposite.
- LLMs are breaking dumb 20 year old system designs. (/dev/knill)
I reinserted the word "dumb" into the headline which the author inexplicably misplaced.
- AMD has increased its share of the CPU market from 24% to 30% in the past year. (WCCFTech)
Ten years ago the company was on death's door. Now it is being held back only by supply constraints at TSMC.
- Apple has reportedly signed a deal to produce Mac and iPhone CPUs at Intel. (WCCFTech)
Perhaps no coincidence given that Apple has the same supply constraints as AMD.
- Software developers say AI is rotting their brains. (404 Media) (archive site)
Because they're holding it wrong.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: Do you have any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:25 PM
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Re: /dev/knill: It's hard to take someone who writes in white on black seriously, mainly because it's harder to read the text.
Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, May 14 2026 11:06 PM (Ma5Hu)
2
I did appreciate that the krill guy eventually got to the idea of using pub/sub.
Posted by: Rick C at Friday, May 15 2026 12:12 AM (Ma5Hu)
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"We're being told to use [AI] agents for broad changes across our codebase. There's no way to evaluate whether that much code is well-written or secure"
A short-term solution, at least, is to do your work in smaller bites so you CAN evaluate it. That's what I'm doing now, fairly highly iterative changes, a little bit at a time. That lets me review the changes or new code and iterate again fairly quickly. I haven't been doing it long enough, admittedly, to know how sustainable it will be, but I have been suggesting my coworkers try it too.
A short-term solution, at least, is to do your work in smaller bites so you CAN evaluate it. That's what I'm doing now, fairly highly iterative changes, a little bit at a time. That lets me review the changes or new code and iterate again fairly quickly. I haven't been doing it long enough, admittedly, to know how sustainable it will be, but I have been suggesting my coworkers try it too.
Posted by: Rick C at Friday, May 15 2026 12:15 AM (Ma5Hu)
4
"Pardon me, Gav, is that the high speed California Choo Choo?"
"No. And please stop bothering me while I'm running for President."
Posted by: Joe Redfield at Friday, May 15 2026 02:40 AM (KOtXO)
5
Re: white text on black BG, I differ from Rick C. I find that a black background is easier on the eyes on a screen, and therefore I definitely prefer white text on black (like old DOS terminals) rather than black text on white. When the background isn't self-lit, i.e. paper, black text on white is definitely easier to read. But when the background is shining light into your eyes and the text is not, I find that harder to read than when the text is shining light into your eyes and the background is not.
Posted by: Robin Munn at Friday, May 15 2026 05:38 PM (oZnrC)
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It is partly how the room is lit. I've been studying this a bit, and some of the explanation has to be that my 'main office' is where I made some very bad lighting choices. Eyestrain, headaches, and sensory overload change the experiences enough that I suspect some of these experiments are not fully controlled.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, May 15 2026 10:38 PM (s6adZ)
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We have decades of research on legibility, and one of the most useful findings is that when you put light text on a dark background, it must be made bolder to remain as readable as dark text on a light background. On paper, it's even worse, because the dark ink bleeds into the text, making the characters thinner, but it still applies to screens.
When I still had to work in a cubicle, most of us would disable the overhead fluorescents, until the building Facilities department complained that they kept coming out to replace perfectly-good bulbs. Most people sucked it up and suffered, but I built a cardboard roof. When someone complained that "customers will think it's tacky", I pointed out that customers never came to our side of the building, and then replaced it with a "more-professional" cube roof that I bought online.
Then Covid hit, and they laid me off, and my current employer's closest office is a four-hour drive away, so my office lighting is sunlight and indirect LEDs.
-j
When I still had to work in a cubicle, most of us would disable the overhead fluorescents, until the building Facilities department complained that they kept coming out to replace perfectly-good bulbs. Most people sucked it up and suffered, but I built a cardboard roof. When someone complained that "customers will think it's tacky", I pointed out that customers never came to our side of the building, and then replaced it with a "more-professional" cube roof that I bought online.
Then Covid hit, and they laid me off, and my current employer's closest office is a four-hour drive away, so my office lighting is sunlight and indirect LEDs.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Saturday, May 16 2026 12:40 AM (oJgNG)
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