As with my last post on AI, let me open with a statement: Just because most people hold AI a certain way, doesn’t mean that we always must, either now or in the future. As I noted in that piece, and my shades of gray post, I am well aware — and agree with — … Continue reading Must we always use LLMs this way? →

1981 was a different time for computing. It was expensive (both hardware and software), and it was far from a given that machines from one vendor would be able to talk to those from another. In fact, Columbia University had just such a problem, so in 1981, Frank da Cruz and Bill Catchings designed a … Continue reading Celebrating 45 Years of Kermit with the First New C-Kermit Release in 15 Years (and working with a decades-old C codebase) →

AI sure is a hot topic right now, and I see a lot of people arguing about it. To a lot of people around here, I’m the “computer person” they know and I get asked a lot about AI. I’m going to suggest a lot of things can be true at once. For instance: LLMs … Continue reading Artificial Intelligence: Shades of Gray →

I just made up a Debian trixie setup that has no need for a GUI. In fact, I rarely use the text console either. However, because the machine is dual boot and also serves another purpose, it’s connected to my main monitor and KVM switch. The monitor has three inputs, and when whatever display it’s … Continue reading Screen Power Saving in the Linux Console →

Like many, bot traffic has been causing significant issues for my hosted server recently. I’ve been noticing a dramatic increase in bots that do not respect robots.txt, especially the crawl-delay I have set there. Not only that, but many of them are sending user-agent strings that are quite precisely matching what desktop browsers send. That … Continue reading A Twisty Maze of Ill-Behaved Bots →