Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ ricci: While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #UNIX v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973

Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition

We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum

#retrocomputing

An old reel to reel magnetic tape. It has a label, in Jay Lepreau's handwriting, proclaiming it to be "UNIX Original from Bell Labs v4 (see manual for fmt)"

November 9, 2025 at 7:00 PM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ thecontinent: All Protocol Observed

Welcome to Issue 219 of The Continent

Protests, an internet blackout, and deadly force marked Tanzania’s Election Day. Once online again, 37 readers shared what they witnessed.

Read their stories: https://bit.ly/219_TC

The cover of The Continent, dated 8 November 2025 (Issue 219), bears the headline “Tanzania’s darkest week” and features a striking political cartoon by Gado that echoes Honoré Daumier’s 1831 caricature Gargantua.
At the top, the masthead appears in bold black letters on a beige background. Below it, the illustration dominates the page. It shows a woman seated on a throne-like chair, drawn to resemble Tanzania’s leader. Her mouth is open wide, and a long wooden ramp extends from her mouth, down which small, faceless figures carry large sacks labeled “Corruption,” “Incompetence,” “Fear,” and “Election Fraud.” They march upward to feed these vices into her mouth, while behind them, a long line of weary people stretches toward the horizon, waiting their turn.
To the left stands a sign reading “Abductions”, beside a huge pile of skulls — a chilling symbol of death and repression. Below, masked soldiers with rifles shoot civilians on a blood-spattered ground, surrounded by the bodies of t

November 8, 2025 at 10:00 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ fediforum: Sandra is describing how technology and politics are increasingly intertwined, and why digital sovereignty, free software and the fediverse matter more than ever.

#sfscon #fediverse

November 8, 2025 at 10:00 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ maxplanckgesellschaft: Today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two amazing women in science! 🤗🎉Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867), who discovered #radium & #polonium & pioneered #radioactivity, & Lise Meitner (1878), whose brilliance uncovered the physics behind… https://wisskomm.social/@maxpl…

Black-and-white portrait of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, 1903. She is seated in a chair, wearing a dark dress with a light, patterned collar, resting her head on one hand and looking directly at the camera. public domain

Black-and-white photo of Lise Meitner around 1906 in Vienna. She is wearing a long dress and a hat, standing among large plants and looking to the side. public domain

November 8, 2025 at 10:00 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ FreddieJ: Wow. Bonfire have just presented their 1.0 release at #SFSCon with an amazing road map.

🔒 E2EE
📆 Federated events (!)
🫂 Federated groups
🚫 Federated moderation tools

There's a lot here that will make the whole Fediverse better for all of us.

Check out their… https://backend.newsmast.…

Two men, one in a red jumper (left) and one in a black hoodie (right), are giving a presentation. On their right, a screen shows a slide deck. There is an image of a wood cut engraving of three squirrels around a small bonfire, fashioning tools. On the left a blue spotlight illuminates the wall.

A board game like roadmap outlining Bonfire’s funding goals, including maintenance, groups, events, governance and moderation.

November 7, 2025 at 2:40 PM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ harkank: 2/5
Wenn noch wer Blasen-Zweifel hatte, ein Blick auf diese Tabelle genügt. Sechs KI-Firmen unter den teuersten acht in privater Hand.

OpenAI hat in 6 Jahren nicht ein positives Quartal geliefert, aber 60 Mrd USD verbrannt. Deshalb ist OpenAI jetzt 732 Mrd… https://chaos.social/@harka…

Liste der 8 teuersten privaten Unternehmen, darunter sechs KI-Firmen mit surrealen Bewertungen im dreistelligen Milliardenbereich.

OPALPVT ~~ OpenAl 723.12 +152.42% 500B ~~ 48.975B 2025-10-01
SPAX.PVT SpaceX 223.16 +95.96% 422.1958 8.1738 2024-12-10
ANTH.PVT Anthropic 185.90 241.338 23.158 2025-09-01
DATB.PVT Databricks 181.10 +136.38% 120.733B 15.551B 2025-09-07
XAALPVT xAl 42.11 +85.26% 97.252B 12.135B 2024-12-22
STRLPVT Stripe 36.29 +45.16% 92.365B 8.445B 2025-02-26
ANIN.PVT Anduril Industries 88.45 +168.03% 65.987B 6.4558 2025-06-04
SCALPVT Scale Al 19.64 +33.42% 29.177B 14.38 2025-06-11

November 7, 2025 at 8:20 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ broadwaybabyto: “In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light.

Here we believe in standing up for those we love.

Whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job,… https://zeroes.ca/@bro…

November 5, 2025 at 9:20 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ w0bb1t: This proj. maps the "Authoritarian Stack"—a network of firms, funds, & political actors turning core state functions into private platforms.

👉🏻 https://www.authoritarian-stack.info/

November 5, 2025 at 9:20 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ digiges: 10 Jahre nach der „Affäre #Landesverrat:
Gemeinsam mit @netzpolitik_feed präsentieren wir den

#NPA151 zum Thema PRESSEFREIHEIT am 4. November auf der @cbase

Pressefreiheit als globales Problem? – Alena Struzh und Katharina
Viktoria Weiß von… https://chaos.social/@digiges/11544632313484…

Kachel mit schwarz-weissem Verlauf im Hintergrund.
Schrift: #NPA151 – Pressefreiheit, 4. November 20h c-base (in Schreibmaschinenschrift)

November 5, 2025 at 9:20 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

#sovereigntywashing #digitalsovereignty

Amazon Sovereign Cloud is a 100% daughter of Amazon US

https://www.northdata.com/AWS%20European%20Sovereign%20Cloud%20GmbH,%20Potsdam/HRB%2040853

