The Lunduke Journal

The Lunduke Journal publishes to over a dozen different platforms: Audio Podcast RSS feed, Substack, X, Rumble, Locals, YouTube, Patreon, TikTok, Itch, iTunes, Spotify, Fountain, & even Facebook. Every single one is laser focused on nothing but original Tech News reporting and investigative Tech Journalism. Nothing else. With the exception of here on X. On X I publish all of the same Tech News as everywhere else… plus thoughts on any number of topics (from religion to politics to video games to movies). Pick whichever platform works best for you: lunduke.com

I find this "Open Source Exemption", in the Colorado law, deeply troubling. The idea behind this "Exemption" is that Open Source systems (like Linux) would not need to comply with the Age Attestation requirements of this law. The actual result of that "Exemption" is the opposite. A few observations: - The insinuation here is that it is only important to protect children... who are using proprietary Operating Systems (such as Windows). Linux using children are simply not worth "protecting". That is weird. But it gets even weirder... - All major Operating Systems include significant quantities of Open Source code in them. Including Android, Windows, iOS, macOS, and all the rest. The way this "Exemption" is worded could included every major OS on Earth. - The big "Woops": The "Exemption" was worded in such a way as to not include GPL licensed code. Which means Linux would NOT be exempted from the Age Attestation requirement. - Let me repeat that: Because of this "Open Source Exemption"... the "Age Attestation" would be required on Linux... but NOT necessarily required on Windows. - This wording was pushed by an Open Source company (System76), which leads me to believe this was simply a matter of not thinking through the practical implications of the wording of the law. - Regardless of all of those problems... this bill is a violation of the First Amendment. According to established law, source code constitutes protected speech. As such, this law forced compelled speech. - Making it even worse: It is a violation of the First Amendment... which is applied selectively so *some* programmers and organizations, but not to others (because of that "Exemption"). The very concept of this "Age Attestation" law is deeply flawed. And the text of the law -- especially the "Open Source Exemption" -- make it even worse.

The Colorado "Age Attestation" for Operating Systems bill (SB26-051) has passed both the Senate and House... and is expected to be signed into law by the governor shortly. The passed version of this bill includes an "Open Source Exemption" pushed by Linux hardware vendor @System76. leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-051

Bun Re-Written in Rust Using AI The entire Bun Javascript runtime (over 1 Million lines of code) has been re-written in Rust... using Al. What could possibly go wrong? More from The Lunduke Journal: lunduke.com

“There are ‘Daily Wire’ YouTube videos that now, after a few days online, have less than 10,000 views, a catastrophically small number for a channel with more than 3 million subscribers.” This coming from @NYMag, which has 1.6 Million @X followers.. yet struggles to get more than a couple Likes on posts. With 0 (zero) likes being the most common on NyMag posts. Would @NYMag consider that “catastrophically small”?

There was a time, not very long ago, when Ben Shapiro could reasonably call himself the king of all conservative media. That’s all over now, writes political columnist Ross Barkan. Shapiro’s company, ‘The Daily Wire,’ is instituting significant layoffs. Its YouTube channel’s subscriber base is starting to shrink, and its website has emerged as one of the great traffic losers in conservative media. There are ‘Daily Wire’ YouTube videos that now, after a few days online, have less than 10,000 views, a catastrophically small number for a channel with more than 3 million subscribers. The top comments all mock the low view counts. “If a variety of poor business decisions can be blamed, in part, for the ‘Daily Wire’’s fall from grace — ill-fated investments in feature films, an epic fantasy series, and peculiar merchandise — the greater story is the collapse of Shapiro’s constituency,” writes Barkan. “There are two realities to Shapiro conservatism in 2026: It retains a significant foothold among Republican elites, and it is fast being rejected by the future grassroots of the party.” Read more: nymag.visitlink.me/KtpIKV

The forced Age Verification will continue until morale improves.

