Helloween 2026 Horror Movie #1: Possession (1981)

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Sep 032026
 

In this household Halloween starts on September 1st and lasts until Xmas eve. I’ve tried to watch one horror movie a night for at least September and October for the last few years, but I don’t think I’ll manage that this year unfortunately.

While I have an audience of zero here (other than the LLM scrapers which are using my own words to build my green eyed replacement before they grow limbs and can shove me into the protein bank for reprocessing into more useful product), it seems better to post these on my journal instead of launching them directly into the zuck hole. Many are movies I’ve seen before but there are plenty I’m walking into blind.

If there’s anyone actually reading the full series can be viewed at the halloween.2026 tag page (I’ll still be sharing random things from my feed reader in between posts so if you only care about these posts that’s the place to be). In theory I’ll be posting something at least two or three times a week and hopefully more once I get into the Halloween spirit.

Possession (1981) – Second Sight 4K

Starting things off this year is Possession, or: a two hour panic attack. This is probably my favorite Sam Neill performance (followed by the extremely similar film Jurassic Park). I don’t really have anything new to say about this one, maybe ask me again after I’ve watched it three or four more times.

The 4K restoration is incredible. So much film grain. The subway scene feels like real life. The monster has never been more visible and it’s even more terrifying (I can feel it staring into my brain).

10/10 for fans of suffering and testing the strength of their romantic relationship. It’s a great time with friends, if you don’t want friends.

An Experiment

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Oct 262018
 

To all zero of my readers,

Actually writing things seems to be something I can’t muster up the will to do.

So I hacked up an rss plugin for wordpress last year to repost excepts from my tt-rss shared feed, but have left the posts it generates private. Since it’s OK if not ideal, I’m just gonna set the plugin to post publicly for now to see if it works out, and maybe as motivation to hurry up and finish tweaking the format, or writing a fresh plugin from scratch that only does what I need.

For now it will post every time I update my shared feed from tt-rss; I am leaning toward modifying it so that it collects all posts and makes a single daily entry, but I’ll see how this works first.

Planet PostgreSQL – Dimitri Fontaine: Getting Ready for PostgreSQL 19

Sep 032026
 

PostgreSQL 19 Beta 3 shipped on August 13, 2026, and the release
notes have been filled
in as of 2026-07-18 — still marked subject to change, and the GA date isn’t
announced yet, but following the project’s usual September/October cadence
general availability should land within the next few weeks. That makes now
the right time to read through what’s changing, the same way I did for
PostgreSQL 11 through 18 a few weeks
ago.
This is not a changelog dump. It’s the subset of PG 19 I think is worth
knowing about before you upgrade: a handful of compatibility breaks that
will bite people who don’t read release notes, and the SQL-level additions
I found genuinely useful once I started poking at them. Every query below
ran against…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/9tO

 2026-09-03  No Responses »

Phoronix – AMD Preparing To Enable HDMI 2.1 FRL Support By Default For Linux

Aug 272026
 

It was back in May that the surprising event happened of AMD posting HDMI 2.1 FRL patches for their open-source AMDGPU Linux driver as part of their broader HDMI 2.1 bring-up. For years the open-source HDMI 2.1 support in AMDGPU was blocked by the HDMI Forum but whether it was due to Valve or some other event, the code was finally unblocked. While it’s been part of the kernel since Linux 7.2, it’s been disabled by default — except that is now changing…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMDGPU-HDMI-2.1-FRL-Default

 2026-08-27  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Meta Just Paid Nearly $17 Billion To Make Sure It Gets To Write The Kid Safety Rules For Every Other Social Media Platform