List of Shareholders document showing that Amazon.com Incorporate, Wilmington, Delaware owns all 25,000 shares of Amazon Holdco 1 GmbH, Germany

Approved by a Notary

November 4, 2025 at 9:40 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ OSBA: 📅 Save the Date: 14. November 2025
📍 ecoCompute conference in Berlin

Bei dieser Konferenz geht es um Nachhaltigkeit bei Hardware und Software. 🌱🖥️

Wir sind dabei mit dem Vortrag
„Measure what you manage: Transparent Energy consumption of cloud infrastructure“. ⚖️… https://social.osb-allianc…

Sharepic mit einem Portrait von Josefine Kipke. Darüber steht „ECO:DIGIT“. Neben dem Bild von Josefine steht
„Measure what you manage: Transparent Energy consumption of cloud infrastructure. EcoCompute 13 & 14 November 2025, bUm – Berlin, Germany.
Unter dem Bild von Josefine steht
Josefine Kipke, System Engineer Sustainability Monitoring

November 3, 2025 at 9:00 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ chrisstoecker: Kolumne: Im Silicon Valley und der US-Tech-Branche beginnt man jetzt, Investitionsblasen als etwas Erstrebenswertes zu betrachten. Im Bereich KI gibt es aber nicht nur eine Blase, sondern zwei: Eine aus Geld, und eine aus Schrott. Die zweite bedroht die erste.

Künstliche Intelligenz

Eine Schrottblase bedroht die Geldblase

Christian Stöcker
Eine Kolumne von Christian Stöcker
Die Angst wächst, dass die billionenschwere Investitionsblase in KI platzt. Es gibt aber noch eine zweite KI-Blase. Sie besteht aus dem, was heutige Modelle generieren – und könnte der ersten beim Platzen helfen.

November 2, 2025 at 11:40 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ phoronix: Linux Kernel Ported To WebAssembly - Demo Lets You Run It In Your Web Browser

Open-source developer Joel Severin today announced his work on porting the Linux kernel to WebAssembly and has successffully gotten the kernel up and running within WASM-capable web… https://masto.ai/@phoroni…

November 1, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ solarpapst: Ab nächstem Jahr wird der meiste Strom weltweit durch Erneuerbare erzeugt.

November 1, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

Pictures from the #Samhain Festival in #Dublin 2024.

Kind of original version of #Halloween before it was stolen by another religion

October 31, 2025 at 11:00 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ digiges: Seit Jahren engagieren wir uns gegen die #Chatkontrolle und koordinieren mit Partner*innen das Bündnis #ChatkontrolleSTOPPEN!

Heute riesiger Erfolg: Vorsitz Dänemark im Rat der EU will angesichts des Widerstands die verpflichtende Chatkontrolle aufgeben!
Aber:… https://chaos.social/@dig…

October 31, 2025 at 9:20 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ Natasha_Jay: Data Centres

A cartoon of five huge data centres generating steam in the background by Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon whole two tiny humans sort bottles in a bottle bank

"No that goes in the green bin. Cmon, the Govt really wants us to get this right"

October 31, 2025 at 9:20 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ campuscodi: The Israeli govt used a secret system with AWS and Google to get notifications when foreign courts requested Israeli data

The system used return-payments, where the sum started with the telephone dialing code of the country that requested data

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202…

text that reads:

Under the terms of the deal, the mechanism works like this:

If either Google or Amazon provides information to authorities in the US, where the dialing code is +1, and they are prevented from disclosing their cooperation, they must send the Israeli government 1,000 shekels.

If, for example, the companies receive a request for Israeli data from authorities in Italy, where the dialing code is +39, they must send 3,900 shekels.

If the companies conclude the terms of a gag order prevent them from even signaling which country has received the data, there is a backstop: the companies must pay 100,000 shekels ($30,000) to the Israeli government.

October 30, 2025 at 5:40 PM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ mago: #uspol #depol #fascism #trump #afd

Two quotes:
The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.
Elon Musk

The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.
Hannah Arendt

October 30, 2025 at 3:20 PM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ cryptadamist: recent price chart for the #TRUMP #memecoin shows a massive crash in price on the left (when Trump announced new tariffs on #china) and a massive pump just now (when Trump TACOed and announced there would be a trade deal with china).

99.9% of TRUMP trading… https://universeodon.com…

price chart of Trump showing drop from $7.50 to $5.50 on october 11th and immediate jump from $6.00 to $7.50 a few hours ago

October 28, 2025 at 4:40 PM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ ExtinctionR: Most Europeans want controls on how data centres are powered, and the impact they have on society.

https://beyondfossilfuels.org/2025/10/27/europeans-agree-time-to-put-limits-on-big-tech-data-centres/

SUMMARY OF DATA CENTRE POLLING IN EUROPE, OCTOBER 2025.

MAJORITY OF EUROPEANS POLLED WANT RULES TO LIMIT NEW DATA CENTRE IMPACTS ON ENERGY, WATER AND ECONOMY.

A POLL CONDUCTED BY SAVANTA IN GERMANY, IRELAND, SPAIN, SWITZERLAND AND THE UNITED KINGDOM.

Savanta:

THIS POLL WAS COMMISSIONED BY:

BEYOND FOSSIL FUELS

ALGORITHM WATCH

ALGORITHM WATCH/CH

global action plan

GREEN WEB FOUNDATION

October 28, 2025 at 10:00 AM

Thomas Fricke

@thomasfricke.bsky.social

♻️ VQuaschning: Diejenigen, die stets predigen, die #Energiewende sei zu teuer, haben null Problem damit, Jahr für Jahr zig Milliarden Euro für #Energieimporte ins Ausland zu überweisen – fast 2 Billionen Euro seit 1990. Investiert doch endlich das Geld in Deutschland! Das… https://mastodon.green/@V…