Bun has been ported to Rust entirely using AI. And, as many on this wide, weird Intertube of ours have surmised, I do, indeed, find this amusing. Because many of you have asked (or hypothesized) here are Lunduke’s thoughts: 1) Not terribly interested in Bun. It’s an overhyped NodeJS clone with a bathtub and kitchen sink thrown in. I don’t hate it, but I don’t use it and consider it bloated. 2) It’s unsurprising that it was re-written using AI. It is, after all, owned by @AnthropicAI. Doing this “AI Re-write” is a good marketing stunt for them. 3) It’s also unsurprising that they chose Rust for the AI re-write. Rust is, like Bun (and Anthropic, in general), overhyped. Overhype X 3 = Marketing idea that management can’t say “no” to. 4) There will, almost assuredly, be both positives and negatives for rewriting Bun in Rust with AI. 5) If I used Bun in production… I would be *very* hesitant to use this re-write any time soon. Give it a year or two to work out kinks before moving away from the non-Rust version.

Reality: An Italian-Canadian named Rocco (and his Arab-Canadian business partner) pushes for Age Verification in Operating Systems. Retards on the Internet: THA JOOZ DID IT!!

Senator @BernieSanders (with support from @AOC) has introduced a bill to stop ALL construction on data centers which have anything to do with AI. This would include both new construction and upgrades on potentially thousands of data centers across the USA. This Senate Bill (4214) is literally called the "Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act". As of now there is no House version of the bill. congress.gov/bill/119th-con…

4 Million! Those are some serious numbers! Well done to the Zorin OS crew! Also worth noting that @ZorinOS is not implementing Age Verification features. github.com/BryanLunduke/D…

@notmyaccount996 x.com/LundukeJournal…

@LundukeJournal What tribe owns that porn company?

Who's driving Age Verification in Operating Systems (Windows, Linux, etc.)? In the USA, it's Facebook. In Canada, it's... a porn company. Seriously.

What "tribe" owns the porn company which is pushing Age Verification at the Operating System level in Canada? The owner is an Italian Canadian named Rocco Meliambro. The managing partner (who runs day to day opeartions) is an Arab Canadian named Fady Mansour. Those are the two top people in that company. But, honestly, I can't see how any of that matters here. Their motivation is clearly business (shifting the Age Verification burdens away from their company).

Ok. I kinda want a PDP-11 watch.

Big Tech almost completely controls Tech Journalism. Check out this ridiculous "article" from @ZDNET: "Red Hat Desktop vs. Fedora Hummingbird: Which AI development Linux path is right for you?" zdnet.com/article/red-ha… It reads like someone took a Red Hat press release (along with some quickly written advertising copy) and fed it into ChatGPT with the prompt, "Make a fake article out of this that will convince people to buy something from Red Hat". This is par for the course from ZDNET: Advertisements pretending to be articles. And, at the same time, ZDNET has refused to cover any of the *real* Tech News that is critical of the companies which pay their bills. And ZDNET is not alone. We could be making the same criticism of nearly every "Big Tech Journalist" website out there.

openSUSE Linux Bans Teenagers. Seriously. The Linux distro has changed their "Terms of site" to specifically forbid users under "16 years of age or the age of majority" from using any websites or servers.

Eric S Raymond says, “The age of hand-coding is mostly over.”

“Remember when the whole industry walked on eggshells for years because a small group of radicals made it clear they would go after your job if you disagreed with them? That was weird!” It’s true. It’s very weird. What’s even weirder… is that it’s still happening. In force. Big Tech companies, Tech Foundations, and Open Source organizations, far and wide, continue to actively engage in extreme political activism… including threats against any who dare to disagree with them. Despite this… you can count the number of Tech Journalists who are actively covering the problem… on 1/5th of one hand. The same Tech Journalist, as it so happens, who has been covering the situation for years (despite repeated threats from Tech Foundations and Journalists). Only a *very* small number of prominent developers have spoken out against the insanity of those “radicals”. The remainder of the industry remains firmly in the “walking on eggshells out of fear” category.