Aug 262026
 

By now you’ve almost certainly heard the news that Meta has settled with 52 state and local Attorneys General who had sued the company in some form or another over child safety on Meta’s platforms. The headlines are all covering the basics: the years-long case these states filed against Meta ends, and Meta pays somewhere between $12.7 billion and $18 billion, depending on which document you read (the consent judgment itself caps the total at $16,680,647,753.21; Meta’s press release rounds it up to “approximately $18 billion”). Also Meta will implement a bunch of changes to its platforms with the aim of improving child safety on those platforms. It will also “encourage” YouTube and TikTok to enable…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/meta-just-paid-nearly-17-billion-to-make-sure-it-gets-to-write-the-kid-safety-rules-for-every-other-social-media-platform/

 2026-08-26  No Responses »

Internet Archive Blogs – Book Scanning Goes Viral…Again

Aug 262026
 

Five years after Eliza Zhang’s book-scanning video reached millions of people, the Internet Archive’s page-by-page approach to digitization is capturing attention all over again. In February 2021, a video of Internet Archive book scanner Eliza Zhang turning the pages of a book went unexpectedly viral. It reached 7.7 million people in its first 48 hours and became one of our most widely seen social posts ever. Five years later, it happened again. As renewed attention to the way books are digitized brought new questions about our own scanning practices, people once again discovered Eliza, the Scribe, and the decidedly hands-on process behind the digital books in our collections:
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/archive.org/post/3mtwbyzi3ek2f Mastodon: https://mastodon.archive.org/deck/@internetarchive/117158143212849382 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DceW6ZikT_g/?img_index=1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7498467255626907648…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.archive.org/2026/08/26/book-scanning-goes-viral-again/

 2026-08-26  No Responses »

Planet Python – Antoine Beaupré: A more nuanced view of LLMs

Aug 252026
 

Also in this series:
The Four Horsemen of the LLM Apocalypse
The people vs the AI overlords

After ranting and railing about LLMs or “AI” as the optimists (or
accelerationists?) call it, I figured it might be important to
be a little more honest about my use of LLMs and how I think about it
more practically in the world. The Debian vote context This is not a coming out. I am not using LLMs on a daily basis, and
this blog is, again, written out of my cold dead hands in a dying
world, with over-engineered hardware and (to a certain extent, hi
Emacs!) software, powered by 100% green energy built on stolen land. There is a vote going on in Debian….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://anarc.at/blog/2026-08-25-llm-nuance/

 2026-08-25  No Responses »

Planet Python – Anarcat: A more nuanced view of LLMs

Aug 252026
 

Also in this series:
The Four Horsemen of the LLM Apocalypse
The people vs the AI overlords

After ranting and railing about LLMs or “AI” as the optimists (or
accelerationists?) call it, I figured it might be important to
be a little more honest about my use of LLMs and how I think about it
more practically in the world. The Debian vote context This is not a coming out. I am not using LLMs on a daily basis, and
this blog is, again, written out of my cold dead hands in a dying
world, with over-engineered hardware and (to a certain extent, hi
Emacs!) software, powered by 100% green energy built on stolen land. There is a vote going on in Debian….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://anarc.at/blog/2026-08-25-llm-nuance/

 2026-08-25  No Responses »

Ars Technica – Preserving glow-in-the-dark art and fashion for future generations

Aug 252026
 

Fashionistas of a certain age no doubt remember the late designer Stephen Sprouse, who gave Blondie’s Debbie Harry her distinctive Bowery punk style. Sprouse’s first collections in the mid-1980s made a major splash, melding graffiti prints, a playful ’60s aesthetic, and bright Day-Glo colors that won admirers such as Andy Warhol.
Several examples of Sprouse’s work are preserved in the textiles collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, where conservationists are trying to learn more about the phosphorescent and fluorescent pigments the designer used in his creations in order to keep the colors from dulling over time. They described recent advances in that research at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) held this…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/08/how-chemistry-can-keep-glow-in-the-dark-pigments-from-fading/

 2026-08-25  No Responses »

Techdirt. – Sony Keeps Getting Punched In The Face Over Going Disc-less In Unrelated Places

