FoxQuirk 🦊 @quirk@computerfairi.es

one definite goal for the year #besilly #bekind #survive #year2026

I was asked by a family member why it was taking so long to paste something large into a new Microsoft Word document on their computer, I sarcastically replied it was because it takes a while to upload it all to the copilot AI nonense first. And then I realized accidentally I might be right...I disabled copilot in Word and it went back to being instant again

So that's cool that Microsoft seems uploading everything you paste into a new Word doc to their servers now.

girls will really spend several hours deicing a freezer that hasn't been deiced in more than 6 years instead of going to therapy

Makin' graphic design nonsense again

Really, and I cannot emphasise this enough, entirely fed up with living in interesting times.

so the ReactOS codebase includes a clone of Task Manager

and the WINE codebase also includes a clone of Task Manager… in fact, it's the ReactOS one

however, WINE prohibits copying code from ReactOS because they are suspicious it's not legally clean

so the clones have diverged

#WritersCoffeeClub Jan 4: Share a tool of your trade.

It's a little keypad with en-dash, em-dash, degree, superscript 2, pi and multiplication symbols.

not entirely sure this disc drive is meant to be used vertically

anyone in glasgow attend this? how was it?

Goat boy goat boy goat boy

I’ve made most of my paychecks implementing software that causes misery. outside of a few lucky exceptions, this applies to most people working in software.

I wish the industry for misery-creating software would fucking collapse.

AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.

This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.

Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.

In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.

#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation

Atsuko and I got Windows 3 working on a British non-PC computer called the Apricot. Took us only one more week after I got Windows 2 working on it.

Not a surprise to any of my followers, but I think this is pretty cool. Until recently, the computer only had pure MS-DOS, Windows 1.0 and DR GEM, so this is a major software upgrade.

More photos: https://www.ninakalinina.com/notes/win2apri/

Licensing all my code under MIT + Trans Rights is a fun and silly little thing. I don't understand the consequences of

The above copyright notice, this permission notice, and the affirmation that TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

Nor do I have the means to even bring consequences. But it's a silly little thing that might be a legal problem for someone else anyways.

I'm a trans woman who, if anyone ever asks, will give my deadname as a different male name each time. It's been the single fastest way to find people who talk behind my back. If that name leaks I know just who leaked it and just who to instant block forever.