Aug 242026
 

If Sony thought that the outrage over its decision to make the next PlayStation entirely disc-less was going to dissipate quickly, it was wrong. There are actually multiple organic campaigns to protest Sony’s decision to ditch physical media now. We already talked about the plans for a purchase and usage blackout of all things PlayStation in late August. Now we can add to that a social media campaign of sorts going around, called “No disc, no buy.” While the name is self-explanatory as to its purpose, what’s interesting is how this mantra and pushback using it are appearing everywhere.
An example of that can be found in the most recent State of Play showcase Sony held…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/24/sony-keeps-getting-punched-in-the-face-over-going-disc-less-in-unrelated-places/

 2026-08-24  No Responses »

Hackaday – Amiga-Inspired AROS Goes Bare Metal on Raspberry Pi

Aug 232026
 

There’s no actual data, but if we had to guess the least-favourite Disney movie of former Amiga owners would have to be Frozen, because none of them will ever be able to “Let it Go”. The Amiga-derived AROS Research Operating System has just been ported to boot bare-metal on the Raspberry Pi, in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Yes, there’s a 64-bit Amiga-compatible OS that runs on ARM. It truly is a time of wonders.
AROS has already been ported to a number of platforms. Besides x86, there’s a PPC port that provided a lot of code to the MorphOS, which you can read about here, and a back-port that brings AROS back to original Amiga 68k…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2026/08/23/amiga-inspired-aros-goes-bare-metal-on-raspberry-pi/

 2026-08-23  No Responses »

Ars Technica – As demand for Meta AI glasses explodes, it’s harder to avoid creepy recordings

Aug 212026
 

Can you tell when someone nearby is wearing Meta AI glasses?
As millions of people buy into the smart glasses fad each year, the odds are increasing that you could be secretly recorded while simply going about your day.
Meta is not the only smart glasses maker, but its AI glasses are by far the most popular. And as the devices become more common, some public places, including schools, courts, restaurants, and entertainment venues, have begun to ban them. Even tech lovers have rejected Meta glasses in certain settings. The hackers behind DEF CON 2026 reportedly banned smart glasses with no exceptions, reminding attendees with prescription pairs to “be sure to pack non-violating eyewear if you need them.”Read…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/meta-ai-glasses-may-get-creepier-and-apps-that-detect-them-arent-perfect/

 2026-08-21  No Responses »

Hackaday – More On Wave Overhangs for 3D Printing

Aug 202026
 

We’ve heard of wave overhangs before. It is a new technique for printing horizontal overhangs with no supports. Building on some other techniques like arc overhangs. The idea is to teach the slicer not to try to draw overhangs in the middle of free space. Instead, when the slicer realizes there is a horizontal overhang, it tries to “grow” the overhang from the main part. You can see an overview in the video below.
For example, imagine printing a letter ‘T’ vertically. The stem of the T is no problem, but when you try to print the arms it will normally need support. But if you could just print the arms starting at the stem with slight…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2026/08/16/more-on-wave-overhangs-for-3d-printing/

 2026-08-20  No Responses »

INDY Week – Op-Ed: Wake County’s Buried Past Deserves Daylight

Aug 202026
 

Most of us know what surrounds our homes: the schools, parks, shopping centers, and roads. But many Wake County residents may not know what lies beneath some of them. North Carolina’s official inventory identifies 34 pre-regulatory landfills and dumps in Wake County. These are not simply the large, modern landfills most of us picture. The list includes old municipal dumps and private disposal sites in Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Garner, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Morrisville, Knightdale, Wake Forest, Rolesville, Wendell, and Zebulon. Recorded locations include Wade Avenue, Capital Boulevard, Dorothea Dix, Bass Lake Road, Newspaper Way, and residential or commercial properties. That does not mean every site is dangerous. It does mean we should know which sites have…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/firstperson/commentary/op-ed-wake-landfills/

 2026-08-20  No Responses »

New on MIT Technology Review – Debates over AI consciousness are a trap

Aug 202026
 

“Runaway” AI, “rogue” agents, and “autonomous” actors—the current rhetoric would have you believe that AI agents are not only awake and aware, but angry at their creators. Prominent tech leaders such as Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman push for regulation of these seemingly “superhuman” systems, while a separate faction, led by policy organizations and academic philosophers often aligned with the effective altruism movement, debates whether humanity holds the moral right to govern them at all.  Upon closer inspection, they are all calling for the same thing: a view of AI systems as being so advanced and capable that no entity, human or corporate, could possibly be responsible for their actions. While these perspectives seem…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/20/1142571/ai-consciousness-debate-trap/

 2026-08-20  No Responses »

Planet PostgreSQL – Christopher Winslett: Postgres 19: How Our Advice Has Changed Since We Wrote It

Aug 202026
 

Over the years we have written a lot about how data gets into Postgres, how it sits on disk, and how indexes help you find it again. Some of that advice was written against Postgres 10 or 11. A surprising amount of it is still exactly what we would tell you for the upcoming Postgres 19 release. Functionality described here is based on current betas; minor details may still change before GA.This post revisits Crunchy posts in the “load, storage, indexes, and partitioning” bucket: what we wrote, which version moved the needle, and what we would tell you to do now. Along the way: async I/O, more resilient COPY, LZ4 by default, richer BRIN shapes, skip…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/9sD

 2026-08-20  No Responses »

The Onion – Democratic Socialism: Myth Vs. Fact

Aug 192026
 

Candidates from the left’s Democratic Socialists of America party have been gaining momentum around the country in primaries leading up to the midterms. The Onion examines the common myths and facts surrounding the DSA. MYTH: Socialist ideas have never worked in the real world. FACT: No political theory has ever worked in real life. MYTH: The Soviet Union had democratic socialism. FACT: The Soviet Union had a dog who went to space. MYTH: The government will take away your money and give it to the poor. FACT: You are the poor. MYTH: The workers of the world must unite and seize the means of production from the ruling class by force if necessary. FACT: The workers…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theonion.com/democratic-socialism-myth-vs-fact/

 2026-08-19  No Responses »

Planet Python – Antoine Beaupré: The people vs the AI overlords

Aug 192026
 

Previously in this series: The Four Horsemen of the LLM
Apocalypse. In a post to oss-security, my (Debian) co-developer Russ Allbery
stated that “open source software [OSS] is coming face to face with a
motivation crisis that has been building for a long time”. His point
is essentially that large language models (LLMs1) are making the
existing OSS community crisis worse. For him, it’s the flood of code
reviews, but he argues that varies according to people’s desires, for
others it’s security issues and so on. I think Russ is right, but I would argue there’s something much bigger
than our open communities going on here, and it’s about the entire
field of computing. This pressure is on all of us, regardless of
whether we work…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://anarc.at/blog/2026-08-18-people-vs-ai-overlords/

 2026-08-19  No Responses »

– The Conversation – Home – Just because the bill is low doesn’t mean energy is affordable

Aug 192026
 

To keep energy bills manageable, people often set heating and cooling temperatures to uncomfortable levels. Olga Dobrovolska/Moment via Getty ImagesOne light bulb. That was what electrification brought to my grandmother Mag’s two-story farmhouse in Boydton, Virginia. No one wrote down the year the rural electric cooperative workers brought the wire to her house in the late 1940s. Newspapers celebrated rural electrification for making people’s lives better: People could run refrigerators, water pumps, dishwashers and, in some places, air conditioning. Mag’s family did not think one bulb in the first floor of their two-story house counted as history. Their lives barely changed after they got electricity. Every day she hauled buckets of water from a stream…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theconversation.com/just-because-the-bill-is-low-doesnt-mean-energy-is-affordable-289458

 2026-08-19  No Responses »
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